MTDN would like to welcome the new Palm Pre. The Pre was released on June 6th 2009. It is Palm’s latest entry in the now rapidly growing smart phone and/or conversation device market. The Pre has been designed from the ground up to increase user-friendliness and web browsing ability. It runs on a completely new OS called webOS based on the Linux core coding system.

The CDMA version was released to Sprint in June of 2009, and it will be a Sprint exclusive for an undetermined time period. It features a 600 Mhz processor, built-in WiFi, a GPS, a 3.2MP camera with LED flash and 7.4GBs of user memory. The Pre has some very interesting and innovative new features such as Synergy which is used for the syncing of your contacts and calendars. It is a card system used to help users with quick and easy maneuvering between applications. We will continue to review the Pre in more detail as time progresses and more breaking news becomes available. Feel free to read on to learn more about this new technological advancement.

Pricing & Ordering:
The Pre retails at $549 with no contract or $199 with a 2 year contract after with a $150 instant discount and $100 mail in rebate. The retailers currently offering this device are Sprint Stores, Best Buy, Radio Shack and Wal-Mart. At this point and time it is not offered on the Sprint website.

What Comes In The Box:
What you will find in the box is the Pre, Lithium Ion battery, battery cover, AC phone charger, Micro USB sync cable, carry pouch, 3.5mm stereo headset, and users manual.

The charger for the Pre is similar to that of the Pro. The AC charger has a USB port, which means it can be connected to a pc laptop or a desktop pc.

Hardware:
The Pre is comfortable to the touch. It is composed of quality hard, glossy plastic. With that being said-yes, it is a fingerprint magnet. The plastic is very sturdy. I’ve tossed it in my backpack and pockets with things like keys and lighters for the last few days and it has no visible scratches. This is a great sign of its durability.

The pocket-sized Pre is really solid considering its size. When closed, it is only 2.3″ x 3.9″ x 0.67″ and weighs in at 4.76 oz. Furthermore, when the Pre is closed you will not find a single sharp corner. This fact further adds to its user-friendliness. Did Palm say they got the idea for the design from a river rock? I think not.

The Screen:
The screen is a 3.1″ HVGA 320×480 24bit capacitive touchscreen. This is a big screen consider its user-friendly size, measuring in at 3.1 inches from the top left to the bottom right corner of the screen (for comparison, the iPhone’s screen is 3.6”). HVGA 320×480 means a lot of pixels for displaying web pages, videos, and more. The 3.1″ part means that the screen is somewhat smaller than the iPhone, but packs enough pixels-per-inch to make everything a lot sharper and crisper than the iPhone. Capacitive touch means that the Pre’s screen works without a stylus. It also has a very neat ripple effect when the touch screen is pressed. This indicates to the user where the device has been touched and where.

The Keyboard:
The Pre has a slide-down full QWERTY physical keyboard. For those of you with Treo Pros and Centros, the keyboard will feel very familiar. A great feature is that the keys are made of a soft rubber and are very easy to press.

However, there are two small drawbacks. One, the keys are spaced very close together, and two, the top row of keys are too close to the bottom edge of the sliding feature. The keyboard is fine for texting, posting, adding contacts, and short emails. Still, one cannot expect to write any novels on it.

The Slider and Speaker:
The Pre is Palm’s first attempt at a slider design. Let it be said that they got it right. Opening and closing the Pre sliding feature is a breeze and can be done simply with one hand. It is also spring loaded, and the slide action is smooth and crisp.

Unfortunately, copy devices of the Pre do exist. These copy devices conceal their inner workings with a piece of polished metal. On the Pre, this particular part is the only piece on the smart phone casing that has the Sprint logo on it. So when the Pre is closed and powered down it is pretty much unbranded. The speaker is on the back and located next to the camera. The camera comes complete with flash. It is awesome to note that the sound quality on the Pre is above average.

The Camera:
The camera on the Pre is a 3.2MP with an LED flash and an innovative depth of field feature. The picture quality is very good for a cellular phone camera. Another great camera feature is the ability to hold the Pre vertically. This allows a person to take shots that are perfect for wallpapers. The Pre is by far the best camera Palm has put into any of the devices previously created. The only down side is that the Pre cannot record video. However, from what I’ve heard around the water cooler, this feature is soon to come in the form of an OTA update.

Other Hardware Specs:
The Pre’s cellular radio operates on Sprint’s 3G EVDO RevA network and gets good reception. Call quality and download speeds are clear and fast. The Pre has a 600Mhz Texas Instruments OMP 3430 (ARM Cortex A8 + PowerVR SGX) processor with 258MB of RAM. What does this mean? It means that the Pre is very powerful and very fast. (I’ve had 10 applications running, streamed music with Pandora over WiFi, listened to it using Bluetooth all while sending text messages and emails. Not once has it slowed down or frozen up.)

The Pre also has built-in Bluetooth and Wifi. The Bluetooth supports PAN, A2DP, HFP/HSP, PBAP and AVRCP profiles and the Wifi is 802.11 b/g with WPA, WPA2 and 802.1X authentication. Both of these can be easily turned on/off by tapping the upper right corner of the screen and toggling the on/off in the dropdown menu. The Pre also has autonomous GPS, meaning that you do not have to have the phone radio on in order to receive GPS information. The GPS is extremely fast, and I was able to obtain satellite information in under a minute after a cold start.

The Pre also has an accelerometer that is used for the web browser and photo application. A proximity detector helps prevent face-tapping the touchscreen when on a call. Palm had also put in a 3.5mm (standard) headphone jack, located on the top center of the device. This includes headphones which worked great and have good sound reproduction. The only down side is that I have found them hard to keep in my ears.

The Pre also has the now popular ringer switch on top. This allows one to turn off the switch at the slide of a button, silencing the ringer and system sounds. A great feature is that if you are playing music or watching a video the sound still comes through. Right next to the ringer switch is the power button, which serve multiple purposes. First, it turns on and off the screen. Second, when a call comes in, it can be used to silence the ringer. Third and the last of its functions, if you press and hold, it will bring up a window asking you if you would like to turn off the Pre or put it into flight mode.

Like any other Palm device on the right hand side there is there are the volume control buttons. These buttons control the master volume as well as the volume for the ear piece when on a call.

Charging & Battery Life:
Charging is done two ways. First, there is a MiroUSB port on the right side. It’s under a small, flimsy plastic door, which is pretty hard to open. Or, there is always the “Touch Stone Charger”. It’s a charging dock designed for the Pre. As I don’t have one yet, I’m not going to venture too much into the topic. From what I’ve heard, it looks and sounds like it works pretty well with the Pre.

The down side is that all of those little toys I listed above use up your battery power pretty quickly. The battery is only 1150mAh and is the same battery found in the Centro and 800w. They all fit and work in the Pre, but it is important to keep in mind that Palm has stated that “there are important electrical and mechanical differences which mean that you can’t use a Centro battery in Pre.” So, having a few extra sync cables (the Pre does charge when it is plugged in to a computer’s USB port), batteries, or an extra Touchstone charge at work may be necessary.

Storage:
The Pre has 8GB of on-board storage, 7.4GB of which is usable to the user. It has no MicroSD memory card slot. Depending on who you talk to, this can be considered a plus or a minus.

One really nice thing about the Pre is that when you plug it in to your computer you get three choices. These are the Media Sync, which makes iTunes think that the Pre is a 5GB iPod, the USB Drive which makes it act like a USB drive, and Just Charge, which of course means that it’s just charging. When you choose Media Sync or the USB drive, you cannot use the Pre, yet when it is in Just Charge mode you can use it normally.

The OS :
It may or may not be known that the Pre has the brand new WebOS operating system. This operating system is based on Linux and is very clean and polished. WebOS, as the name may suggest, is partially based on the web. Most of the applications on the Pre are based on platforms like Javascript or HTML, meaning developers should have an easy time developing and porting over older applications provided Palm releases the SDK for the OS.

On release day-June 6th, the Pre was released with two different OS versions, build 1.0.1 and 1.0.2. Pres built on or before a certain date were shipped with 1.0.1 version, and Pres built after that date shipped with 1.0.2 version of the OS. The Pre’s with the 1.0.1 version of the OS had to, after creating the Palm Profile, perform an Over-The-Air (OTA) download with the update. The update consisted of the addition of an alarm clock and a few system tweaks. It seems that Palm had the OS a bit crippled at this time. System tweaks included but were not limited to copy and paste functions outside of input fields on web pages, editing Microsoft Word documents, the forwarding of MMS, the lack of video capture, or downloading and saving web content. Most if not all of these sound like they can be repaired or added with OTA updates. It is safe to say that so far the OS has been extremely stable. I have had zero resets or freeze ups.

My Opinion:
Palm and Sprint have a sold device here! The Pre could very well be a contender as a top device in the technological food chain. Palm needs to add a few updates and functions to the OS, as well as the SDK kit to 3rd party developers, and Sprint needs to be a little bit more attentive to its customer concerns. Still it is important to remember a few things: the Pre is a first generation device; so, it will have its fair share of growing pains. It is a complicated design to manufacture as all new technological creations can be in the beginning and this can lead to some shortages and build issues. WebOS is in its infancy which can mean that we are bound to have update after update to add to usability. After all, this is Palm we are speaking about! To end this on a interesting note, the Pre is hands down one of the best phones on the market right now, and it has a lot of potential for growth. If you haven’t already, I’d say do what you have to do, and grab yourself a Pre!

Stay tuned for further reviews on the OS, factory installed applications, and third party applications in the near future!

Filed under: Device reviews