Palm Pre review roundup (includes Pre welcome video)
Looks like the iPhone had better bring its game face to WWDC and OS 3.0, because the Pre isn’t kidding around. It gets high marks for its WebOS, which allows real app multitasking, and reviewers unanimously praise its OS speed, browser, screen and overall user interface/experience.
It gets nicked for a fairly poor keyboard, some random crashing/hanging issues (to be completely expected with first-gen OS and hardware) and a few memory management issues. Not to mention a nearly-nonexistent App Catalog to rival Apple’s App Store.
Bottom line: the Pre – especially once Palm offers an SDK and gets a robust App Catalog going – pushes the high-end touchscreen smartphone market forward in several big ways. The Pre might not be the iPhone killer (I’ll wait to see what comes out of WWDC before judging that), but it’s the closest we’ve seen so far.
Here is a roundup of the early Pre reviews on the web right now.
All in all, I believe the Pre is a smart, sophisticated product that will have particular appeal for those who want a physical keyboard. It is thoughtfully designed, works well and could give the iPhone and BlackBerry strong competition — but only if it fixes its app store and can attract third-party developers.
The Pre, which goes on sale Saturday, is an elegant, joyous, multitouch smartphone; it’s the iPhone remixed. That’s no surprise, really; its primary mastermind was Jon Rubinstein, who joined Palm after working with Steve Jobs of Apple, on and off, for 16 years. Once at Palm, he hired 250 engineers from Apple and elsewhere, and challenged them to out-iPhone the iPhone.
I’ve been testing the Pre for more than two weeks and like it a lot. Pre is easy on the eyes. I can’t think of a more comfortable cellphone in my hand. It has a lovely screen for taking in YouTube videos or browsing the Web. The “always-connected” software foundation at its core, which Palm designed from scratch and calls WebOS, is slick and rife with possibilities.
So webOS makes the iPhone look clunky, which is stunning in itself. It also thoroughly shows up Microsoft Corp.’s Windows Mobile. That operating system has had multitasking for years, but few users have appreciated that. Rather, Windows Mobile has been blamed for making phones clumsy and slow. Now, webOS comes along and does multitasking right.
Simply put, webOS is absolutely gorgeous. As far as phones go, it’s not just the only device we’ve seen which competes with the iPhone for looks, but we’d go as far to say that it bests the iPhone in some categories. The selection of fonts and font styling, use of transparencies, unified look of all of the elements, smooth transitions, and detailed application icons tie together in a really elegant way. It’s clear that Palm’s designers took a page from the Apple playbook here, but when something looks this good, you can hardly fault them. As our man Oscar Wilde said, “Talent borrows, genius steals.”
Generally speaking, the Pre’s UI makes sense and makes it easy to get things done rather quickly and painlessly. It is an impressive beast, though a beast nonetheless — and that means taming will be in order. We saw plenty of little glitches: messages that wouldn’t pop up (or go away), transitions that hung for a bit, and we definitely had a crash or two. In particular, it seems like Palm still needs to work on memory management — we noticed the device getting a little laggy after a day of heavier use, so we’re thinking not every process is being killed completely.
Think of it like this. The software is agile, smart and capable. The hardware, on the other hand, is a liability. If Palm can get someone else to design and build their hardware—someone who has hands and can feel what a phone is like when physically used, that phone might just be one of the best phones on the market.
Hardware flaws aside, the Palm Pre made a solid impression on me. Its eye-catching design and smooth operation make this smartphone the most exciting device I’ve seen in a while.
Despite some missing features and performance issues that make it less than ideal for on-the-go professionals, the Palm Pre offers gadget lovers and consumers well-integrated features and unparalled multitasking capabilities. The hardware could be better, but more importantly, Palm has developed a solid OS that not only rivals the competition but also sets a new standard in the way smartphones handle tasks and manage information.
Finally, here’s the Pre’s welcome video, seen upon first boot of the phone. Very nice, even if it borrows ambiance heavily from Apple’s welcome video for a Mac’s first startup.
