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Palm Pre Review
Palm Pre Review
Published on: 12 June, 2009 by PhoneArena Team
Phonebook:
Synergy is in full effect here, as the Pre pulls contacts from your Gmail, Facebook and Exchange accounts. On first use it also allows for syncing with Outlook or Palm Desktop, making importing your existing contacts a snap. Of course you’re likely to have overlap between these accounts, but no worry as webOS recognizes these and merges them into one. In case it misses a contact the user has the option of merging contacts manually. As you might expect you can store pretty much anything you want about a contact on your Pre.
Fully embracing cloud computing, the Pre does not have a desktop sync program. All information is backed up to your Palm profile daily over the air. When adding contacts to your phone some services like Gmail sync these, whereas others like Facebook do not. This shows a fundamental understanding by the designers, and we can’t tell you how slick it was to create our profile and see all our contacts download in minutes. This cloud approach allows for remote wiping should you lose your device, and easy OTA restoring if a reset is necessary.
One big drawback in our opinion is the lack of voice dialing. To be fair no Palm device has had this out of the box, and the iPhone took three generations to get such a simple feature. Still, we are amazed that in this day and age a flagship phone does not have this basic feature while Sprint’s entry phone- the Samsung m220- does.
Organizer:
Synergy again plays a big role in the calendar. Like your contacts, the Pre brings all of your calendars together and offers a layered view. If you prefer to see them separately the Pre allows for that as well. The calendar is as full featured as you would imagine, allowing for recurrences, reminders and everything else. Like the contacts app, the calendar is backed up daily OTA.
Apps can access the calendar as well. For instance, Fandango will add an event when you purchase movie tickets. This just drives home the connected nature of this device and webOS. Very cool. Very, very cool.
Connectivity and Data:
The
browser is built off of Webkit, and it shows. With full multitouch
support the user can pinch until their hearts content, but Palm has
also incorporated double tap zoom. Pinching is great for fine tuning,
but the double tap is way more effective for larger increments, and in
fact we’d prefer if it zoomed further in at times. It is a full HTML
browser, and while it doesn’t support Flash just yet Adobe has
confirmed that they will develop for the platform soon. We had no
problems opening any webpages, and quickly at that. With both EVDO
Rev. A and Wi-Fi connectivity a fast internet connection should be
available nearly all the time. Battery life tip: the Pre handles data
over Wi-Fi very efficiently so when possible use that option.
The Pre features Bluetooth 2.1 with EDR, and has support for the HSP, HFP, PBA, A2DP, AVRC and PAN profiles. As had been reported, the Pre does not support tethering, though this is a moot point as Sprint’s Everything plans do not allow for the phone as modem add-on anyway.
Messaging:
Palm has taken a new approach to messaging as well, unifying all forms of communication into one conversation style view. This allows you to start a conversation over IM and continue over text when the user leaves their computer. Using Synergy, the Pre integrates with Google Talk and AIM, and we’d expect to see support from other major IM providers soon. To view your discussion simply bring up messaging and choose the contact you’re conversing with.
The Pre supports IMAP IDLE, allowing for nearly instant email notification from providers (such as Gmail) which support the technology. The user can of course configure several email accounts, and like the calendar can choose a unified inbox or view each account separately.
Synergy is in full effect here, as the Pre pulls contacts from your Gmail, Facebook and Exchange accounts. On first use it also allows for syncing with Outlook or Palm Desktop, making importing your existing contacts a snap. Of course you’re likely to have overlap between these accounts, but no worry as webOS recognizes these and merges them into one. In case it misses a contact the user has the option of merging contacts manually. As you might expect you can store pretty much anything you want about a contact on your Pre.
| The phonebook of Palm Pre | |||
Fully embracing cloud computing, the Pre does not have a desktop sync program. All information is backed up to your Palm profile daily over the air. When adding contacts to your phone some services like Gmail sync these, whereas others like Facebook do not. This shows a fundamental understanding by the designers, and we can’t tell you how slick it was to create our profile and see all our contacts download in minutes. This cloud approach allows for remote wiping should you lose your device, and easy OTA restoring if a reset is necessary.
One big drawback in our opinion is the lack of voice dialing. To be fair no Palm device has had this out of the box, and the iPhone took three generations to get such a simple feature. Still, we are amazed that in this day and age a flagship phone does not have this basic feature while Sprint’s entry phone- the Samsung m220- does.
Organizer:
Synergy again plays a big role in the calendar. Like your contacts, the Pre brings all of your calendars together and offers a layered view. If you prefer to see them separately the Pre allows for that as well. The calendar is as full featured as you would imagine, allowing for recurrences, reminders and everything else. Like the contacts app, the calendar is backed up daily OTA.
| Calendar | ||
Apps can access the calendar as well. For instance, Fandango will add an event when you purchase movie tickets. This just drives home the connected nature of this device and webOS. Very cool. Very, very cool.
The Pre features Bluetooth 2.1 with EDR, and has support for the HSP, HFP, PBA, A2DP, AVRC and PAN profiles. As had been reported, the Pre does not support tethering, though this is a moot point as Sprint’s Everything plans do not allow for the phone as modem add-on anyway.
Messaging:
Palm has taken a new approach to messaging as well, unifying all forms of communication into one conversation style view. This allows you to start a conversation over IM and continue over text when the user leaves their computer. Using Synergy, the Pre integrates with Google Talk and AIM, and we’d expect to see support from other major IM providers soon. To view your discussion simply bring up messaging and choose the contact you’re conversing with.
| Using Synergy, the Palm Pre integrates with Google Talk and AIM | |||
The Pre supports IMAP IDLE, allowing for nearly instant email notification from providers (such as Gmail) which support the technology. The user can of course configure several email accounts, and like the calendar can choose a unified inbox or view each account separately.
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