The Phone
The Palm Pre is also a phone. It lacks the visual voicemail that the iPhone has but otherwise works.
The dialer is missing some polish that the iPhone’s dialer has. For starters, there are speed issues. Switching between the keypad and call log screens takes a good 2 - 3x longer than on an iPhone. Granted the iPhone can switch between the screens almost instantly, but it makes the Pre feel very slow. Bringing up your contacts, selecting one and dialing from it is also sluggish compared to the iPhone. If you’ve never used an iPhone, you most likely won’t notice.
Secondly, when you manually enter a number at the keypad screen using the keypad it doesn’t automatically search your contacts for a match. If you dial a number that you already have stored in your contacts, the iPhone will bring up the contact name in your dialer automatically. It’s a small difference, but it is just another example of the Pre lacking the Apple-polish that it could easily have.
The other thing that would be nice to have? The ability to start typing a name from the keypad screen instead of having to open up the contacts window to search for someone. Apple can’t allow this on the iPhone since there’s not enough room for the virtual keyboard and virtual keypad to co-exist, but Palm doesn’t have that problem. Exploit your advantage Palm. Update: Apparently you can enable support for this in the dialer's preferences! Thanks to everyone who sent this one in.
The external speaker on the phone is very visible and thus loud (at least louder than the iPhone 3G’s speaker).
The Email application is very simple to the iPhone’s Mail app. It’s simple, very quick to load and is miles ahead of most non-Apple smartphones in terms of UI. But Apple raised the bar so it’s worth talking about what needs improvement:
1) There’s no way to search your emails. Apple had this same fault until just this week, so Palm has some time to catch up on this one.
2) Whenever you open the Email application it always brings you to a list of all of your inboxes, not the last used inbox. If you’re like me and happen to have a couple of email addresses, but one that you use more than the rest, this can get annoying.
3) Scrolling in the Email application (whether looking at your inbox or reading a message) is choppy. I’m not sure why it’s choppy since Palm has significantly more CPU and GPU power compared to Apple, but the frame rate when scrolling is not smooth. The iPhone doesn’t have this problem and there’s no reason that the Pre should. Again, if you’ve never had an iPhone you probably won’t care, but we’re aiming for perfection here.
The Email application does support POP and IMAP accounts, as well as Exchange. I didn’t try the Pre with an Exchange server but from what I’ve read it works fine as long as your server doesn’t require a PIN (or remote wipe). If your server requires those security features then you’re out of luck until Palm updates the OS.
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palmpre - Sunday, June 21, 2009 - link
Thank you for this great article / review !!The Pre isn't available in France, but many wait already for it !
http://www.palmpre-fr.net">http://www.palmpre-fr.net
JC Strat - Sunday, June 21, 2009 - link
Hi JMaine, it seems like you have been reading a lot lately.Just to quote from some of your messages here:
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I've been reading a lot about the Palm Pre's problems since launch - overheating, poor battery life, and software crashes. Don't forget that a smart phone's function is to be a phone first, and everything else after. If you can't use its features without affecting it's essential functionality as a phone, it's a failure.
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#2
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I've been reading many reports about battery issues with the Pre. Multi-tasking implemented poorly is far worse than not having multi-tasking at all. I feel this feature add a level of complexity not many mainstream users will appreciate and is an unnecessary waste of battery life, which contradict the primary purpose a smart-'phone' is there for.
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It sounds like you have been trolling for reasons to put down the Pre. I think the multitasking on the Pre is pretty brilliant. I like having 5 apps open. Currently on my mac I have iTunes playing, this web page open (with other tabs as well), a Finder window open, MS Word is open so I could cut and paste your comments, Xee is open from some recent picture work, etc. I think it's not all that complex, anyone with a PC or a mac understands how to have several programs open. The Pre's cards accomplish switching elegantly.
Now, you seem to have been looking around carefully for stories of people who had problems with their Pre so that you could cast them as general problems in forums such as this one. Why? A strong competitor will make Apple develop a better iPhone. It is in your interest for the Pre to succeed!
Palm has innovated with this phone. As Apple did before it, Palm has implemented ideas that will shape the direction phones go in. Innovation is a good thing. Using FUD to sabotage and stifle it as your comments seem to do is not cool.
The0ne - Sunday, June 21, 2009 - link
If the comments doesn't shout "trolling" then I don't know what will :Djap0nes - Saturday, June 20, 2009 - link
I think this is one of the worst reviews I've ever seen, and never expected to come from Anand in person. Why do I think that? Basically, because it's not a review, it's a comparison: Palm Pre vs. iPhone.On every single page Apple/iPhone is cited. Okay, they're competitors and all, but when Pre has an advantage, there are comments like 'Apple should do that'. That's ridiculous. I've never seen an review with comments like these. Pure fanboyism.
Please, change the title of the article to: 'Can Palm beat my Iphone' or something like that.
The0ne - Sunday, June 21, 2009 - link
I have to agree with you. I'm not entirely sure why so many users are applauding the review because they think it's an "in depth review." It's not. It's a "got a new phone to compare to Iphone and have to get a general review out ASAP fever/syndrome.I'll be waiting for the "in depth review" of the Pre from Anandtech soon.
However, if reviews use the Iphone as the criteria in the first place you will have reviews such as this one. Unless the Iphone really does set standards I would have to say it's not going to change until people find standards to test phones too. For example, if battery lasts 3hours+ than it should qualify as being a good phone. It shouldn't be said that the Pre is "lagging" or "isn't better" than the Iphone. That's just really giving a bad impression to those that actually do testing in real life. If anything it makes the author look bad IMO.
7Enigma - Tuesday, June 23, 2009 - link
And I'll disagree with you both. :) While a traditional review focuses primarily on the product at hand, this one works for a very good reason that Anand restated over and over. The iPhone has been the dominant force in the "smart" phone for several years now with really no direct competition. There were products that had more functionality, more horsepower, but none that had the complete package. The iPhone didn't and still doesn't but it came the closest. So it makes total sense to compare the Pre directly.It is very similar to the cpu market where you have basically 2 competetors. Could you imagine a new AMD cpu coming out and having no comparisons with the i7? Of course not. The current "best", be that from performance, functionality, or the package deal of all aspects, should always be directly compared to give the reader the best information to making a buying decision.
Now cpu's are easy and objective decisions. You run 10 benchmarks, compare hard data, and declare a winner. Obviously a phone is a different beast. It has an OS, and this makes for subjective issues. What I like you may not like. What I think is functional you may find annoying. But the fact is that Anand, who many of us highly respect for honest and detailed articles/reviews, seems to have a good grasp on the smartphone market, and is ACTIVELY looking for an upgrade option to the iPhone.
Just like we are always looking for a gpu/cpu upgrade by comparing how much better the new part is than our current part, Anand is saying the Pre is coming out years after the iPhone, so it had better damn well match or exceed in all areas that the iPhone already "perfected".
And I think most of us saw through the article to the underlying message, which was to inflate the level of competition between Apple and Palm so that we, the consumer, benefits in the end.
jap0nes - Tuesday, June 23, 2009 - link
I understand what you say and I agree with you, but that didn't happen in the article. I partially understand when you say that "And I think most of us saw through the article to the underlying message, which was to inflate the level of competition between Apple and Palm so that we, the consumer, benefits in the end", but in the end the "review" sounded ridiculous, towards fanboyism.jmaine - Saturday, June 20, 2009 - link
Anand,Thanks for a really well written comparison between the Pre and the iPhone. A few comments:
"The multitasking ability of the Pre is honestly one of two features I really, really wish my iPhone had. Multitasking has been done by many smartphones before the Pre or iPhone, but no one has done it as smooth and as Apple-like as Palm. "
I've been reading many reports about battery issues with the Pre. Multi-tasking implemented poorly is far worse than not having multi-tasking at all. I feel this feature add a level of complexity not many mainstream users will appreciate and is an unnecessary waste of battery life, which contradict the primary purpose a smart-'phone' is there for.
As you noted in the article, Apple built up it's UI and feature set, gradually perfecting each with every successive update. Do you think battery life is a strong reason for them not adding multi-tasking beyond the ipod music into the iPhone? I personally feel push notifications is a better implementation than true multi-tasking on a phone.
Doommidget - Saturday, June 20, 2009 - link
Had to create a login to address something that made me laugh...Thank you for a great review, although I don't hold out much hope of the Pre hitting the UK in the near future. I also think it is right to heavily compare the Pre to the iPhone given that it is the only credible competition for a very user friendly and fairly feature full phone (and by features I don't mean crammed with hardware I mean the services).
I just have to say, to anybody trying to mention Nokia as producing better phones than the iPhone with S60 having more functionality and the handsets having better hardware... this may be true but Nokias implementation is waaaay off. Every new flagship N series phone is plagued with software issues... N95, N96, expect the N97 will follow shortly. 5800 is also terrible for software problems. The list of handsets with poor reliability extends further back than that and will no doubt carry on into the future. Irrespective of whether the hardware in the Nokia phone is quicker, or the camera is better, or the handset is more open, if you have to have your phone replaced or repaired 5 times within a few months of purchasing then to be honest it really isnt worthy of comparison. And I know not everybody has had issues before I get flamed, myself being one of them as I moved from an N95 8GB to the iPhone 3G, but working in the mobile phone market, I can tell you that there are no end of Nokia software problems and virtually no issues with iPhone OS or the hardware.
So iPhone > N series pretty much every time; it may not have 2 processors, open bluetooth, great camera etc, but at least it works.
On a side note, I bet Nokia don't have a 5 day turnaround for fixing or replacing a handset that comes back to them.
Its all about the ecosystem that surrounds the handset, people in the top end of the market are becoming less impressed with pure hardware these days and are looking for more out of their phone with regards to web integration and services, and Apple have pretty much got everything down to a T as it currently stands.
So yes, compare the Pre to the iPhone, the Pre looks potentially worthy as an alternative, but not quite there.
And don't ever try to compare a Nokia to an iPhone, not even in the same ballpark as the iPhone ^_^
/wave
finbarqs - Saturday, June 20, 2009 - link
YES! Now I can sync with my Exchange!!!!