The Pasture

So I have now been a Palm Pre user for about 36 hours.  I won’t bore you with my experience of getting the last one in stock or how quickly money went into and out of my bank account, I’ll just jump into what stands out in the phone and what I think could use improvement.

Hardware

The first thing that I noticed when I first held a Pre, which was about a week before purchasing, was the size.  It is indeed quite small.  I don’t think the screen is too tiny as many iPhone folks say, after all the resolution is the same, so the Pre is just crisper.  Take THAT you pixelated pricks! :P

Another thing that took me by surprise is how thin it is.  Now it’s no iPod touch or Motorola Q or anything, but it’s smaller than it looks in any picture on the internet.  Something is definitely lost in translation, so don’t let anyone call it fat.  It’s not.

The keyboard is something I’ll be a lot nicer about than pretty much every review of the phone ever.  It’s not the smallest keyboard in the world.  Try a Centro.  THAT thing is tiny.  The keyboard on the Pre is pretty much the same size as the BlackBerry Curve, which is the phone I just ditched.  The keys are softer, which is weird at first, but I’m finding it great for quick typing.  Using my fingernail at times, I don’t ever slip off the keys due to the rubbery surface.

The keys are also fairly flat, which is perfectly fine.  I don’t know what people are trying to do when they say the screen piece is in the way of the top row of keys.  There is ample space unless you’re trying to type like…well, I can’t think of any normal way of typing where that would cause an issue, so I think those people are smoking something.  The biggest hurdle with the keyboard for me has just been retraining myself where some of the symbols are.  No double tapping the space bar for a period is a bummer too.

Software

Regarding the operating system…yeah, some thought was put into this.  Navigating around WebOS is like running around a mansion where every room has 6 different doors.  Everywhere you look, things are linking together to provide one hell of a clean phone.  After syncing a total of probably 400 contact entries between Facebook and Gmail, I had maybe four duplicates and had to manually add about five contacts that were on my BlackBerry.  Now that’s what I call syncing!

One feature I was happy to hear about that I’ve had on my BlackBerry all along is the speed dial.  Each key can be assigned to a contact, except for E, which is reserved for Voicemail and impossible to change, which sucks because one of my most frequently called contacts is my brother Eric.  He is now V.  On my BlackBerry, it was always great holding a letter down for a second and then hearing it dial all ten digits very quickly.  The Pre not so sleek there.  I’ll hold a letter down, at which point universal search initially pops up with that contact, then it goes into the phone app and displays the keypad for a second before finally showing the contact’s picture and saying “dialing…”  Could be a wee bit snappier for my liking, but it does what’s supposed to.

Overall the OS seems like it could be snappier.  You can see it in the videos online, but I—like everyone else it seems—do not feel a little sluggishness destroys the experience of the phone.  Compared to how slow my BlackBerry has been these past few months, the Pre’s CONSISTENT delay on loading this is a breath of fresh air.  Sometimes my BlackBerry would simply fail to do whatever I told it to until it froze up, requiring me to pop the battery.  Taking two seconds to pull up my messages card is no big deal.

Card View

Speaking of cards, card view is simply awesome.  And like I said about multiple ways of doing things, there’s at least three different ways to get there.  Pressing the center button is the one they always show.  But in addition to that, you can swipe your finger from the center button up the screen and you’ll go into card view.  Repeat that gesture in card view, and you pull up the launcher (or you can just tap the launcher icon).  Drag your finger from the gesture zone and keep holding down, and you get the fancy quick launch wave.  Finally, while on the main screen of an app, you can do the back gesture (swiping from right to left on half of the gesture zone) and it’ll take you back to card view.

Yeah…like I said…lots of ways to do things, and they all feel very related to each other.  Once you have the key gestures down, the rest of the phone is very intuitive.  For instance, I was in the memos app and jotted a note down, but when I finished I saw no way of saving it, so I just swiped back and there was my new note on the neat little bulletin board.

There’s really only one main complaint I have, which is the battery life.  To begin with, it’s not the greatest in the world; definitely not capable of lasting two days without a charge like my BlackBerry was.  But it’s also not the best time to make an accurate call, as I’m on the thing constantly because it’s my shiny new toy.  As I ease into more conservative use, and less wifi usage, I’m sure it’ll suit me, especially if I get a car charger (my BlackBerry one won’t fit the Pre’s non-standard port).

Exaggerated Claims

Most of the things people are really complaining about are horribly horribly exaggerated.  Like the sharp edge on the keboard…you won’t notice anything unless you’re actually feeling around for said sharpness.  Even so, it’s no sharper than the edge of an aluminum Apple keyboard.  It is certainly not something you’ll accidentally slice yourself on while twittering.

The other big thing I was hearing about was the charging port cover.  Probably another story of someone not knowing how such simple mechanics work, breaking it, and then crying wolf.  Seriously moronic to complain so much.  The cover opens up, rotates 180 degrees counter-clockwise, and allows the charger to fit perfectly.  When done, it rotates back and securely snaps into place.  Palm: 2, Bitter Reviewers: 0.

Also, the accusations that the general build quality of the phone is plasticky and cheap are full of crap.  Picking this thing up should be the first indicator that it is anything but cheap.  It has some weight to it; about the same as the first generation iPod touch.  The slide mechanism snaps into place both ways just fine, and the little bit of wiggle room is normal for any slider phone…maybe you should try a few others before ragging on the Pre, you iPhone fanboys :P

Random Last Train of Thought

Other than that, the rest of the stuff I can cover without having to dive into much detail: the browser is just like Safari on the iPhone (it’s WebKit), the camera is fantastic (see my most recent TwitPics - http://twitpic.com/photos/natecow ), the threaded SMS/IM is flawless, the location services are extremely accurate, it syncs with iTunes and acts as a jump drive (media dumped to it either way will find its way to Music, Videos or Photos), the notification tray is non intrusive and easy to ignore (unlike BlackBerry’s new message light) and the screen is absolutely gorgeous.  I had many comments the first day that the home screen looks fake until you touch it and things start moving :P

Overall, I’m loving my phone for probably the first time since I got my Helio Hero, which was my first real cell phone after using a Tracfone for 9 months.  Where everything else seemed to fall short (okay, yes, my BlackBerry was a CrackBerry for about 6 months until I saw the Pre, but the iPhone was always the holy grail before then, however unattainable due to no AT&T), the Pre seems to actually do the things I want.  I sold my iPod touch back in March, so I’ve been without a means of showing off my demo reel at any time, and now the exact same m4v files play perfectly on my phone, giving me virtual business card on steroids once more, this time with a speaker! :P