I eagerly awaited the DHL man, the day before yesterday, who I knew was bringing me the wonderful new Palm Pre which I ordered as a replacement to my aged Blackberry 8310, which is like something from the 1990s. I was very excited to move firmly into the 21st century with the device that is billed to be the saviour of Palm, the company which started the whole PDA/smartphone thing…
There’s no doubt, the Pre is a nice device. The screen looks high definition, the body is like a pebble which fits nicely in the palm of your hand. When the screen is locked, it looks like a very slick black, smooth rock. The operating system is very colourful and shiny, engaging even, if a little slow at times. I painstakingly read many different reviews of the Pre before I pressed the order button, and I was convinced that it would be a winner, and a worthy competitor in the busy Blackberry/iPhone field.
After a couple of days though, I’ve started to notice a few things which on their own might not be that significant but added up mean the Pre doesn’t quite cut the mustard for me. They may be issues which are unique to me, but I wanted to share them anyhow, in case anybody is thinking of getting one (I think you should still consider it but beware of a few things):
- The ringer & vibration is nowhere near loud enough. When out I completely miss phone calls, text messages and emails, even though the phone is on the highest ringer volume level with vibration on. Even when I’m at my desk with the Pre less than two feet away from me, I can’t notice it vibrating (it lets out a very short vibration).
- Facebook integration is poor. If Facebook is important to you, as it is to me (great for keeping in touch and is a good alternative to email), the Pre will disappoint. There’s no native Facebook application as there are for the Blackberry and iPhone, so you’re forced to use the mobile Facebook site through a web browser. But for some odd reason, at least 50% of the time you get a strange “invalid URL” message when trying to access this site. And when you do get through to it, it’s not a great experience on such a small screen.
- The alarm doesn’t wake me up! Arggh! This is an important one. My old Blackberry’s alarm woke me up with a very reliable snooze. The Pre just doesn’t do the job. I guess the device in general is just too quiet.
- You can only have push email from GMail. Unlike the Blackberry, which will push email from any provider to your phone, the Pre can only do this with GMail. Fine if you use GMail, but I have multiple email addresses and I want to know when I receive emails from any of them. Also, if you check GMail through a browser and mark new emails as read, it doesn’t update on the Pre (which the Blackberry does), so you have to manually mark emails as read on the Palm as well as on the computer (trust me this gets annoying if you get a lot of email).
- The Twitter apps are rubbish. Spaz just doesn’t do the job. Twitterific on the iPhone/iPod touch is the best Twitter app for a mobile in my mind.
- UPDATE: Another problem to add to the list: battery time. You barely get a full day’s worth of battery, especially if you have a lot of email or want to use the web more than once or twice in a day (I’m a big Twitterer, so that includes me).
Well these are a few things which are bothering me about the Pre so far. I’m not sure if I’ll keep the device. It does have its strong points, as almost every single other review out there has made clear, but sometimes you just need to know the bad points about a device to make a decision!
This is an excerpt from a post I wrote for the LabourList website, published today (October 19th). To read the full article 
