Palm made a splash at CES in 2009 with the announcement of webOS and I’d say they’ve done a good job maintaining that momentum. A year later, they’ve added Verizon and AT&T to the roster and updated both the Pre and Pixi with – what some might call – minor updates. It’s been a week since the Pre Plus (Pixi Plus, too) went on sale with Verizon and the following is what I’ve managed to gather about the latest device in a little over a week.
Hardware
To the untrained eye, the Palm Pre Plus looks exactly like the Palm Pre that was released back in June (’09). Upon closer inspection you’ll notice that the Verizon variant sports a clean and button less façade. It’s safe to assume that Palm learned a thing or two with the Pixi, which lacks a physical button and relies solely on a touch-sensitive gesture area. It’s incredibly responsive and depending on which direction you swipe, the area just below the screen lights up and trails the movement of your finger. It’s this little area that serves as the control center for navigating and initiating webOS applications. But more on that later.
Slide the Pre Plus open and you’re presented with an updated keyboard that’s less mushy and firm to the touch. It gives a satisfying click and it’s much easier to mash out text messages or e-mails with this keyboard than the previous Pre keyboard. I think my claustrophobia tricks my brain into thinking that the Pre Plus keyboard is smaller and more confined than it really is compared to the Pixi keyboard.
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The battery cover is now Touchstone ready out of the box so you can slap the device onto the inductive charging stone without having to switch backplates.
Under the hood, Palm beefed up the RAM, which is most noticeable when flicking through various “cards” or apps, but it’s not quite fast enough compared to other devices available on the market. It is, however, far less frustrating to use compared to the Sprint version and it actually multi-tasks compared to that other device made in Cupertino. Internal storage doubled from 8GB to 16GB.
webOS and Software
When Palm unveiled webOS at CES ’09 I almost fell over in my chair. It’s a ridiculously powerful OS that continues to surprise me the more I use it. The key features of webOS are multi-tasking, unobtrusive notifications and Synergy. Each individual app (camera, phone, browser, etc.) is a “card” in the webOS ecosystem that’s displayed side-by-side with other cards that continues to run or stay open until you flick it off the screen by swiping from the bottom to top. It’s that simple.
Have you ever received a text message or calendar notification that interrupts whatever task you’re currently involved with? Has it taken you away from said task even though what you really want to do is ignore it? Well, with webOS, you never have to respond to such a notification until you’re ready to address it.
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Synergy is this crazy thing that Palm came up with to manage your online persona. It compiles data from up to eight different accounts from: Exchange, Facebook, AIM, Palm profile, and Google/Gmail. For example, calendar events from Exchange and Facebook are color coded so you know which events are for pleasure and which are for business. A neat feature in Calendar truncates whatever day you’re looking at so you don’t see the gaps between meetings, for example. In other words, if you have a meeting at 8AM, an early dinner 6 and a phone call at 11:30PM, those are things you’ll see instead of empty time slots. Contacts are condensed so you don’t have double entries, which is nice but it pulls in just about every person you’ve ever e-mailed when syncing with your Gmail account.
If you’re a Pre or Pixi owner then you have nothing to worry about on the software front because all Palm webOS devices are currently running v1.3.5.1. Palm will release v1.4 of webOS sometime this month and with it comes the ability to record and edit video, battery and performance fixes, as well as access to a Beta of Flash 10.1 for the real McCoy Flash in the browser.
Unlike the Sprint Palm Pre, Verizon decided to leave the Pre Plus and Pixi Plus untouched except for VZ Navigator, which Palm redesigned. If you’re familiar with VZ Navigator on any other Verizon device then you know what to expect with it on the Pre Plus and Pixi Plus.
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Miscellany
Battery life on the Pre Plus is like any other 3G device that’s chock-full of must-have features like GPS, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, etc. Your mileage will vary depending on data usage, Web browsing, e-mail, etc. You’ll get through lunch and then some with moderate use. But don’t stray too far from an outlet. You’re better off keeping the thing charged whenever possible.
The camera works great with adequate light and everything taken within a few feet with flash gets blown out. The same can be said for every other camera phone available. Par for the course, I say.
Phone calls on both ends are fine.
Verizon is mighty and works just about everywhere I’ve gone and that includes NYC, San Francisco and their respective boroughs and/or suburbs.
Mobile Hotspot App
Something inherent to Pre Plus and Pixi Plus owners on Verizon is the Mobile Hotspot App. This free app essentially turns either device into a mobile hotspot that you can connect up to five devices to. It’s ridiculously easy to setup and use. Changing the network name and adding a password is dead simple – tap either one and alter at will. You’re alerted to any and all devices that connect to the hotspot, too. It’s a battery suck, though. And the pricing is high – $40/month for 5GB of data ($0.05/MB over that).
The Bad
The Pre Plus boasts the same CPU as the iPhone 3GS and, yet, I find myself tapping my fingers waiting for certain apps and basic features to fire up. Palm promises speed improvements in v1.4 of webOS and I know the guys in Sunnyvale are working hard to remedy the situation ASAP. I can’t help but wonder how webOS would run on hardware like the Nexus One and it’s 1GHz Snapdragon processor. Look, I get it, Palm, I know webOS devices multi-task, but enough is enough. I shouldn’t have to wait a few seconds for the dialer to pop up when nothing else is going on in the background. And those demos from EA at CES ’10 certainly didn’t help. Those games were flying on the Pre Plus and I can’t help but think that webOS has a lot of fat that needs to be trimmed. But I’ll wait until v1.4 before I say anything else. The updates for webOS have been coming fast and frequently since June of ’09.
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I was really hoping for brand new hardware at CES this year because the Pre and Pixi are too tiny when you look at all the other devices that it competes with. The iPhone and the most recently released Android devices like the Nexus One and Droid have large screens. And then you have those full QWERTY BlackBerrys like the Bold 9700. I would love Palm more if the devices were bigger.
Others are just now reporting this about the GPS, but there are some serious issues. I don’t actually think the Pre Plus has a faulty GPS chip, but something isn’t meshing well with Google Maps. An easy way to circumnavigate the Google Maps issue is to launch VZ Navigator, which has no problem locking onto my location, so I’m pointing the finger at Google Maps. We’re still investigating this one and will report back.
Conclusion
Palm has clawed its way back to the big kid’s table in the last year, but they’ve still got some work to do. The catalog of apps is sparse and nothing compared to Apple’s App Store and the Android Marketplace but now that Palm has opened things up, we should see a flood of apps this year. webOS is probably the best OS available on any mobile device, but it desperately needs to trim the fat to compete with its speedier competitors. I’ve heard rumors of new hardware in the pipe for this year, so I’m hoping for big things down the road.
Part of me wonders whether or not Palm will implement webOS on devices other than mobile phones. Android tablets were the rage at CES this year and then Apple released the iPad. I wonder what webOS would look like on a tablet.
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Anyway, if you’re on Verizon and looking for a Napolean-like (you know, small but powerful) device then snatch the Pre Plus immediately. While I prefer the form factor of the Pixi Plus (this lil guy now has Wi-Fi), the Pre Plus is the cream of the crop from Palm.
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