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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nycromes - Friday, June 19, 2009 - link
I think Anand did a pretty good job with the review, I was kicking around the idea of picking up a new Pre sometime soon and this review just pushed me over the top. I am going to get one ASAP.All that being said, I am somewhat disappointed in this review. I have to agree with other posters that the article was a confusing piece (Palm Pre Review or Iphone wish list). Certainly the Pre has some room to improve (hopefully software updates can address some of the issues Anand described). I know that the Iphone is a very popular phone and as such it will be one of the top comparison phones, but people still give Apple way too much leeway for cutting out features in the name of a simple experience. I am happy to see Palm doing what it can to put features back into a phone that gives a similar to the Iphone experience.
Anand Lal Shimpi - Friday, June 19, 2009 - link
Thanks guys. I see it this way: Apple set the bar very high with the iPhone, to take a step backwards in anything the iPhone perfected is bound to be disappointing. No visual voicemail? No full system-wide search? Slower app launches and choppier animations? These, in my mind, are unacceptable given that Apple already provided the market with a good blueprint of what to do.If Palm didn't force me to give anything up that the iPhone delivered, I would switch in a heartbeat. I either want Palm to perfect the Pre or Apple to adopt Pre-features, I don't really care which one happens, I just want at least one of them to happen :)
Take care,
Anand
nycromes - Friday, June 19, 2009 - link
The article makes more sense when you put it that way. Again, thanks for the great review. It helped me make up my mind on the Pre.Lozil - Friday, June 19, 2009 - link
Ya, Multitasking, Being cool, Physical keyboard. The Phone just seems Right.I don't understand why Anand is so inclined to iPhone..! Even when the Pre is better, You Just doesn't want to agree on that, Just wants Apple to give those Features...
Man i got confused... It's a Palm Pre Review or iPhone Enhancement Request... :P
bigboxes - Friday, June 19, 2009 - link
Thanks for this timely (and in depth) product review. Sounds like Palm has a lot of optimization to do with the OS before I'd ulitmately consider it for my next phone.My quick research shows that this device does not have an expansion slot for memory. Does the Pre allow you to install additional codecs? It supports MP4, H263 and H264, but not the XviD codec. Although I encode my videos using the X264 codec these days, I have a lot of DivX/XviD files in my collection. Does it allow users to assign an mp3 as a ringtone or does it require users to use a specific format? Palm's website lists "Bluetooth tethering" as a feature. Any chance that you tested that out? Speaking of bluetooth, how is this device's performance with other bluetooth devices? The security setup? How is the call quality when using the phone with no headset? The microphone? Does Palm have any plans on upgrading the Pre to a metal housing or even offering one in the near future? I'd also like to see support for MSN IM or maybe offer a Trillian-like app (or something like that).
cjb110 - Friday, June 19, 2009 - link
A lot of the Pre reviews have mentioned the keyboard being ok, but not great. None of them mention the bonus of actually having all of screen space available while you type. Yea the iphone and android's have bigger screens, but so what if you loose half every time the keyboard appears.prophet001 - Friday, June 19, 2009 - link
absolutely hilarious "dude i just took the biggest poop. wanna see?"strikeback03 - Friday, June 19, 2009 - link
Didn't he use that in his first iPhone review? Which didn't have picture messaging?Rolphus - Friday, June 19, 2009 - link
Anand,On the browser performance page, I couldn't spot any mention of which version of the iPhone OS you're using for comparison? I've found 3.0 to be much faster, having benefited from the updated WebKit builds including the "Nitro" JS engine and general render speed improvements (I assume the Pre has this build as well). Would you mind clarifying or pointing me toward the answer?
Many thanks,
Rolphus
ltcommanderdata - Friday, June 19, 2009 - link
http://www.rapidrepair.com/guides/iphone-3g-s-repa...">http://www.rapidrepair.com/guides/iphon...one-3g-s...Well the first teardown of the iPhone 3G S seems to confirm that Apple too uses a ARM A8 Cortex SoC with PowerVR SGX as predicted. I wonder if the hardware similarity between the Palm Pre and the new iPhone will put pressure on Apple to implement multitasking. They could argue hardware limitations for the older models, but it's difficult to hold back now that the Pre has shown it can be done well on newer hardware. Sadly, it'll probably be the major new feature of iPhone OS 4.0 next year.
On a hardware note, I wonder what version of the PowerVR SGX is in the new iPhone. The SGX520 as Anand predicts or the SGX530 as the Palm Pre. I'm guessing the teardown wouldn't be informative on this and we'll have to wait for driver analysis.