Palm Pre Cell Phone Review

Conclusions

The Pre is a well-designed piece of equipment.  Although we felt that the keyboard could be improved, it was useable and we thoroughly enjoyed the combination of the touch screen, the gesture area, and the keyboard.  

The new webOS operating system is excellent, especially for the first version of an OS. The Synergy feature is very useful and the OS handles multitasking better than any other phone OS.  Some functionality, like the integration with Google maps and the turn-by-turn directions, is exceptional.

Although the Pre App Catalog is in its initial stages, it has a lot of potential. If Palm can keep the access to iTunes working, it will be a real feather in their caps since this is also a great feature.

Sprint is the current American cellular provider for the Pre. However, they have already announced that the Pre will be available from Verizon and possibly others in the near future. If the Pre can give us a choice of cellular providers, it will be more appealing to many than the iPhone which is currently married to AT&T exclusively.

Palm has done a great job of creating a phone that is quite capable of competing with the iPhone.

Pros

• Excellent crisp and responsive touch screen
• Excellent webOS operating system
• Handles multitasking applications beautifully
• Synergy consolidates information very well
• Very good universal search
• Excellent email support
• Slide-out keyboard
• iTunes sync
• Palm Profile for online backups

Cons

• Keyboard slightly cramped and plasticy
• Difficult to navigate through the Apps
• Lack of Apps and App Store
• Apps do not readily show their price