Preview of the Palm Pre
The Palm Pre is smartphone manufacturer Palms attempt to return to the glory days when it reigned supreme in the smartphone world with the all conquering Palm Pilot. Already launched in the USA, the Palm Pre is being hailed as a potential iPhone killer. Whilst here in the UK we have to wait till around October for a European release, Mobiles.co.uk takes a look at the Pre in our preview to tell you what you can expect from one of the most eagerly anticipated phones of the year.
The Palm Pre takes on a touchscreen design with the added bonus of a slide out QWERTY keyboard. This slides out vertically like a traditional slide phone rather than the side sliding mechanism that we have seen most recently in the Nokia N97. Aesthetically the Pre looks good with nice rounded edges and glossy, black plastics comprising the majority of the body. The front of the phone is dominated by the touchscreen display, below which sits a single physical menu button. On the left side we get volume control keys which sit inconspicuously as to not spoil the minimalist design. On the back we find the camera in the top left corner and a speaker in the top right. Some concerns have been raised over the materials tending to get quite grubby with fingerprints and general grease but this seems not to be the case with the Palm Pre fending off most daily dirt. The full QWERTY keyboard features four rows of keys mirroring that of a traditional PC keyboard meaning you get a proper space bar on the fourth row. Each individual key is slightly rounded so despite being quite small are still fairly easy to access without hitting the keys around it. The design of the Palm Pre works well. When closed, the Pre resembles a standard touchscreen yet sets itself apart from rivals with a nice rounded design and comfortable in hand look and feel. When opened, the keyboard thankfully doesn't add too much to the size yet still manages to fit in a usable keyboard. Plus, at just 100.5 mm long (when closed) the phone is very pocketable and the 133 g is a reassuring weight without being too heavy.
The Pre features a 3.1 inch display that features the same pixel resolution as the iPhone 3GS which when confined to a smaller space actually makes the Pre appear sharper and more detailed. As the Pre uses a capacitive touchscreen the phone supports multi touch as an input method meaning actions such as pinch zooming is a possibility. Multi touch will also benefit the Palm Pre when it comes to apps but more on that later. The Pre gives off a nice rippled effect on screen when touched which not only looks good but also acts as a marker to confirm your touch has been picked up by the phone. Not that you need confirmation as the Pre features one of the most responsive and accurate touchscreens ever seen on the phone, even proving a match for the mighty iPhone. In addition to the touchscreen display, the Palm Pre also has a gesture control section which sits below the display in the phones black surface. Here such actions as scrolling, pinch and zoom and swiping backwards to go back a page are controlled in the gesture area. Working similarly to the LG GD900 Crystals transparent touchpad, the Pre gesture control works well allowing you to navigate without blocking the display, a benefit when web browsing.
The Pre runs on Palms all new WebOS platform, an operating system built from the ground up specifically for the phone. WebOS on the Palm Pre is one of the best looking operating systems found on a smartphone to date offering an intuitive user interface that is fast and fluid and also easy on the eyes. The home screen features customisable widgets at the bottom which are joined by an ever present launcher shortcut (which cannot be removed but then why would you want to). Another great feature of the operating system is text/ email etc. notifications which pop up in the notifications area at the bottom without disrupting any apps you may be currently running. With WebOS, the Palm Pre is fully capable of multitasking several applications at once. Open applications are arranged like a deck of cards on the home screen and users are able to shuffle to prioritise and flick off the screen (as if dealing the card) to close the desired application. This system works well and suffers from little slow down even when running 7 or 8 different applications at once whilst all remain live in the background and continue to update themselves. The excellent new WebOS operating system isn't without its flaws, the biggest if which is its apps (or lack of). The phone currently only has 12 official apps available because the Palm App catalog (Palms app store) is still in Beta testing. With the iPhone and Android both offering literally thousands of apps to download, this could be a major stumbling block for the Pre. For the time being, you can download MotionApp's emulator called "Classic" which runs applications designed for palms previous operating system PalmOS but the sooner Palm get their app store up and running the better, especially with a UK launch only getting nearer.
The Palm Pre features a 3.15 Megapixel camera putting on a par with its main rivals (though slightly behind the recently released Android powered HTC Hero with its 5.0 Megapixel camera). The pre captures images at a maximum pixel resolution of 2048 x 1536 and shows off a good level of detail and picture quality. Capturing images is handled with the touchscreen. The majority of the display is occupied by the camera viewfinder whilst photos can be quickly and easily viewed in the gallery from a shortcut in the camera interface. The Pre is also accompanied by an LED flash so photography in low light conditions is not a lost cause. One major drawback with the Palm Pre is that it lacks video capture, a cardinal sin for a smartphone in 2009. This could potentially be remedied by a firmware update (as we saw in previous Android phones) but Palm will need to move quickly. All in all the Palm Pre is a good solid camera that gets the job done but won't trouble any dedicated camera phones.
Elsewhere the Palm Pre has a good list of features. HSDPA and Wi-Fi connectivity compliment an excellent web browser and ensure you'll be doing some seriously high speed web browsing. A built in multimedia player supports a range of audio and file formats, supporting the Amazon music store for downloads and coming with a pre-installed YouTube app which plays videos in high resolution looking great on the 3.1 inch display. The Pre also features Synergy which lets you synchronise your phone with various different sources such as Facebook and Google accounts. Synergy also puts these contacts into the phones contact list giving you a quick and easy way to contact people in several different ways. One slight drawback will become apparent for people with lots of friends on Facebook as there is no way to strip out certain contacts, it's all or nothing which, if you go for the former, can leave your contacts list quite difficult to manage.
The Pre isn't without its flaws. The phone ships with 8GB of internal memory though there is no option to expand this and, at present, Palm have no plans to release multiple memory capacities of the Pre like we've seen with some of its key rivals. The lack of Apps is also a disappointment though hopefully one we won't have to suffer when the phone launches here in the UK later in the year. The mediocre camera is also a let down; 3.15 Megapixels is acceptable as it performs admirably but a lack of video recording (especially in the wake of the newly launched iPhone 3GS which features video capture and editing out of the box) is also a big disappointment. These are all flaws that Palm can fix (though they will be pushed for time if they plan to get them in place before the phone launches in the UK!). None of these flaws manage to take the impressive shine off this new smartphone. The Palm Pre features one of the best touchscreens we've ever seen in action and WebOS looks more than a match for Apple and Android. With the phone expected to launch in early October, check back on Mobiles.co.uk as we take a more thorough look at the Palm Pre in our upcoming full hands on review.
Dan, Mobiles.co.uk
Pricing
See the best deals on the Palm Pre on our product page.
Your Comments
If you have an opinion on the Palm Pre touchscreen phone then please do let us know. Or leave your own mobile phone review if you've been lucky enough to try this phone.