The Pre has a small area directly below its display and to the sides of the single Center button, called the Gesture Area. Because there's only one physical key on the Pre's face--not counting keyboard keys--there's no "return" or "escape" button for returning to previous screens.
Instead, a quick gesture from the far right side of the device's gesture area to the center, just over the Center key, works to return to previous screens. I appreciate how easy it is to access all of your applications at any point, since you can drag a finger upward from the gesture area to the middle of your display and your Quick Launcher "ribbon" appears on-screen. You can enable a Gesture Area option that lets you swipe a finger from the far right-side of your Pre all the way to the left, to toggle between active apps.
Overall, I was impressed with Pre navigation, as it was mostly easy to use and intuitive. I did have some issues with the general return gesture, but I'll get to that in the next section The very best thing about webOS? It's completely original--and completely unique. Nor does it feel like it's trying to copy the iPhone's mobile OS, like so many other touch-based iClones.
Palm built webOS based on its own ideas and design, and it shows. I give the company credit on that front. For everything I like about it, the software is still a bit rough around the edges; it's missing little touches that would make it feel more "finished.
This obviously isn't ideal, but such little imperfections can be expected with a first-generation OS. Updating webOS is remarkably simple. When OS updates become available, Pre users can manually seek them out and wirelessly download and install the software.
Or if you're not looking for the update yourself, your device will notify you that an update is available on its own and even automatically download it if you don't during a certain period of time. That's infinitely simpler than the current process for upgrading a BlackBerry OS and even easier than the already-straightforward iPhone OS update, which still requires a computer.
When you first setup your Pre, you're prompted to create a Palm profile for your device. The profile is used to identify specific users, settings and preferences, but it's also used to signify which user data is automatically backed up. Palm Profile information is backed up every day, as long as Backup is enabled.
Of all the native Pre apps, I liked the webOS browser best. It's consistently speedy, intuitive, and though I had a few minor rendering issues-- CIO. Navigation controls are similar to those found in the iPhone's Safari browser. And the ability to open new browser windows as "cards" makes it simple to hop from one window to the next. That's because the various components of webOS constantly work together to fortify and enhance the overall user experience. For example, the Pre features a cool device-wide search function--not unlike the Spotlight Search feature found in Apple's new iPhone 3.
And the Pre pulls various application information together, so contacts from Facebook or LinkedIn appear alongside contact data from your address book when performing a device-wide search. This is a particularly nice touch, since it can save you the time of having to look through contacts lists in various apps. In my experience, Pre call quality was consistently good, but not great.
I have poor Sprint coverage where I reside in Massachusetts, so this no doubt had some effect on my call quality. But I used the device around the state, and definitely noticed better coverage and quality in certain areas. In locations where I did have decent coverage, call quality was average or better than average. Sound familiar? Apple's iOS 4 software that included this feature was yet to be announced, so Palm's take was novel at the time in managing your active apps. But it didn't stop there with interesting features.
With Synergy, your contacts and backups could be synced up with the cloud, which you could then access on your PC or Mac. In another instance, if you swiped down from the top right, you got a control center of settings, similar to what happens with the same gesture on today's iPhones. You could see how much battery life remained on the Palm Pre, alongside toggles for Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and Airplane mode. Finally, a nice touch was accessing developer mode.
You access this on Android by tapping on 'About Phone' deep in the Settings app, but here it was opened using a cheat code called the Konami Code. In Konami games like Contra, Castlevania and Dance Dance Revolution the cheat code would unlock levels, difficulties and infinite lives when it was inputted. On the Palm Pre, instead of pressing arrow keys for a game cheat, you typed the code in the launcher screen: upupdowndownleftrightleftrightbastart.
This enabled developer mode: a small but cool touch where you could install other apps that wouldn't have been available on Palm's App Catalog Store. Considering this phone was released in , followed by another model in , it was ahead of its time in many ways. Yet, unfortunately, it came on the market too late. The iPhone was poised to reign supreme and then break the ceiling further with the iPhone 4. Palm was bought by HP in July , and eventually, the Pre ceased to be.
However, webOS was spun into some of HP's printers, bizarrely, and it would also become part of some televisions, ensuring the webOS name is still around today. The camera has a built-in flash, but the images are blurry by standards.
Overall, Pre call quality was better than call quality via my BlackBerry Bold , but not quite as good as my iPhone 3G. I'm not particularly impressed with App Catalog right now, but I have confidence that webOS has the potential to run some amazing apps. Now it's on developers' shoulders to prove me right. The Pre ships with an Amazon MP3 application that makes purchasing and downloading music files as easy as connecting an Amazon.
The app's not unlike Apple's iTunes app for the iPhone, but I actually prefer Amazon MP3 to iTunes, because pricing is more reasonable across the board. The Amazon app isn't perfect--I got quite a few download errors after purchasing content--but it's a great alternative to iTunes, and it's an easy way to obtain music directly from your device.
Palm also built an app, called Palm Music Assistant , which lets you quickly sync music purchased on Amazon MP3 via Pre to your iTunes library--though you need to download the desktop app from Palm's website.
On the subject of iTunes, the Pre current gets along nicely with Apple's juke box app--though that relationship may end abruptly in the near future. As is, iTunes sees the Pre as an iPod when plugged into a computer, which means that it works seamlessly with the media application. And it works great. Sprint TV gives you access to various clips and full length episodes of television series and movies from popular stations and studios.
Some content is free, but you need to pay to access most movies and some channels. Sprint Navigation, powered by TeleNav , also comes pre-installed, and it's certainly worth checking out thanks to the Pre's large display.
First and foremost, the Pre has serious battery life issues. Also, the Pre banged out only three hours and forty minutes talk-time in my battery life test. That's the worst talk-time of any smartphone I've ever reviewed These devices utilize entirely different cellular technologies, and it would've been ideal to test another similar Sprint device for battery life comparisons, but unfortunately, I didn't have one available.
I'm also concerned with the Pre's build quality. The device just feels flimsy, in general, especially when the slider keyboard is open. It's made almost entirely of thin black plastic that feels as if it could begin "chipping away" at any moment.
Every time I removed the thin cover over the Pre's micro USB charging port, I expected the plastic around the edges to crack or flake. It never did, but I still think it could very easily. With the keyboard closed, you can also feel some "give" between the main display section of the Pre and the sliding unit that houses the keyboard. If you hold the bottom section with one hand and the top piece with your other hand, you can twist both sections slightly, which doesn't bode well for durability over time.
In fact, I noticed that the slight shift of the two segments increased during the two weeks that I used the device. Also, because the Pre is a "vertical slider," meaning the keyboard slides out from the main unit when it's held vertically as opposed to horizontally, it's top heavy when the keyboard is open.
It's not too awkward, and you get used to it quickly, but the design is slightly flawed, and the tendency--thanks to gravity--is to let the top portion of the handheld "fall backward" so you're holding the device flat instead of holding it upright. This can hinder typing.
The keyboard itself is far too small from my liking, as well. My thumb literally covers up to four keys at a time, which, you can imagine, makes it rather difficult to type with any degree of precision. The keys are very tiny, but honestly, it's not even the size that frustrates me the most, it's the design of the buttons.
The Pre's keys are small and flat, which makes pressing the desired button even more difficult. The keys are similar to both the Palm Centro and Treo Pro keys, though they're slightly larger than the former, but smaller than the latter. Here are the latest Insider stories. More Insider Sign Out.
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