WebOS refined
If you haven’t used a Pre before, there’s also a bit of a learning curve imposed by the WebOS operating system. The main thing is the gesture-based navigation – brush upwards from the touch-sensitive panel beneath the screen to bring up menus from the home page. Brush up when you’re in an app to reduce the screen size and brush up again to leave the app.
Universal searching, WebOS 2.0 style
Moving between apps is really quick too, and I never noticed any sign of lag, no doubt helped by the powerful Texas Instruments 1GHz Omap 3630 processor which powers the Pre 2. It's a big step up from the 600MHz chip in the Palm Pre Plus.
The Pre 2 is the first handset to feature WebOS 2.0. Palm has made a few cosmetic tweaks, and the OS now seems a bit tighter and more professional. For instance, the universal search is now renamed Just Type, and sure enough, when you start typing from the home page, you’ll be presented with a screen offering a selection of potential apps, from email to search to maps, that you might want to use it for.
Multitasking is fully embraced, and you can have just about every app running at once if you like. It’s easy to keep track of them too: if you tap the gesture bar to minimise an app, you’ll see all of your open apps ranged as a line of cards. And by dragging and dropping them you can now arrange the cards into "stacks" so you can keep all your favourites together.
Next page: Tweaks here, tweaks there
COMMENTS
On par with the Desire HD is about right
Having used equal measures of Pre and Desire HD, the equal rating makes sense.
The Desire HD has great hardware but the software is lacking as some of the HTC "improvements" aren't very well thought out, a bit buggy or missing something small which makes the experience a little frustrating. As in, loads of features but the polish isn't quite there.
Case in point, you cannot read a contacts address if it is too long because it scrolls off the end of the screen and doesn't word-wrap. Or if you start the calendar, flip sideways three days, hit menu and then "Add Schedule" that the date pre-populated isn't the one you're were looking at when you added the appointment. Yeah, both of them are minor and there are workarounds - but that isn't the point, it is the small things like these which show the difference between a user interface that has been carefully thought through and designed with how people use the device in mind and one which, well, hasn't.
On the other hand with the Pre, the software is really slick, has a great look and feel and is very intuitive. What lets it down is the poor quality hardware (case and the low resolution screen) and the fixed keyboard with tiny keys - which may be loved by techies the world over but not by the rest of the phone buying public.
HP could be onto a winner here if they get the hardware right. Of course, that is a big "if", but fingers crossed for them...
They missed a trick with the name
It should have been Pre++.
Nope
I'm still waiting for a smartphone* where I can have it on me, USE it's many functions, and not have to keep in the back fo my mind where I might find a suitable charging point if I need it...
* I'm don't include iPhones - hate 'em!
exactly
for a 4-day battery in a smart phone, it'd weigh a ton and be the size of an 80's mobile phone brick. and while you might be willing to buy it, i'd suspect you're the only one
Turds
I agree wholeheartedly. The Pre2 with webOS2 pushes way in front. I'd also point out that, in my book, 200000 turds are not better than 4500 diamonds.
And moving on to the review... page 3 makes it sound like unified email inbox, Exchange push mail and a flash for the camera are new. Eh, no.
