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The new Palm Pre from Sprint
is the best attempt yet to create a phone that is as
powerful, elegant and simple to use as the Apple iPhone.
Like the iPhone, it's a
got a full Web browser; multitouch controls (pinching,
flicking, etc.); Wi-Fi; a gorgeous video screen; and the
ability to view PDF, Microsoft Word documents and other
files.
It costs $200 with a
two-year contract and after a rebate. Sprint's rate
plans start at $70 a month.
By far, the Pre's best
feature is its system of "activity cards,"
which let you quickly jump back and forth among Web
pages, applications and other functions without having
to close any of them. Every time you want to do
something, such as visit a Web page, take a picture,
send an e-mail or listen to a song, a new card opens.
Then, when you press the
center button, you get a view of all the active cards,
and you move between them by swiping your finger to the
left or the right. When you want to open one, you just
tap on it. When you want to close one, you swipe it off
the screen with a satisfying upward flick of your
finger.
Say you start watching a
YouTube video when you suddenly realize you have to send
an important e-mail. To do this on an iPhone, you'd have
to exit YouTube, open the e-mail program, type your
e-mail, exit the e-mail program, open YouTube again and
navigate to the spot in the video where you left off.
But since the Pre lets
you have multiple programs running at the same time, all
you have to do is minimize YouTube, maximize your
e-mail, send your message and then jump right back to
your YouTube video. It's the closest a mobile phone has
come to replicating the jumping back and forth among
programs that many of us do on our computers all day
long. There's also an easy way to swipe your finger to
return to the previous screen.
Another key feature is
the way the Pre merges contacts and calendars from
multiple sources, including Microsoft Outlook, Facebook,
Google and other services.
So, if someone is in your
Outlook address book and is a Facebook friend, you will
see one entry for the name with the contact information
from both places. Similarly, events you've RSVP'd to on
Facebook, meetings you've scheduled through Outlook and
events you've added to your Google calendar are all
displayed together.
One drawback: Because the
cards are always active and the phone is constantly
being updated from the Internet, even when in sleep
mode, the battery wears out quick, after a couple of
hours of moderate use. Like an iPhone, battery life
improves when you do things such as reduce the frequency
that the phone checks for new e-mails. Unlike the iPhone,
the Pre has a removable battery, so you can purchase an
extra one.
The phone has a stylish,
pebble-like design that comfortably fits in your hand
and a slide-out keyboard. Having a real keyboard is
nice, but I found it to be kind of cramped, and I
sometimes got pains in my wrists after typing on it for
a long time. It's nowhere near as comfortable as a
BlackBerry keyboard. With its 3-megpixel flash camera,
MP3 player, video player and YouTube application, the
Pre performs nicely as a multimedia device. You can even
sync the phone with Apple's iTunes to transfer music,
videos and photos. However, the phone only holds 8 GB of
music, videos and other items.
There are some puzzling
omissions, such as visual voicemail, something the
iPhone and another Sprint phone, the Samsung Instinct,
both have. You also can't record video, an included
feature of the iPhone 3G S, which comes out Friday.
Like the iPhone and the
T-Mobile G1, the Pre has an application store to
download programs without connecting to a computer.
Unfortunately, there's barely anything in the Pre's app
store, so it's hard to judge what's out there. But I
expect the number of applications to increase.
So is the Pre better than
the iPhone? I still prefer the iPhone, mainly because it
has a bigger screen. I also like the virtual keyboard
and its huge lead in apps (more than 35,000).
I do wish the iPhone
would let you switch back and forth among applications
like the Pre. I don't foresee a lot of people switching
to Sprint to get the Pre, but for Sprint (and in the
future, Verizon) customers and Palm fans, the Pre is a
phone that will cure your iPhone envy.
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