Palm Pre review (with full hands-on video)

Posted by Jason Chen on Thu 11 Jun 2009

The year's most-anticipated gadget has launched in the States several months ahead of the UK. But we knew you wouldn't want to wait to hear if it's any good, so T3 tested one on the US network, Sprint, to bring your lowdown on Apple's newest rival.

The Palm Pre is the Boston Red Sox of smartphones. The Red Sox won the first “World Series” championship in 1903. Palm’s first product, the Palm Pilot 1000, was the first populist handheld device.

Then what happened? The Red Sox closed an 86-year losing streak by barely squeezing out a championship to the dominant New York Yankees. Palm finally ended a seven-year drought (essentially 86 tech years) from their last major OS release, Palm OS 5 in 2002, by releasing the Palm Pre, a phone that may be the most exciting device this year.

Palm Pre hotlinks:

- Read our Palm Pre UK review, exclusive on the O2 network

- Play with the Palm Pre in full 360 detail

- Palm Pre news, reviews, photos

- Video hands-on: We get to grips with the Palm Pre here in the UK

- Photo unboxing of the Palm Pre

- 10 Reasons to buy a Palm Pre

- Video: Watch the Palm Pre in action

- 10 Reasons why the Palm Pre is better than the iPhone

- Palm Pre vs Toshiba TG01 vs Apple iPhone

- See if the Palm Pre is the hottest gadget on the planet

Palm did a lot of things right with the Pre. They completely started from scratch and came up with a very internet-centric approach called webOS. At the base lie two concepts called Synergy and Universal Search.

The Pre’s webOS is one step closer to getting a computer experience on a smartphone. Multitasking, a concept most people first experienced in Windows 95, allows you to open multiple apps at once, toggling between your mail and IM and Twitter as easy as flipping through photos or songs. Its Universal Search feature, which lets you bring up contacts and apps just by typing at the main screen, saves you the trouble of scrolling through a list. But if you’re a Web 2.0 citizen, you’ll make plenty of use of Synergy, which grabs and synchronizes your Google and Facebook accounts automatically.

Synergy is also capable of merging your contacts, so instead of two “Joe Bloggs” entries fighting for your attention, you just have one. It’s also capable of figuring out that Joe’s SMS and IM account belong to the same person, and thus consolidating your conversations with him - no matter the service - into one window.

Universal Search, on the other hand, is a method for you to find stuff on your phone by just popping open the keyboard and starting to type. It’s incredibly useful; essentially allowing us to Google for things on our phone by typing in the name of the person or the app we wanted to launch instead of flicking through a list. (Surprisingly enough, Google Android phones won’t get this feature until their next major software version.)

Then there’s multitasking. You know how your PC or Mac can have a browser, a music player, an IM client, your address book, your calendar and an email program open all at the same time, allowing you to flip back and forth depending your current task? We can do that on the Pre. That’s not to say that it’s a smart idea to open all these apps on your phone. It’s like using your parents’ old computer when you visit: you can only do a few things at once or you’ll be there for ages.

As for the design, Palm did an inspired job of balancing the weight, size and shape of the Pre to fit gracefully into your hand (see hands-on photos here). When closed, it’s like holding a small, highly polished stone - a stone that can stream the music service Pandora while alerting you that your flight’s delayed. The screen is crisp, with 320 x 480 pixels - the exact same as the iPhone, though smaller in size, resulting in a better picture overall.

Multitouch works like a dream, with a light flick of the finger called upon when needing to perform an action. We hate to keep comparing it to the iPhone, but it feels more accurate and responsive, particularly when flicking the finger upwards to exit a program. Sliding the finger along the bottom of the screen brings up the five launch bar choices, which is an addictive action to perform - we found ourselves doing this for no reason other than to stare in adoration at the rippled effect. It's easy to swap the five programs in the launch bar, however it comes with the standard calling, texting, emailing, internet and full menu launching functions. The latter will bring up a list of all the apps and programs available, like the camera.

We didn't mind the camera. At 3.2-megapixels, with a flash to boot, it was more than acceptable. Take a look at the photo in our gallery to the right for an example of one taken in low-light. It's very easy to attach multiple photos to emails, or upload to Flickr, Facebook etc - just as you would on a computer.

The whole experience replicates using a Mac or PC. Being able to flick around from an email, to a chat conversation, to music, to a browser, and then back to email is revolutionary. All phones should offer this, perhaps manufacturers need to spend more time on their computers, studying how they're actually used.

Speaking of using several programs at once, it's worth noting that heavy app and program users will find the battery life challenging. We couldn't get through a whole day without charging the Pre, but then, the same can be said for our iPhone, G1, Nokia N95 and any other smartphones on the market. Palm has been generous with the addition of a removable battery, however a battery than lasted longer than eight hours would've really got us raving.

Is the Pre better than the iPhone 3G? It’s tough to say. The iPhone has 35,000 apps right now—the Pre has 18. The iPhone can only sort of multitask with its own first-party programs—the Pre can multitask with everything. Both can sync with iTunes (thanks to Palm’s reverse engineering), but only the iPhone can support iTunes’ DRMed tracks.

If you’re adamant about having a hardware keyboard, the Pre’s a clear winner. Plus, there’s currently a better touchscreen and a faster processor inside Palm’s smooth plastic baby. But its lackluster build quality compared to the iPhone makes for a tossup instead of a clear winner. The keypad feels cramped, with the actual keys far too gummy and plastic for our liking. We would've much preferred BlackBerry-like keys instead of the rolled-up pieces of bubblegum Palm chose for the slide-out qwerty. The lack of predictive text is also puzzling, particularly when we were making so many typing mistakes in the first few days.

As soon as you slide open the phone and reveal the too-cramped keyboard and too-sharp edges, you realize that the phone isn’t perfect; that although the internals are high quality, Palm skimped on the externals to cut down on price. The flaws and shortcomings disappoint us, but that’s the thing with the Boston Red Sox or the Pre, if they’re fundamentally good, we can overlook their minor flaws.

Available now in the US, the Palm Pre costs $199 upfront, with the two year contract starting at $69.99 a month, otherwise $550 off-contract, exclusive to the network Sprint. A UK release, price and network has not been announced yet, however rest assured we'll tell you as soon as we know. Expect a review of the UK device in the coming months.

Link: Palm Pre

Review co-written by Jason Chen and Katherine Hannaford.

A brief history of Palm