100 Hours with the Palm Pre: The Bad
Posted by Kevin Hanson | Posted in Palm, Technology | Posted on 10-06-2009-05-2008
5
The hype is over. The Palm Pre has been released, and I did my first impressions of the phone a few days back. Surely nobody will argue that WebOS is great, that the screen is beautiful, and that this is the first real competitor to the iPhone yet, but how does it actually hold up in daily usage? My girlfriend has been on the road for the past couple days, and she’s not completely impressed with what she sees…
Battery Life
Simply put, the battery life appears to be awful. After a full day of occasionally checking email, making a couple calls, and surfing the web a bit, the Pre was at 8% battery at 9PM. Perhaps this can be improved with software, but this experience happened two days in a row. Reports on the internet are that this battery could be WORSE than that of the T-Mobile G1.
Dialing 911
She has dialed 911 twice by accident. In one case, the cops actually called her back to see if there was an emergency. How did this happen? Well if you lock the phone with a pass code, and accidentally double tap the emergency call button, it dials straight out. The emergency call button is right next to the zero and sometimes the clicks don’t register perfectly, hence the double tap out of frustration, hence the call to 911.
Sluggishness / Responsiveness
We loaded 3 gigs of music on the Pre’s internal memory, and she feels like it’s a bit more sluggish ever since we did that. Has anyone else noticed this? She’s not doing any heavy multitasking. She gets rid of all the application cards. It just seems like it has slowed down since the music load. Also, sometimes the screen taps don’t register quite right. The water droplet effect is helpful, but it doesn’t happen until AFTER you clicked, when it is too late.
Anyone else out there have other negative first impressions? She has 30 days to take it back and her old Centro still sitting on her desk…
Why are you posting this if you didnt use it yourself? I can post a review saying that my sisters boyfriends cousins friends boss used the phone and its great.
Well, if your a Palm inthusist, you will be disappointed in this phone because all of the standard Palm Treo features that you love, are not included with this phone.
Battery Life is a known issue to all Palm Pre owners.
Other thoughts I thought would have made this phone a iPhone killer instantly:
Unable to forward txt messages
Unable to resend txt messages
Unable to mark a txt message as unread (as in email)
Unable to save txt messages for later usage
Unable to highlight and copy txt messages
Unable to change font size
Unable to highlight and copy from the web
Unable to change ringtones for txt messaging
There is no timestamp on each txt msg
Lock phone feature still allows you to view incoming txt messages (mask records)
Emoticons
Microphone gets covered up when holding phone with your face considering its in the position your cheek is
Speaker is not loud when watching videos, listening to music, etc.
Charger port in bad location for talking & driving
Copy & Paste feature is only available for web?
(unable to copy phone # to send to someone)
(unable to copy a txt msg to send)
No indicator light for missed alerts
Power button at the top is in a bad position to press if your phone is extended
@Usuck
I have definitely used the phone. I used it a lot over the past few days. I’m just posting the impressions of my girlfriend, one who spends the entire day on the road between customer sites. A couple thoughts…
1) This isn’t a review
2) I’m very clear that these are her findings, not mine
@Trell
You are DEFINITELY right about the microphone being covered up. When I talk to her over the phone, it often sounds like she is talking through a pillow. Luckily for Palm, most of the issues you mention can probably be fixed with software, but I don’t know if they’ll be able to fix the hardware flaws. I think it’s very apparent that this isn’t an iPhone killer. Now that being said, I think it’s the second best phone on the market.
I got the Pre the day it was released. The battery lasts me about 3 hours is all. I have to charge it constantly. My Treo 755p was actually a much better phone. The Pre is great for surfing the web, which I do a lot, but sucks as a phone and as a contact database, which I need.
I am also on my 7th (SEVENTH) replacement. I have had 4 Pre’s with problems with the touch screen. Everything from blacking out to locking up. The lack of apps is not acceptable. Before its release the Pre was featured on a Sprint page showing hundreds of apps. Those were apparently iPhone apps! Needs to eliminate accidental 911 dialing and add more contact options and different tones for text messages and system sounds. I can’t even hear the weak text message tone and I miss them all! The vibrator for silent mode also needs to vibrate for more than a 100th of a second so as to be noticed.
Overall, I love the web browser, but as an overall phone I give it a 4 on a scale of 10!
Palm should use me for testing phones. I USE mine!