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After only a few weeks, I’ve found a number of things wrong with the Palm Pre I posted about back in September.  I know, I know, I switch phones a lot and have been pretty impatient the last few years with these sorts of things, but I really made a bad choice with the Pre.

Initially I was OK with how cheap the phone appeared to be because of all of the webOS features, and the speed that I got from Sprint’s network over AT&T.  But that waned quickly with the other things that started cropping up.  Sure, the Sprint network was better than AT&T, but it still sucked at home much of the time, and at work as well.  When it worked, it worked very fast – the fastest download times I’ve ever seen on any phone or aircard.

webOS was initially very exciting – being able to have multiple running apps, and the whole card concept.  But the lack of apps available, and the quality of the apps really made the phone only useful for a few things.  It also was extremely slow to do basic things, especially the calendar.  On top of that, the basic PIM apps were missing key features – most notably the Tasks functionality for my use case.  It was very basic, and didn’t have any of the  features that tasks in Outlook has.  Being able to create tasks on the phone when I’m out and about or in a meeting, and then having them on my PC is important so I don’t forget something.

The most irritating thing was how poorly the phone was made.  Initially I thought it was something I would be able to live with, but it became a big problem.  The phone would shut off randomly at different times.  There were a lot of posts on the ‘net about the battery being loose, and how to fix it.  It never worked for me.  Additionally, the power on/off/sleep button fell off on the first phone I had.  The second phone had the same problem as the first with randomly shutting off.  It also had keys that would occasionally stick, and the slider would never open or close completely.

webOS still looks very intriguing to me, and I’m sure in a year or two it will be developed enough that it will be a reliable alternative to the iPhone and Andriod, but for now, it’s just not ready for prime-time, and especially on a network that has a lot of issues, and on hardware that is buggy.

So where did I go?  Off to Verizon and the Motorola Droid…but more on that later.

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NOTE:  I no longer use the Palm Pre – please see my updated post here.

After having to deal with a bunch of rate increases on my AT&T iPhone 3G, I decided enough was enough, and went over to Sprint and the Palm Pre.

I was pretty worried at first, mostly with the provider – Sprint.  I had heard a lot of bad things about them over the years, and folks in the Seattle area just don’t seem to be that Sprint-savvy.  I had been on AT&T and T-Mobile for the last 9+ years, and had become used to their ways.

Suffice to say, after a bit over a week of use, the Sprint network has impressed me – much better call quality, and much faster 3G access around town.  Of course, part of that, I believe, has to do with the Palm Pre itself – it seems to be much snappier whether on 3G or Wifi for web browsing and other data-centric apps.

I used a T-Mobile G1 and iPhone for the last 2 years, and always hated that I couldn’t have more than one application open.  Flipping back and forth always required the app to reload or relaunch completely, and slowed things down.  The design always felt like you were in a different world every time you opened up something new.  Very inefficient, especially when you’re in a meeting killing time by reading emails, and then need to look something up to reply.

The Palm Pre’s webOS is definitely far superior than any of the others I’ve tried out there for this reason alone – having “cards” running in the background with whatever app you’ve launched is a great breakthrough for a smart phone.

I haven’t run up against the maximum application limit that so many folks have talked about, but then again, I don’t open up needless things like Twitter or Accuweather and leave them running – I only leave the most frequently used things open all of the time.  It’s so convenient to flip between things quickly to check on status – the Google Reader page with the most recent items of the day, Email to see what’s going on at work, and the calendar to see the day’s events coming up.

The other really cool feature is Synergy – glomming all of the calendar and contact information into one unified view.  I only have one calendar, but I experimented with my Google Apps Calendar and it worked flawlessly.  One neat feature is to turn on the weather info on your Google calendar, and have it appear at the top bar of your Pre’s calendar app.

Synergy really shines in the way it combines contact information.  It found several folks in my Google Apps mail account and also in my work Exchange account and combined their contact information together.  That combined with Universal Search when you’re looking for someone has saved me a huge amount of time making phone calls – this sort of integration was mediocre at best on the G1 and iPhone.

The physical quality of the Palm Pre is a bit disappointing and I think it would be my only negative experience so far.  The keyboard seems cheap and the buttons are shiny, which is nice in the dark, but completely useless in brighter light – they all reflect horribly.  The case itself also feels very plastic, and I doubt it would survive as long as the more robust G1 or iPhone.  Nevertheless, at the rate I go through phones (currently down to 2 a year I think – close friends who are reading this might say different!) it won’t likely be an issue for me.

The lack of control over sounds is disappointing as well, but there are apps in the Homebrew store that allow you to get around this, and I expect Palm will have to add this eventually.  Having the same noise for any sort of event, calendar, SMS, or note is just plain dumb.  And the stock sounds on the Pre are so quiet you have to be totally quiet to hear any of them.  Again, the Homebrew apps save the day.

I’m looking forward to the new version of webOS due out in the next few weeks, which will re-instate iTunes syncing as well as add a bunch of new features.  I have found the best resource on the ‘net for following Pre news is http://www.precentral.net/ – good articles, excellent forums, and daily updates on Pre related news.

The other thing that has really impressed me is how stable and reliable webOS is – after all, it’s only been out in the wider masses for a short period of time, and yet it is faster and less crashy than the G1 was for the first 6 months.  I’m sure as new things are added, it will slow down a bit, but I’m pretty happy with it now, so I expect stability will only increase as more folks use it.

Hopefully this phone and provider will last me a couple of years!  Here’s hoping

steve Phone

I woke up late this evening because I couldn’t sleep, and I noticed my new G1 phone wanted me to allow it to upgrade to a new version of software.  Since I bought my phone, I was running RC19, and had been waiting for this upgrade.

I was really impressed how fast it was to upgrade – I assume the files were already pre-downloaded since it immediately rebooted when I clicked “Allow” and started the process.  It seemed that there were three major steps, and things were up and running again.

I went directly from RC19 to RC30 – bypassing the RC2x versions that were out there.

I’m sure there are other phones out there that do over the air upgrades, but none of the big smartphones I’ve used before.  The method that the G1 and Google Android has come up with should be a model for others out there.  Well done.

steve Phone g1, google phone, rc30 upgrade

A few days ago I got a call from AT&T saying that I was likely going to have an increase on my cell phone bill due to the amount of SMS’es I send and receive.   I had upgraded to the iPhone 3G shortly after it came out, and had an unlimited SMS plan.

Unlimited, to AT&T, doesn’t mean unlimited.  Apparently if you go over some threshold that only they know, they consider you using this service beyond what “normal” users would, and as such, they would like to charge you more than even the unlimited amount.

After a few calls back and forth to AT&T and working my way up the chain, it was obvious that even without this increase in my plan, that there were other increases coming to iPhone customers, especially anyone who uses them for business reasons, as I did.

So at ~$120 a month after taxes and use, I felt it was time to look for another provider that not only charged less, but also had better coverage.  For several years I had been struggling with getting good coverage both at home and at friends houses nearby.  In many cases I would have no service at all for long periods of time.  This was with three different phones, iPhone 1st gen, AT&T Tilt, and the iPhone 3G.  And this was in a pretty populated area of Seattle – Queen Anne.

I had used T-Mobile before, and had good success with them at home in terms of service coverage, but their phone models were lagging behind everyone else, and at the time I wanted the iPhone, so hence AT&T.

A friend of mine had the new G1 phone, and after playing around a little with it, and with the G1 simulator, I decided to go with the G1 on T-Mobile.

The phone itself has a few quirks, including the Jay Leno-like chin at the bottom of the phone, which has taken some getting used to.  But the rest of it is well designed and thought out.  Battery life is an issue, just like any other 3G capable phone.  All of the neat features everyone talks about can’t be used unless you charge it every 4-6 hours.

The real exciting thing to me is the Android operating system.  It’s been well thought out, and being a bit of a Google centric person myself, I really like the integration with their services.  In addition, many usability things that I have wished for in past phones have been well thought out here.

So far, the coverage at home is excellent, and the phone has worked exactly as I would expect.  Even by this point on other phones and networks, I would have found a few problems.  I’m sure there will be some, but I’m pretty confident they’ll be small, or someone will fix them in the open source community.

Looking forward to posts on the phone over the next few weeks as I learn more…

steve Phone android, g1, google phone, t-mobile