Palm Pre, quick glimpse
So today I went to check out the Sprint Palm Pre at the Boulevard Mall here in Buffalo, NY. First off, I saw a glimpse inside their cabinet and they definitely have more than just three (don’t know exact number though). There was no line when I went and very few checking out the Palm Pre.
Observation: After checking Twitter, you see that ‘Palm Pre’ and ‘AT&T’ are in the list of trending topics. AT&T is on there because of an opera in SF. Though, no sign of ‘Sprint’.
Web OS
The web OS was amazing. Everything felt nice while using. The card system works amazing for switching apps.
My only gripe is viewing your different apps and navigating them felt weird, I think it’s because the ribbon menu at the bottom takes up a lot of space and look like they’re part of the apps listing. You can scroll up and down and swipe left and right (reall nice indicators of how many screens of apps you have to either side). The multi-directional navigation of apps kind of makes things confusing.
Performance
I was told there is a maximum of 15 cards that could be open at a time. That’s pretty decent compared to the iphone’s one (though I’m sure Apple will do something about multi-apps).
While playing around, switching cards was very smooth, though opening menus was delayed and gave no indication that it was loading the menu (this resulted in closing menus by accident).
Sharp Edge
You may have seen the video of the Pre cutting cheese. (see embed if you haven’t)
After playing with the Pre, it indeed has a sharp edge, but at most irritates the skin on your hand. Maybe take some sandpaper to it? I don’t see this as much of a big deal unless you have sensitive hands.
Keyboard Haptics
photo by whatleydude
Compared to other Palm phones, they keyboard buttons are flatter and bigger. Noticed that I mistyped very often and the small spell checker database. Words went uncorrected.
App Catalog (the app store)
The App Catalog is still in Beta, so stability is questionable. There a very few apps currently available. Tweed (by pivitollabs) twitter client is very nice.
Discounts
Sprint has some really awesome discounts off monthly bills. I found out since I go to UB, I get a discount of 10%, but then since I get paid by UB also (part-time at CIT Helpdesk) I get a total of 19%!
Here are some discounts I found out:
- 10% for students at UB
- 19% for working at UB
- 25% for Tops employees (insane!!)
Conclusion
I’m really tempted to get it, but I think I’ll wait for WWDC to see what Apple has to offer.
