Hardware hiccoughs
Facebook and Twitter apps are available from the App Catalog, and you can sync your Facebook contacts and pics, but as yet there’s no FriendStream or Motorola Motoblur-style app to pull all your message updates together.
The screen's not the sharpest around
Palm’s browser is decent enough, even if it’s a bit lacking in functionality. There’s no word search or multi-page viewing for instance, but it’s certainly fast, you can pinch or double tap to zoom. It also supports Adobe Flash 10.1, though disappointingly BBC iPlayer isn’t supported yet. There’s also a YouTube app on board.
The screen isn’t the sharpest so watching videos isn’t exactly of the first water but there is at least the option to stretch them to fill the screen, which is always welcome. The sound from the music player is surprisingly good through the supplied headphones. And there’s an impressive 16GB of storage on board which will be enough for most. It'll have to: there's no memory card slot.
Another flaw: the really rather tiny battery doesn’t quite hack it and delivered barely a day's worth of admittedly fairly heavy use.
Verdict
Palm has won fans among those who like a phone to be cute, smart and intuitive, enviably quick, but not too complicated, and the Palm Pre 2 continues to refine that proposition with faster processing power, a better camera and, thanks to WebOS 2.0, improved functionality. ®
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Palm Pre 2 WebOS 2.0 smartphone
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.
