Trade in and Save $50 with HPThe form factor and overall look of the device is amazing for the most part. The solid gloss black color screams for the consumer to pick it up, the bright clear screen draws you in with the millions of colors, the slideout qwerty keyboard screams to be pressed, ans the great angled slide grabs the attention and keeps the eyes focused on it. In a design for a device you cant ask for more than that, but with the good comes the bad. When the device is slid open revealing the keyboard it exposes a semi-sharp cheese like slicer that overlaps the recessed keys so they don't make contact with the screen when closed. This to the frequent phone user is troublesome since the keyboard is a huge thing on a device and having an imperfection there can be the beginning of the end. The only other flaw with the general make-up of the device is the "Oreo Problem" that many users have faced. The oreo problem is where the phone can move quite a bit from side to side as if you were un-twisting an oreo. (you can check this out i the video below and sprint does replace these devices with new ones.)
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(Credit:
SoftSailer.com)
What I Look Forward to Most
As I have said and implied in many of my posts, I love my Pre. I have had mostly positive (mostly very positive, actually,) experiences with the phone since I got it. It works with me seamlessly for the most part and has allowed me to stay in contact with the world in ways I either could not or could not enjoy with my Blackberry Pearl. I am thrilled to be a Pre user now, and I expect many positive future Pre experiences.
Like any good consumer of technology, however, I am always looking forward to the next fun technology-mediated experience. So, in that spirit, I would like to note a few, as yet un-had, experiences I am looking forward to with my Pre:
External Notification LightThe feature I think I would most like to experience on the Pre in future is being able to tell that I have a message without having to wake up the phone to check over and over again. Ideally, the home button might light differently for different kinds of notifications--for example, blue for voicemail, red for SMS, and green for email--but I would be thrilled if it lit up at all to indicate there was a notification I needed to review.
Visual Voicemail
I hope this is in the works 'cause this would be a great feature on the Pre--one I have have only heard about as a cell user and never experienced except for my limited experiments with Google Voice. The Pre is a phone that already excels at messaging and notifications in many ways, but without visual voicemail and (another missing feature I mention below), there are limits to how excellent the phone can be for messaging.
Forwarding SMS/MMS Messages
As it is, I do a lot of SMS and MMSing and I love doing both of these on my Pre, but I really look forward to being able to forward SMS/MMS messages.
Copying and Pasting More Easily
Yes, there is a way to copy/paste currently. But it doesn't work in all fields (received SMS's, for example) and it's kind of a pain to have to hold two keys down and drag. I don't do it very often because it's a bit too complicated, but I would do it a lot if it was made more easy. WebOS 1.1 has apparently got an easier method enabled in Memos--a way that involves some tapping for whole word and paragraph selection. This is the kind of thing that qualifies as "more easily" for me.
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(Credit:
Sprint)
So, in the spirit of moving forward with the Palm Pre, I have collected the following ideas based on happy Pre user experiences. Some of these are pretty great.
Maybe Sprint/Palm should have another contest for the best Pre marketing idea?
PreCentral member "Meriweather" describes one possible TV commercial:
Have a series of ads that play on the use of cards and multi-tasking--an arena where Palm has an advantage over the iPhone. For example, an ad with a street magician saying, "pick a card, any card" to a throng, and you pan in, and he flips through a series of apps on the Pre, showing calendar, Pandora, email, photos, TV, whatever you want to show off. People in the crowd are oohing and aahing, and shouting out, "we want pandora", "play a video" "check email", etc. Then the magician says, "no problem we can do all of them. All at the same time." The crowd cheers, except one guy with slumped shoulders, who slinks away.
"Ronlongo" describes his idea:
How about an ad where they show all of life's things going on all over the place (meetings, tasks lists, emails, etc.) like a jumbled chaos maybe as separate (but live) images moving around at random on the screen and the actor going crazy trying to manage and remember it all.Then swap to another actor. Suddenly all the activities resolve into a deck of playing cards again with live pictures on them. For example, one depicting a meeting at work going on, another showing Little Pete's baseball game, etc. the actor shuffles through the cards with ease managing them with complete ease. The meeting card depicts the meeting come to an end and the actor discards the card.
Finally the actor pulls all the cards together into a stack. Touches the top of the stack (where the Pre's power button is) and the stack resolves into a Palm Pre.
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(Credit:
d0lph1nK1ng)
It looks like I'm going to have to stop being so lazy and find access to Mac OS 10.5+ so that I can get filecoaster on my Pre so that I can install the latest and, perhaps, greatest homebrew app to date..
Yes, that's right: There is now a Google Voice homebrew app that looks too good to pass up.
If homebrew app installing is not so much your style, vote over at Google Voice for them to work on a native app for the Pre. For now, as Derek over at PreCentral explains:
Blackberry and Android owners can get apps. iPhone users, well, they've just been blocked out of the service thanks to Apple's insanely terrible app policies. Seems like a good opportunity for Palm, doesn't it?Do you want such an application for webOS? Of course you do.
Mosey on over to Google Voice's suggest a feature page, scroll down to the mobile applications section, and check off Palm Application. Hopefully Google will make it and Palm will accept it and you, friend, will use it.
So, um...what are you waiting for? Vote already!
Since I have been a Sprint user for coming up on a decade now, I took its service level for granted. I am going to attempt to rectify that now with some basic notes on how the service is with Sprint and the Pre.
While I cannot compare against personal experience (see above), I do have friends with a mix of cellular carriers and I can compare against them. In my area (Seattle), I have rarely noticed an instance where I got worse service than others around me and have noted several times to be getting any/better/more reception in places that my friends are not.
And for me, that has always been my biggest boost about Sprint. I seem to get service everywhere (aside from a trip through South Dakota) and other than when I had to order a new phone and change service plans, I have never even had to interact with Sprint's customer service, which is what most complaints about Sprint seem to stem from. Also on the plus side is that I have the least expensive bill of anyone that I know and that even includes some friends who do not have any sort of data plan on their phone.
Not only is the service prevalent but it is fast as well which is good because I often have to use Sprint's service to cover for the completely abysmal performance by cable and internet company (No, it's not Comcast. I wish I had Comcast) which constantly drops my internet service for hours at time. That has resulted in me spending time actually forced to use my Pre's web browser to get work done and that it can cover for that in a pinch is another feather in Sprint and Palm's caps.
I'm back to talk about a few apps I downloaded, but before I do that, I want to inform you about what just happened to me. I just received my SPRINT phone bill and there was an extra $70 added onto my bill for call forwarding. Actually 350 minutes of call forwarding at .20 a minute. The reason for the call forwarding, which I've never done before, was so I can test drive the Palm Pre, but the Pre has it's own phone number so I just forwarded all my calls from my cell phone over to the Pre. Not knowing I was going to be charged for the forward calls, it's been a month since I turned on the call forward option. So I called SPRINT and told them of the $70 over charge and without any hesitation or combat, they removed the $70 immediately...My hat goes off to you SRINT, that's why I've been with you all these years. Kudos to your customer service team.
Now back to the App Store. I've been missing the games I like to play on my phone, like Backgammon, Free Cell, Bejeweled, etc., however, the Palm Pre doesn't have these apps as of yet, but they do have the Classic Motion App, which is the old Palm OS that is on the 700p, 650, 600 and the 755 Palms. Here are a couple of pictures of what Classic Motion looks like:
Classic Apps looks like the little tuxedo in the first picture. The second picture is the old Palm OS desktop once Classic Apps opens up. Noticed backgammon and bejeweled? They are the old games I had on my old Palm 700p. I just opened up the install folder in the Classic Apps program and dragged and dropped these two games over and they work perfectly, like they were on my old Palm OS. You just have to get use to the arrow keys and tweak it a little and away you go. So now I'm really happy with my Palm Pre. You can even buy games or programs off the Classic Motion website,LINKTEXTHERE without having to do the home brew thing, which I am terrified of. Manipulating my phone has never worked for me, it would always lock up then I would have to take out the battery, reset the phone and remove any program that caused the conflict. I like the Classic Motion Apps program much better. Enjoy.
For some reason beyond my comprehension, the moment you click the missed call, it starts dialing it!!! Not something you want when the call is apparently from VIETNAM!
So far, I have not found a way to clear out the missed call notification without dialing the number of the call you missed.
I have tried ignoring the missed call and go into my call log, but that won't clear it out. The only thing I can do is click the missed call notification, and start clicking 'end call' feverishly until it hangs up. If there is a way to learn about missed calls or clear the notification with out returning the call, it is not remotely obvious, which is a fail as well.
This is an unacceptable and unreasonable lack of functionality, Palm.
**Update**
Some of my fellow bloggers gave some good advice on handling this. Catherine Gouge has a nice blog on all of the notifications (Notifications: The Good, The Bad, and The Pretty), and Jamduke reiterated that you can remove a notification by swiping it to the right.
I still wish there was a choice to call a missed call, or any call listing for that matter, rather than having it automatically start calling.
After three weeks of living with two phones, I've finally gotten the Pre on my own Sprint account. No more Samsung Instinct. No more charging two, carrying two, and texting from two phones.
With my life all bundled up in one smartphone I'm finally gettin' in the groove. I love the Palm Pre more every day!
Favorite features to date:
Flick Right to Delete; whether notifications, individual emails, texts/IM's, or photos the user can flick the item off the screen, to the right, and the item is deleted.Tweed; With all the functionality of my favorite desktop Twitter application, Thwirl, the Tweed app is feeding my every growing Twitter addiction.
Email; I love the ease of setting up a new email account, the ability to view all new emails, from every account, in one place, and the ability to change which account I'm sending from, even if I hit "reply" to an email in another account.
I'm all about networking, and being able to do it efficiently with the Palm Pre is a huge plus.
(Credit:
Sprint)
In the past I've found Sprint's customer service lacking on many levels, however, this week I've had three very nice technical support experiences.
I had requested over a week ago that my free service from Sprint be canceled so I could put the Pre on my own account to more fully experience it's features. I got an email saying they would turn it off last Tuesday night, but as of this Monday morning the service was still connected. I finally turned the phone back on, knowing I would enjoy using the Pre on my trip. And I did. For the first 3 hours.
... Read moreWell, I'm back with a LOUD ANNOUNCEMENT for all you people out there who've read all the reviews and seen all the commercials for the Palm Pre and just can't wait to get your hands on one, BUT, belong to another phone carrier......."RUN, RUN FAST, HURRY AND ESCAPE TO THE DOORS OF SPRINT.COM!! YOUR WASTING YOUR MONEY AT THESE OTHER CARRIERS, THEY'RE BLEEDING YOU DRY...COME TO SPRINT A.S.A.P.
I've been with SPRINT since 1998 and have never changed. Yes we've had our ugly times but we've always worked it out. I decided to check in with Verizon and AT&T, the top two leading cell phone carriers, for their pricing of a 3000 minute family plan. Why did I chose this plan? Because that's the plan that my husband, myself and my son have. So, lets do a cost comparison for 3 PEOPLE on the plan and own a SMART PHONE (Blackberry, Iphone, or Palm Pre):
THESE PRICES ARE FOR 1 MONTH WITH 3 PEOPLE ON THE PLAN
COMPANY....3000 min FP........DATA.......TXT/PIC......GPS........TV......ADD PER.......TOTALS
AT&T............$149.99...........$30 ea.......$10 ea.....$10 ea......N/A.......$9.99.........$309.99 mth
VERIZON........$149.99..........$30 ea........$10 ea.....$10 ea......N/A.......$9.99.........$309.99 mth
SPRINT..........$169.99...........incl...........incl...........incl.........incl.........$19.00.......$189.98 mth
REMEMBER, these prices are for 1 month with 3 people on plan. AT&T and Verizon charge for the third person and up is $9.99 ea. But Sprint's charge for 3 people and up is $19.99 ea. A bit more but you still come out cheaper than AT&T and Verizon.
NOW LETS DO THE MATH FOR A YEAR
AT&T........$309.99 a mth x 12 = $3,720.00
VERIZON....$309.99 a mth x 12 = $3,720.00
SPRINT......$189.99 a mth x 12 = $2,280.00
SAVINGS: AT&T/VERIZON $3,720.00 -(subtract) SPRINT $2,280.00 = $1,440.00 (SAVED)
So in these hard economical times we really need to re-think what we're spending money on and how much we're getting for our money. With AT&T and VERIZON you have to pay for each individual thing you want but with SPRINT you get everything you need in one package for a very low price.
NEED I SAY MORE!
These prices do not include taxes.
