Palm Pre Phone Sprint
Posted by Smartphone Review on February 3, 2010
The revolutionary Palm Pre will make your life simpler by always being one step ahead. The Palm Pre will pull each of your online calendars into a single, easy-to-view screen, so you’ll always be on top of your appointments, and it will automatically link all your contacts from different sources, letting you easily find what you need when you need it. Whether you are sending emails or text messages, browsing the web, listening to music, or simply making a phone call, the Palm Pre makes everything easier than ever.
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Palm Synergy Brings Your Calendars and Contacts Together
The Palm Pre features Synergy technology, which gathers all your information from different sources and puts them together in one place for you to see. Instead of having your information scattered in different screens, the Pre automatically brings them together so you can easily find what you need. If you have calendars from Microsoft Outlook, Google, and Facebook, Synergy will automatically gather all your appointments and put them into one easy-to-view calendar, so you won’t miss an appointment again.
The Pre also makes managing your contacts simple — not only will it gather your contacts from different places such as Google, Exchange, and Facebook, but if you have the same contacts in different places, this revolutionary phone will automatically link them together so they show up just once. And all your conversations with the same person will automatically be gathered into one chat-style view. For example, if you start a conversation via text message with someone, the Pre lets you quickly reply via IM or email.
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Sleek, Attractive Design with Easy-to-Use Keyboard
The Palm Pre features a sleek design that looks great and fits easily into your pocket. It measures 2.3 x 3.9 x 0.67 inches (WxHxD) and weighs just 4.75 ounces. The pebble-shaped phone has a beautiful 3.1-inch touch screen with a vibrant 24-bit color 320×480 resolution display that lets you watch videos in full widescreen format. When it’s time to write an email, you don’t have to settle for a small onscreen keyboard. Simply slide out the QWERTY keyboard for fast and accurate text input. The Palm Pre has 8GB of built-in memory and uses a standard 3.5mm stereo headphone jack so you can connect any headphone you want.
3G, Wi-Fi, and GPS Keeps You Connected
The Palm Pre is smartly connected to the Internet all the time, so you’ll always have quick access to your email, calendars, and other information. When you are on the road, the Pre connects to Sprint’s 3G network for Internet connectivity wherever you are. Sprint’s 3G network is America’s most dependable and provides outstanding speed and performance. If you are home or near a Wi-Fi hotspot, the Pre can also connect to it for even faster connectivity. And with GPS functionality built in, the Pre will let you look up directions or nearby points of interest even if you’re not sure where you are.
Live Email that Connects with Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync
The Palm Pre features live email, which means that whenever you get a new email, it is pushed directly onto your phone. You don’t have to wait manually push a refresh button or wait for a scheduled sync. And if your email has attachments, you can view audio, video, images, and other documents directly on the Pre. For business users, the Pre can connect to your work email through Microsoft Exchange Activesync, making things easy for your IT department.
WebOS Operating System Lets You Multitask and Do More
The Palm Pre runs Palm’s new webOS, which lets you keep multiple applications open at the same time and move easily between them. Each application is represented by an on-screen card. You can flip through the cards, move them around, or throw them off the screen to close the application.
The webOS features universal search capability, so if you need to find anything, simply start typing. The Pre will first search through your contacts and applications to see if it can find what you’re looking for, and then it will offer to search Google, Google Maps, Wikipedia or Twitter. No matter what you’re looking for, the Pre will quickly help you find it.
 Watch videos in full widescreen format. View larger. |
If you receive a text message or have a calendar appointment coming up, the webOS will let you know you with a small, unobtrusive notification on the bottom of the screen. You’ll always know what’s going on without being completely interrupted.
Take and View Photos, Watch Videos, and Listen to Music
The Pre lets you take great pictures with the built-in three-megapixel camera with LED flash. You can also watch widescreen videos on the beautiful screen, or buy songs from the Amazon MP3 store and listen to them with the built-in music player.
Download Applications Directly Onto Your Phone
The Pre’s App Catalog makes it easy to download new applications by simply browsing for them and downloading them directly to your phone. By downloading additional optional applications, you can do more with your phone.
Automatic Over-the-Air Back Up
The over-the-air Palm Services automatically backs up your data and lets you restore it — all without connecting to your computer. If your phone is lost or stolen, you can even remote erase everything on it. Additionally, the phone will automatically receive software updates so it will always be up to date.
* Activating and Setting Up the Palm Pre on First Use
After receiving Palm Pre, it needs to be set up and activated. Activation requires a few steps. First, turn on the phone by pressing and holding the Power button. You will be prompted to choose English or Spanish. The next screen will check for voice and data activation. Once ready, tap Next. You will be presented with a Terms and Conditions page for Palm Services. Tap Accept to continue. At this point, you’ll need to slide out the keyboard to create a new profile. Enter your name and password. The next step is entering your email address. You’ll enter the same password and email combination you first entered, and then tap Next to continue. The next screen will confirm your profile and you’ll receive an email from Palm. You’ll have to accept various terms and service, and continue to tap Next when necessary to continue. When prompted, you’ll have to choose between two location-based service settings. Either enable Auto-Locate, which provides for seamless use of location services all the time, or tap on Ask Each Time, which gives you a prompt every time an application requests the phone’s location. Once done, you’ll go through a tutorial and at the conclusion of the tutorial, an onscreen prompt will let you know that you’re done. First Use set up is now complete and your Palm Pre is ready to go.
What’s in the Box
Palm Pre smartphone, standard lithium ion battery, AC travel charger, carry pouch, USB cable, 3.5mm stereo headset.
User Ratings and Reviews
5 Stars Palm Pre is THE phone right now hands down!
Ok, I have been using the Palm Pre for 4+ months now and I have to say its the best phone I ever had. No need to reboot your phone to get it to work right like the Windows Mobile phones. No need to go into memory manager to really close applications like windows mobile and android. Beautiful and very intuitive. All your data is synced into the cloud like Google’s GMail and so forth. Speaker phone is nice and loud and love the GPS turn by turn directions. I bought an aux capable so that I can plug my phone into my car speakers when I need directions. The app store is growing and not with the focus of quantity but with the focus on quality. Android and iphone boast a lot of applications but if you want to wade through 100 fart applications, more power to you. The updates for the phone keep coming frequently. The next update (1.4) which is scheduled for end of Jan or early Feb 2010 is going to include video record and edit capabilities.
Look, I can go on and on about how this phone truly is the ultimate communication and information organization device but you have to experience for yourself. Layered calendars so when I go look at the events for the day, my work calendar, and my personal calendar show up like one or you can drop down and look into the calendars separately. Contacts are pulled from your various accounts that you have set up on the phone and synchronized into one big pot without duplicates. Now you never have to go into contacts looking for a person, just open your phone and start typing a name and you go right to them with options on how you want to communicate.
Palm hit the ball out of the park and now Android and other OSes are trying to copy some of their winning formulas. This is the phone to get if you value stability, ease of use, organization, and rich feature set. Run, don’t walk to buy this phone.
P.S. The phone/OS is so good, I had to barter to get a Palm Pixi for my wife.
Dueces
3 Stars Wanted to love it…but can’t
I’ve had the Pre since December 24th. Christmas present. I was thrilled since I had been asking for it for months and I wanted to get away from AT&T and the way to high bill for the iphone.
Well after only a week or two I am missing my iphone and here’s why.
1. I get a brand new phone that instantly needs updating.
2. I have to go to a semi sanctioned site and download 50 apps just get the phone to be a decent “phone”
i.e the phone is basic out the box outside of the multi function ability and a bunch of apps that don’t make sense. Nascar anyone?
3. It’s to damn sensitive to touch. I pulled the phone out of my jacket pocket to find out 4 or 5 apps were running. Yea for multi functionality.
4. Battery Life…worst I have ever had. From a full charge to 50% in less than two hours and I didn’t do anything but send maybe 10 texts and cruise FB for 5 mins.
5. It’s slow. Yes it has multi function ability but who cares if you have to wait 30 to 45 seconds for the system to think between apps and it gets slower the more things you have running. But again it moves fast in my jacket pocket.
6. Keyboard is way to small and moving from a virtual keyboard to this gave me almost a feeling of downgrading phone wise.
7. Sound quality is better than iphone which sucked on a good day.
After saying all that I will say the phone was fun for a day or two while I figured out how to add apps. After that nothing. The phone fits great in the palm of my hand and the camera is awesome. To bad I didn’t buy it for the camera.
5 Stars Short Simple review
I love this phone. I bought it when it first came out (i am now on my third one). when people asked me when it first came out whether they should buy it or not, i said no. Thats right no. It still needed time to come into its own. And now that wait is over. this phone is bar non the best phone i have ever used. it still has a few kinks, but they just keep making it better with every patch.
pros:
Best multitasking of any phone (you wouldn’t even realize you needed this before this phone, try it you will see what i mean)
The web on this thing is the best i have ever used, and yes i have used an iphone i like this better.
It has a keyboard … not the best keyboard, but it is usable. (little bigger than centro)
IT HAS A WIRELESS CHARGER!!! one of a kind unique! it is so neat.
Cons:
battery life: if you are a heavy user you will need an extended battery and currently none of the extended batteries support the wireless charger
It can lag at times which is annoying.
Lastly the “living in the cloud” idea is awesome, but make sure you use some kind of backup software, they don’t really have the whole cloud thing figured out perfectly yet. (my wife lost all her info when her phone died)
1 Star Poor Engineering + Poor Service= Ex Sprint Customer
This past summer we bought the Palm Pre to upgrade from our old analog phones. We have been loyal and happy Sprint customers for the past 7 years. After charging up both phones, it was a snap to get going- HUGE! We are both quite tech savy so we had no problems at all with the phones for the first 3 weeks. The system sounds on one of the phones stopped working…so no Pandora or any music or ringtones would work. 3 trips to the Sprint store we get a new phone. Now the same problem happened with the other phone 2 weeks later. New phones all around! Now its January and we collaborately have had 7 phones since July. All the phones have been returned and replaced no questions. All of the returns have been system quirks that are known by Palm that have not been corrected except by returning phones and then sending customers “refurbished” Palms. Whats the deal, we spent over $700 for 2 phones and renewing our Sprint contract for 2 years since for the past 7 have been flawless. Now, I have spent 4 hours on the phone between Sprint and Palm. The customer service at Sprint is horrible like most big companies. But after asking to ask for a manager to help out the first time, I was disconnected. Second, time I was put on hold for 15 minutes and transfered around and then to Palm customer service who told me that there is a 14.95 charge for using there tech support which will be waived … the dead Palm Pre had a corruption during the last software patch and fried the phone. After hour plus it was decided that I need a new phone- AGAIN. So we are deciding what to do - Since a new contract was signed and now stuck with Sprint and Palm. Today, I am going to call Sprint to see what is going to happen to either give me credit for the palms or get new devices not refubished ones. To be Continuted….
1 Star Constantly breaking! The worst phone I’ve ever owned!
PROS:
Like all other smart phones, there are lots of useful features. GoogleMaps is good to have, and Facebook and Google integration are good. But for the price, it’s nothing special. The touchstone charger is great, but for $75 it should include a cable!
CONS:
This phone is a rickety piece of junk. My current Pre can’t make a phone call without jittering in and out. The online syncing is faulty and lost my contacts. The app selection is pathetic. The list goes on.
OVERALL:
DO NOT BUY THIS PHONE! The hardware is cheap and breaks. I have had three replacements in a year, and Sprint refuses to give me a different model. My brother and a friend have had similar issues, and both Sprint and Palm acknowledge that these problems are relatively common. The operating system is unnecessarily restricted (for instance, developers can not use the microphone for any purpose, so no chance of a voice recorder feature). The MP3 player application does the job, but it’s clunky and slow with only barebones features. The GPS Map is useful, but you certainly can’t rely on it! As soon as I count on it to get me where I’m going, it starts putting my location in random places on the map and messing up the route.
I hate this phone. It’s a prime example of a product rushed to market with lots of fancy features to entice customers, but simply not designed or built well enough. The fact that it essentially cost me $400 (with a rebate for signing a 2-year contract) makes me sick. It looks like it’s been marked down a lot. Trust me - it’s still not worth it!
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