Palm Pre Reviews are in: Looks Like a Stellar 1.0
The big Palm Pre launch is Saturday and, as expected, the big boys of the mobile tech world have started publishing their reviews of the new smartphone. There are so many reviews, it’s hard to catch all of them, but we were up late in the night cruising the web to find as many as we could. The big news is that for the most part, they are all positive, something that is rare for a new smartphone like the Pre. Here are the major reviews of the Pre and a brief takeaway from each:
Walt Mossberg (WSJ): “All in all, I believe the Pre is a smart, sophisticated product that will have particular appeal for those who want a physical keyboard.”
David Pogue (NYT): “All right, then: the Pre is a spectacular achievement. Zero to 60 in one version.”
Engadget: “To put it simply, the Pre is a great phone, and we don’t feel any hesitation saying that. Is it a perfect phone? Hell no. Does its OS need work? Definitely. But are any of the detracting factors here big enough to not recommend it? Absolutely not.”
USA Today: “The first Palm Pre will certainly give the iPhone and other rivals a run for their money. To be sure, there are areas where it could improve: Bring on the apps.”
PC Magazine: “Overall, though, webOS is the most exciting mobile platform I’ve used in quite a while, and the Pre is pretty impressive, so it nabs our Editors’ Choice for smartphones on Sprint.”
Gizmodo: “The Pre may have hardware that’s worse than the G1/G2, but the whole package — the software and the hardware — isn’t bad. It’s good. It’s different. That’s something we can get behind. I can’t wait to see what Palm gets dealt in their next hand.”
preCentral: “So what’s our verdict on the Palm Pre? Simple: The Palm Pre is a stellar 1.0 product. Given Palm’s fractured and foible-filled history, the fact that they were able to pull all this off is nothing short of amazing.”
There are sure to be many reviews of the Pre to come, our own certainly, but the overall feeling is that Palm has done a very good job with the Pre 1.0. The most consistent negative in the reviews was the poor battery life, although a couple of the reviewers said it was on par with the iPhone 3G. Fortunately, the Pre has that user swappable battery, so that is not as big an issue with the Pre as it is on the iPhone. The keyboard was also complained about in some of the reviews, but we’ve said many times how personal a keyboard is, and this one is no different.
Can the Pre sync with Microsoft Outlook for contacts? I have not seen this anywhere.
No, it doesn’t sync with Outlook through a PC. It can sync with Exchange over the air. In fact, it’s designed to sync with services over the web, not through a computer.
To answer your question, CompanionLink has said they’re bringing out something for the Pre (which one of Precentral’s many videos alludes to as well) which will sync with Outlook over Wifi.
And out of all the reviews out there, Engadget’s is clearly the best.
But yeah, I agree with the summaries here. It seems that pretty much everyone likes the initial product, and with a few software updates (much easier with the Pre than with past Palm phones, so I expect them much more often) it’ll only get better.
Supposedly there will be apps coming out soon that will do some desktop syncing. But if you do not have Exchange, move everything to GMail and then sync from there.
Overall, I liked the Engadget review the best and all were more favorable than I thought they would be (though I don’t necessarily see where Bonnie at cNet is coming from – maybe her “not a business pro or road warrior” device was about the battery?).
I have an appointment for 7:30 Saturday to get one. Looking forward to it!
Bonnie Cha lost serious credibility with her review, I’ve heard she was a bit biased in favor of the fruit, but I never caught the red flag. Until yesterdays review, the lack of comments in that review is pretty telling. Jason Chen (Gizmodo reviewer) is all over the place with his review. Attempting to use the Pre to cut cheese is very disrespectful.
BTW – there is already an update out – 1.0.2 – that will happen once you fire it up (I assume). One thing is adds is an alarm clock.
The hipe is much to do about nothing. Loads of stuff on previous palms that was really helpful are gone. Customization is gone. No calendar of events on background, a waste of space and bluetooth syncing is a problem. Forget about initial data transfer event from a palm to palm it isn’t smooth. Nice phone but missed the boat.