Oh Hashmir, I’ve Used This Title Too Much Already
The Pre has an excellent screen. I was expecting more based on all of the early reviews of the device, but it’s still pretty good. Pure pixel density gives it a nice advantage here. Both the iPhone and the Pre have a 480 x 320 display; the iPhone’s display measures 3.5” on its diagonal while the Pre’s is only 3.1”. Cramming more pixels into less space makes the Pre’s display look sharper.
The Pre, like the iPhone, uses a multi-touch display. The touching works fairly well, almost as good as on the iPhone and far superior to any other touch phone I’ve used.
There are some differences of course.
The basic gestures are the same between the Pre and the iPhone. Pinch two fingers to zoom in, move them apart to zoom out. Flick your finger up or down the screen to scroll; do the same left/right to flip through pages, photos or cards. And double tap to zoom in on a web page.
On the iPhone, the multi-touch interface is limited to its large screen. The Pre doesn’t have as large of a screen but Palm attempts to make up for it by enabling touch in the area directly below the screen. Palm calls this the “gesture area”, which always seemed odd/misleading to me. You do perform certain gestures down there (wow), while others must be done on the screen itself.
The gesture area, as Palm calls it, helps extend the usable touch area of the screen, which is good. The gesture area happens to have a physical button in the middle of it, which is bad. There’s one frequently used gesture you perform in the gesture area, it’s a right to left swipe. This is how you traverse through a hierarchy of “windows” within a single application. For example, to get from here:
To here:
You perform that right to left swipe in the gesture area.
The problems with this gesture are two fold:
1) The R/L swipe goes over the protruding center button in the gesture area; it feels odd. Update: You can perform the gesture in the area to the left or right of the center button, effectively eliminating this issue. Sweet :)
2) More importantly, there’s a lag between when you complete the gesture and when the application responds to it. This isn’t really true for any of the other gestures, just this one. It hampers the user experience.
On the iPhone’s virtual keyboard, whenever you tap a key it enlarges in size above the key so you know what you hit. It’s a way of getting around the problem of your finger covering up most of the keys on an otherwise tightly packed keyboard. The Pre has a physical keyboard and thus doesn’t need such a thing, but for regular taps on the screen Palm does implement a cursor of sorts. Tap on the screen and you’ll see a little dot with ripples around it. It’s not huge but it does give you an indication of where you tapped.
While the Pre’s screen is just as responsive as the iPhone, I found the Pre is far more likely to ignore my taps than the iPhone. It seems like a software issue as I’ll sometimes tap the same item two or three times before it actually clicks on it for me. It’s not the end of the world, but annoying enough when it happens.
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casteve - Friday, June 19, 2009 - link
Palm has said that the Pre will work with old Palm OS apps...does this mean you can sync your Pre to Palm Desktop?Any info regarding security features? What's the level of crypto for password lock? What level of encryption is used for Palm's cloud/syncing?
djc208 - Friday, June 19, 2009 - link
I need one without a camera. I wish someone would look at non-camera phone options for those of us that can't take them to work. We're stuck with with the crap phones in the bargin bin or a very limited selection of Blackberries, and I don't really need the blackberry specific services, I just want a good phone without a camera.Since I'm on Sprint I'd seriously consider the Pre but the camera makes it a non-starter, and I have a moral issue with purposely breaking the camera on a brand new phone.
Thanks for the review, but I guess I'll continue to stand outside the ride and drool.
one1 - Friday, June 19, 2009 - link
You forgot to note that you can start dialing/searching for a contact to dial by simply dialing at the launch screen, or typing out a contact name. This feature is also in Palm's treo devices.
You can see this here: http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2471/3641655962_577...">http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2471/3641655962_577...
You missed some gestures as well, you do not need to press the home button to get to home. simply flick up from below the home button and you can get home. Flick up again, and you get the launcher. Flick up yet again and the launcher goes back down. I've rarely found a reason to press the home button.
Kyusaku - Friday, June 19, 2009 - link
"The iPhone also includes a Google search box and a button toolbar on the screen by default as well. There is no room for these on the Pre so they are all nearly absent."In the Pre browser you have no need to go to the address bar or a search box unless copy and pasting. As long as you're not in a text field, just start typing and the browser will either Google search or go to the address you just typed it.
solipsism - Friday, June 19, 2009 - link
Dear Anand,It appears you tested the iPhone’s WebKit browser engine from v2.x not from the latest v3.0. I know that it just came out about 30 hours ago, but I humbly request that you include the iPhone 3G v3.0 browser tests in the next article you are sure to do about the iPhone 3GS v. Palm Pre.
Thank you for your time.
PS: While no disk sharing is set yet they are allowing you to share your MobileMe iDisk in the future, according to this Apple Page (toward bottom)…
• http://www.apple.com/iphone/iphone-3g-s/more-featu...">http://www.apple.com/iphone/iphone-3g-s/more-featu...
Anand Lal Shimpi - Friday, June 19, 2009 - link
The iPhone 3G tests were performed with OS 3.0, I just re-verified the results this morning after getting the 3GS.Take care,
Anand
MultiCarrierUser - Thursday, June 25, 2009 - link
Wow, nice to virtually meet you. I am siked to be able to converse with you on the blog. I am part of the Sprint Support team for the Pre when it was first released. I must say the device did very well. I gave excellent support and more of the support were help and how to's, nothing dealing with failures or wanting to return the phone. I demo the phone daily, I am even beginning to write the cool apps to add to the pre's App Store. I wanted to ask you if you could run the test between the iphone 3GS and Palm Pre' using AT&T internet and Sprint's internet only? My suggestion, wipe both phones clean and leave the programming, to ensure cache, cookies, histoy, saved, bookmarks are all deleted out of the phone. Major city test is fine, somewhere that has both At&T best and fastest data coverage and Sprint has it's fastest data coverage and time the sites being pulled up. I site that is rich www.msnbc.com; cnn.com disney.com (my son loves tht site) and just see what can they really do. Anand, do you agree that the iphone has so many apps to cover up that its quicker to click an app for almost any scenerio vs having to launch the web and browse to it?mjhorn - Friday, June 19, 2009 - link
"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"This is an option. Go into the Phone App, click on the Menu and choose Preferences. Turn "Show Contact Matches" On. Then type away on the dialpad for names.
Anand Lal Shimpi - Friday, June 19, 2009 - link
Thank you!!!I've updated the article accordingly :)
Take care,
Anand
Cobra Commander - Friday, June 19, 2009 - link
I just want to thank you for not swinging off of Jobs' left nut and being exceptionally objective and observant. Having just preordered my 3GS I do not expect to be disappointed as I'm jumping into the smartphone market finally but there's been WAY too many reviewers pussyfooting around stating direct, strong opinions on the finer details of Pre v. iPhone. They may have GENERALLY said the same thing from a bird's eye view but like I said: walking on eggshells, almost apologizing for commending Palm in any way.