Palm Pre Comments

The swapped Y and Z indicate that it is meant for sale in Germany. It's the standard layout there.

Love the magnetic charge feature. Whats the sim free price on this handset.

Nice review, good to see the phone is finally coming out over here in the UK but why god why on O2? As mentioned, as they already have the iPhone so they have no incentive to try and beat the iPhone (its biggest competitor by Palms own admission) at its own game by having a more competitive tariff. In fact it is slightly worrying now that the iPhone is no longer an O2 exclusive, we may find means that the iPhone may become become cheaper/have a better as it comes under competition leaving the Pre out in the lurch.... Aargh

Such a shame, I have an INQ1 and this phone really seems to be the next step in having all your online details in one place on your phone that I have dreamt of, but currently o2 are killing that dream :(

Any change it will be available in azerty?

At the end of the review you lament it for being the same price as the 3GS but it is in fact cheaper and merely the same price as the 3G, which is ideal imo.

Interesting how we've now done a 180 on keyboards. It used to be that the iPhone did the best job it could but still lacked the ease of use of a physical keyboard. Now physical keyboards are seen as inferior to onscreen ones. Surely what must have happened was everyone decided the iPhone implementation was good enough and then due to its success treated that as the de facto standard, as is the case with so many Apple products.

Completely agree that O2 have totally boned Palm on this one. I was so keen to get one. Now, well, not so much.

@GoldenGuy I think the benefits of having an onscreen keyboard are that they can be used in either portrait or landscape configuration and, as was a problem here, one can still access the screen to navigate.

Of course it all comes down to the quality of the individual keyboard, the iPhone has among the best onscreen keyboards, I think the one on the HTC Hero has gotten equal if not better reviews. Physical keyboards are still just as good if not better than many onscreen ones. Take the HTC Touch Pro 2 for example,

"The excellent first impression extends to the keyboard - arguably one of the biggest highlights of the device...Now there are many (including myself) who will tell you a touchscreen keyboard done well negates the need for a physical fall back. This can be a difficult argument to convince some and it won't get any easier considering the brilliance of the keyboard attached to the Pro2...The result is as close to mobile typing perfection as I have encountered...The result is as close to mobile typing perfection as I have encountered.'

@Ed

Well at least you've shown the TR office can meet a consensus on something! I was however referring to a wider opinion from the critical community than just from within Trusted Reviews. But I think when it comes to consumers, the proof is in the pudding. If they now also agreed about the superiority of touchscreen keyboards, I don't think you'd have companies like Pre still accommodating significant design and cost decisions by implementing a physical one. It's clearly still a dealbreaker for enough people (not me incidentally - I suck at typing irrespective of the input method).

My biggest reason for wanting a physical keyboard is that I don't want to loose half (or more) of the screen when typing. WinMo had this problem for ages (and probly still does), if the text box is at the bottom of the screen then what your typing on the virtual keyboard is obscured!

I think I'll probly still go for it though, the motorola dect was another choice but its only on Orange who still haven't realised phones need data connections!

Could you please test call quality, reception, freezes, etc.? It is a phone first place, and there is no mention about any call features.

On page four of the review, you say that the Pre "gives you easy access to thousands of useful apps and games", which I think is patently not the case according to other sources, which state that the Pre has somewhere in the range of tens of apps, or maybe even a couple of hundred, but nowhere in the region of the thousands that you quote.

Sadly I fear the window for the Pre has come and gone in the UK. It should have been launched day and date with the US model to compete against the iPhone 3GS and it should be significantly cheaper as well. Instead it's priced identically to the iPhone, on exactly the same (stupidly expensive) monthly tarrif at a point where both Orange and Vodafone have announced they'll be picking up the iPhone in the very near future.

Who's going to buy this handset? We know there's a cheaper WebOS device on the way, we know the Pre has some issues, not least its rather small selection of apps and its limited development environment. The initial wow factor has diminished significantly since it was announced almost a year ago. It's only got 8Gb of memory which, frankly, isn't a lot these days with no way to expand it and no reliable media syncing application anyway. There's a whole raft of Android (and Windows Mobile 6.5 if you're into S&M) devices that blow it away from a hardware perspective and the iPhone just seems to be going from strength to strength.

I'm really sad to say this as I've always liked Palm hardware and was genuinely excited about the Pre but I think they've blown it with the Pre. Maybe the Pixi will have better luck but right now this just feels like a product that's woefully misplaced in the market that's going to get swallowed up by the crowd. Hope I'm wrong, I really do...

Can't speak for other OSs but I know that's not an issue for Android. They've thought things out so that when the keyboard is up the view isn't obscured badly. I'd bet the iPhone and Pre are the same. With WM I used to have the same problem frequently.

I think the success of Blackberry shows that there's still a huge demand for proper keyboards.

Paying for a whopping screen and then giving half of it up for a virtual keyboard is not clever in my opinion. There are plenty of applications where you want a good, rather than a restricted, view of the screen while also typing. Ultimately it comes down to personal preference, probably based on whether you're going to spend more time typing or using the phone for music, photos, games, etc. Ultimately, business users are always going to favour physical keyboards as offered by devices like the Nokia E series, Blackberrys and the Palm Pre.

If TR has reached a concensus that virtual keyboards are superior (even than the Touch Pro 2), then it is not a wholly representative view.

@BOFH_UK: Pretty much my feelings at the moment.

@Ed: I'm also intrigued by the LG BL40 due to the narrowness of the handset, I'd imagine the keyboard/view-space is a nightmare in landscape*. Is a review in the pipeline?

*Unless the keyboard is taking up half the screen on the left or right of the view-space.

@BOFH_UK: I'm with you on this. I've lost interest which is a shame because I've had Palm PDAs (not phones) since they were USR and this looked like reversing the downward trend since the T3. I was hoping to replace my Pixon (god, it's awful) and TX (god, it's awful, too) with a Pre. Maybe the time delay and resultant lack of euphoria has allowed rational thought to prevail, but I don't think that this is my Nirvana. Certainly not at the O2 pricing levels. Maybe others will disagree and I hope for Palm's sake that they do. At least they'll have made a reasoned choice and be happy they've got what they wanted.

@PSV: Actually, there are several thousand; the Pre has the ability to run PalmOS programs in a compatibility mode. There are thousands of these - it's a major draw to the OS, actually, since many of them are free and very good. I have a Centro (and before that a Treo 650) and I'm keen to keep lots of my PalmOS programs.

A shame about the price. Maybe I'll wait and see if the Palm Pixi is released in the UK, although it's not yet available anywhere yet so it will certainly be a while.

@Ed

"The best physical keyboards can't compete with good on-screen ones"!?

Crazy.

If i have to bosh out an email and had a choice to use either my iPhone or Blackberry Bold. It's a no contest - physical keyboard everytime.

Does this mean in the future, (when the production cost comes down,) that every desktop computers keyboard will be replaced with large multi touch input pads instead of physical keyboards? Highly doubtful.

@Ed

Did you have the back off? A report on a Mexican GSM Pre says that a MicroSD slot is living there. Wondering if the Euro one has this too, hence only the 8Gb.

@Ed - Haha, i guess we will just have to agree to disagree.

However with regards to the mobile keyboard, i'm not sure i got your points for a 'very strong case' for the on-screen option:

1) 'You're forced to look at what you're typing'. Is this not the case for both variants?

2) 'On screen keys are easier to read'. I would argue that a (Blackberry Bold for example) physical keyboard is easier to read - and takes up substantially more space than the on-screen (iphone for example) portrait keyboard.

I would argue for the physical keyboard with:

1) You can use the whole of the screen whilst typing. Maximising screen real estate.
2) There is a tactile response / confirmation. Physical response, not just audio or visual
3) Multiple shortcuts - Very useful for web browsing in particular.
4) Key visibility in direct sunlight. Probably not much of an issue with modern screens i will admit.

Having said all that - i absolutely loved the review. It was just that one throwaway line which got me stoked. Totally understand the argument for the desktop keyboard, 10 digits, larger area, touch typing - makes sense to be physical rather than haptic. It probably wasn't the best point to make my case.

Anyway keep up the great work!

@Ed

Haha, cheers.

Just to clarify - all my points were & are regarding the argument of mobile keyboards: On-screen VS Physical.

1) Key visibility. I would argue that the larger the keyboard the easier to read. Whether larger is a good or bad thing i guess is down to the user (I would like a Blackberry 7290 device dimensions to make a comeback!). I'm not sure about the 'one character on a key at one time' point. On both variants my thumbs however over the keyboard at all times, so i think key visibility is probably the same for both keyboards.

2) Good word prediction/correction. This applies to both variants. It's a great software advantage. Spelling is probably worse on a touch screen device - but as you pointed out, i think due to the software it's not much of an issue now. I would suggest that there is more of a chance of touch typing with a physical keyboard, i can almost do it on a Bold - but not quite. I'm pretty certain that if I had to type the same sentence blindfolded on a physical keyboard and a touch screen (without prediction/correction) that the physical one would be more far more legible.

3) I would argue that shortcuts are very useful for web browsing on a physical mobile keyboard. For example on a Blackberry:

a) Add Bkmk
h) Homepg
l) Link address
r) Refresh
d) Hide
i) Histroy
o) Options
g) Go To
k) Bookmarks

etc

I think almost every key does something with one press. Definitely speeding up web-browsing (for me) compared to a touch screen device. Rather than routing through a menu it's just a case of learning the shortcuts, which i get the impression the majority of people don't get round to doing.

(Having said all that I totally appreciate what a fantastic job Safari on the iPhone has done, for not having any navigation buttons - i think it's a ni-on perfect web broswer implementation! I love it.)

4) Physical feedback. I think this is probably just a personal choice. For me, physical feedback has an element of satisfaction which is sorely missing from touch screen devices. Like flicking on a light switch or turning a key to start a car. It's a process we can understand, we feel as if we're doing something. In Physics terms, a touch screen device feels much more like 'action at a distance' - there's no known mediator of the interaction. I don't think it's as natively an intuitive process to interact with something with out any physical feedback. But like i say, it's personal. Plus kids growing up today will know no different, so perhaps my argument is old fashioned.

Having said all that, I don't want to come across as negative towards new technology. I flipping love it. Touch screen devices have changed the game and are unquestionably here to stay. I'm probably just a bit scared that physical stuff will be phased out. I guess I just need to keep voting with my wallet.

Cheers, - should have made my point more eloquent in the first place - rather than just writing 'crazy'. As I said before, great review. I trust Trusted Reviews far more than most. Keep up the good work, and keep on the techpulse!

@Mr. James.

I liked your last point. Maybe it is a generational thing indeed. Washing machines aren't exactly seen as appliances for the hip, young and trendy, which would explain why so many of their manufacturers still make a point of adding that loud cranking noise to the settings wheel, providing the illusion of interacting with a necessary mechanism, even though the sound has no utility at all.

However, I think the keyboard issue is more than taste. If physical keys were so expendable, and virtual ones so much more efficient, I think full size tablet devices would have infiltrated the market sector that netbooks did, and yet that still never happened. Again, I concede a point though, in that maybe Apple can change the game once again.

Not that I'm a massive fan or anything, just how do they manage controlling devices with all 10 fingers on what is clearly a touch-only interface in Star Trek and the like?

Ooh I so want a Star Trek themed phone now :-|.
Or maybe just an MS Courier tablet with a Trek skin.

On the keyboard issue. I prefer physical, and love the E71's. Yes you have to look at either type to, er, type. However, I make fewer mistakes on a physical one, and I don't have to keep switching between Letter/Number keyboards. I don't really think the argument here (for most people) comes down to which keyboard is better, but rather whether they want a bigger touchscreen/less bulk, etc.

Just nipped down to the o2 store on Victoria Street, London to check out the Pre. I love the touchscreen, it is absolutely brilliant but I really don't like the keyboard. In testing it by writing a text I could barely type (no sniggering at the back) a sentence without lots of mistakes. I've had a work blackberry in the past so I'm used to using physical keyboards but this just felt so cramped especially the top row where the top parts of the phone meet. Shame because other than that from my quick play I loved it.

I got my pre on launch day... I absolutely love it, it's so slick. It has it's faults (many of which will hopefully be fixed by a future software update) - things like, you can't save an image off a web-page, if you set a daily alarm clock it constantly shows on the screen notification area. But these issues aren't biggies.

I came to this phone after having a MDA Touch Plus (HTC Touch Duo), which crashed all the time and didn't hold signal well, plus the interface (windows mobile 5) was quite dated and fiddly to use. The Pre compared to that phone is amazing, it looks lovely, the interface is intuitive, multitasking is a breeze, web browsing is lightning fast and so well put together.

I wont compare it to the iPhone as to be honest I've never owned one and have only played with them a little bit. But the Pre is smaller than the iphone and fits nicely in my pocket.

As for the keyboard, I have seen people complaining that it is fiddly and hard to use, admittedly it is on the small size however once you have spent a little time typing with it, it becomes second nature and I really like having it.

I am definitely a fan of the Pre now and hope that as Palm update the software it'll make a great little device even better.

You got a German copy! All German keyboards are QWERTZ. It drives me nuts. :)

Well, I've had mine for nearly 2 weeks now and as an 'upgrade' from an iPhone I have to say that I'm within a hair's breadth of taking it back. I can live with the odd bits like the keyboard taking some getting used to but other things are proving to be so irritating that I'm not sure I can cope! So, in detail...

The time will not sync to the mobile network no matter how much I try and when it's on manual, it gains at least a minute a day...granted this must be down to a faulty handset.

Yahoo mail will not work properly, despite support attempts to fix. E-mails will NOT render pictures contained therein, something which worked fine from the word go with the iPhone. Not sure whether that's a 'feature' of the Pre or something to do with the settings (that don't seem to work correctly - can't even send an e-mail despite O2 support efforts).

Google maps isn't great...my iPhone used to go straight to my street when I put in the full postcode...on the Pre, you get partial postcode usage, and therefore only to the general area (Google maps online goes straight to the street). Indeed, the O2 support person said that during their training on the Pre, they were working through a navigation exercise and their destination (an airport) actually returned a location a mile away, on the other side of a river! mmm, useful, not!!!

Alarms/alerts...the same sound for every type of alert, e.g. e-mail, text message. You also can't select separate on/off for each. The 'mute' button on the top of the phone also mutes ALL sounds, including the alarm, so if you want the phone to wake you up in the morning, you have to put up with any e-mails waking you up if they come in overnight. Simply unacceptable.

Selection of ringtones on the phone is rubbish, and you can't select the tone for the alerts (remember that's everything like text messages) at all, you are stuck with the pre-set tone (which isn't great!).

The more I think about it the more it is making me think I've made a mistake...methinks a return is on the cards sadly.

The worst thing about this is that as a long-time Palm fan, a phone that is supposed to be their 'big hope' is such a silly let-down in so many ways...they really should have learned from the iPhone by now.