The Pre is small and sleek. The front panel, which features a beautiful 320-by-480 HVGA screen, is marred only by the Center button.
3Front 2
Slid open, the Pre presents a compact QWERTY keyboard. The keyboard may be difficult for those with larger thumbs, but I found the soft, gummy keys easy to work with.
4Top
The top of the Pre features the power button, a ringer control lever and a 3.5mm headset jack.
5Right
The right side has but a single feature: a covered Micro USB slot for sideloading to a PC or charging the battery.
6Left
The left side of the device is home to the volume controls.
7Back
The backplate (whether the stock one that comes with the Pre or the charging plate that comes with the Touchstone) has the speakerphone and camera, plus an insanely bright camera flash.
8Inside
Popping off the back cover reveals the Pre’s biggest early flaw: the underpowered battery. In my tests, the Pre recorded as little as 3 hours of talk time on a single charge-one of the worst numbers I’ve seen to date for a smartphone.
9Quick Launch and Launcher
At left, the Quick Launch bar provides access to the applications used most. Other applications are presented in the Launcher (middle, right), which starts as three panels of available applications. The organization of the Quick Launch bar and Launcher are user-configurable.
10Card View
WebOS supports background applications. Users can toggle among applications by pressing the Center button on an in-focus application, which switches to a smaller presentation (right). Users can then scroll side to side via the touch-screen to move the focus to another running app. To close applications, simply flick the card toward the top of the touch-screen.
11Phone
The Pre’s on-screen dialer (left) is easy to use, and users can access the contact database by just pushing the button on the lower right. Call logs show All or Missed calls (middle), and on-screen controls make it simple to view, accept or reject incoming calls (right).
12E-Mail
The Pre works with POP3, IMAP and Microsoft Exchange Server (via ActiveSync). With multiple e-mail accounts configured, users can choose from among several views, melding in-boxes from multiple accounts into a single unified view if desired.
13Attachment Trouble
I had trouble downloading attachments from my work Exchange account for some reason.
14Attachment Successes
I found that attachment viewing worked well on an IMAP server. Shown here is the viewer for PDFs (left) and DOCX documents (right). Document editing is not available without a third-party application (and there isn’t currently one in the App Catalog).
15Calendar
The Pre aggregates calendar data from multiple sources. In tests, I could simultaneously view entries from my Exchange account and my free Google Apps account.
16Contacts
Contacts are also integrated from multiple sources on the Web, integrating data from different sources where applicable (middle). Users can also edit contacts on-device for synchronization with the remote source, adding details such as IM addresses (right).
17Search
The Pre makes it easy to search from multiple sources, presenting a simple dialog to search from Google, Wikipedia or the local history. In fact, the Pre blurs the distinction between searching the device and the Web: If you start typing at the home screen, the Pre looks for a local contact that matches the search before switching to a Web search.
18Location
For use with the built-in GPS chip, the Pre comes bundled with Google Maps (shown), complete with location detection and traffic indicators. Turn-by-turn directions are available via the included Sprint Navigation application (not shown).
19Wi-Fi Controls
Radio controls-for Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and Airplane Mode-are easily accessible by tapping the radio icons at upper-right on the touch-screen. Here, I easily joined an 802.11b/g network protected by WPA2.
20Attach to PC
Connecting the Pre pulls up the left dialog, asking the user to select the operational mode. At right, the Pre is configured as a USB drive only, which negates the device’s ability to accept incoming calls or texts.
21Bluetooth
The Pre supports A2DP stereo Bluetooth. My Motorola MotoROKR S9 stereo headset was easily discoverable and able to play stereo music-say, from the Pandora add-on application.
22No Juice
Pre users will quickly grow accustomed to seeing the Pre’s warnings for depleted batteries. As a likely unintentional Easter egg for knowledgeable Palm customers, the only way I could make this warning go away was to remove the battery.
23Reset
Experienced Palm users are used to the need for full or partial resets. The Pre makes it easy to perform either, although my device struggled to recover from a full reset.
24Pandora
Selection is currently limited in Palm’s App Catalog beta, but the ever-present, ever-great Pandora application is now available. In tests, Pandora worked great on the move-except when moving from EVDO to 1XRTT data coverage, which tended to halt music playback.
25Accessories
The Pre comes with a small wall charger, Micro USB cable, 3.5mm earbud headset and small carrying pouch.
AI 3D Generators are powerful tools for many different industries. Discover the best AI 3D Generators, and learn which is best for your specific use case.
I spoke with Zeus Kerravala, industry analyst at ZK Research, about the rapid changes in enterprise networking, as tech advances and digital transformation prompt...
I spoke with Amit Agarwal, President of Datadog, about infrastructure observability, from current trends to key challenges to the future of this rapidly growing...