It’s been nearly a year now since I’ve owned my Palm Pre.  Using the phone has been both a blessing and a curse.  While the phone was a significant upgrade from my Blackberry Curve 8330, it’s been a downgrade in regards to usability.

Here are my three complains regarding the Palm Pre:

Battery Life has always sucked.

I’ve had much better battery performance using my Blackberry and old Motorola IC902.  Now in defense of the Pre, the phone does alot more compared to my prior phones.

Web O/S isn’t mature enough.  And personally it feels unstable.

I don’t know if it’s my hardware, or if it’s the homebrew crap I have installed on my phone; but it seems with every O/S update, the stability seems to go down.  Everytime I power on the phone, there’s a 50/50 chance the phone will freeze.  I’ve done numerous doctors to this device and there doesn’t seem to be any improvement.

Phone runs hot & hardware is underpowered.

Web O/S often seems sluggish.  In order to fix this, I’ve used the homebrew CPU kernel provided by Web O/S Internals and there’s definitely an improvement in speed.   However, when you deal with overclocking, heat becomes an issue.   Now even before when I ran with the default settings, my phone always ran hot.  Even when I have it sitting on my touchstone charger, charging, the phone can easily reach over 100° F.  I don’t know why the phone ran so hot all the time but mine has always been this way from the day I bought it. Putting the heat issue aside, the phone overall is laggy.  Maybe this is because I’m running with a 1st generation Palm Pre as opposed to the Palm Pre Plus?  I have no idea.  Sprint only has Palm Pre (non plus) models available on their network.

Now don’t get me wrong, the Palm Pre is definitely been the best phone I’ve ever used. But at this point Android has jumped way ahead of Web O/S offering a wider variety of applications and customization.  When June 4th comes around, I plan on jumping ship getting the HTC EVO 4G.

3D has been around for quite some time, in fact 3D was considered the “golden era” in the 1950′s and yet very few films have ever been able to pull it off successively.

However, this past year it seems that the movie industry has decided to bring it back… Big time.

I consider 3D a gimmick and I’m not a big fan… This is due to the fact that needing an extra accessory to look at a screen seems stupid, even worse for those whom already wear prescribed glasses.  The other reason is that it’s a ploy for movie studios to make more money off you.  Paying to go see a non-3D movie in southern California is already ridiculously overpriced as it is which is why I rarely go to the theaters to begin with.  To see a movie after work hours rangers anywhere from $9 – $12.  If you want to see that movie in 3D you have pay an additional $2 – $4 to cover the cost of the 3D effects used and the glasses.

And while we’re talking about 3D glasses, I’d like to bring this to your attention.. Part of that extra cost you’re paying to see that movie in 3D goes towards those glasses you need to wear.  Alot of theaters would expect you toss them out after the movies are over.  So what if I choose to keep those glasses I paid for?  Can I go back to the theater and watch the 3D movie at a reduced cost?  I shouldn’t be obligated to pay the extra cost of 3D in full if I already have the accessory I paid for.  Of course this strategy would never fly with any theater, which bugs me but I don’t blame the theaters, I blame the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA).

Having worked for MANN Theaters, I know for a fact that theaters make no money off the movies.  The only profit theaters make is what they sell from the concession stands.  The MPAA determine the cost of the tickets as well as the extra cost to see movies in 3D.  As ridiculous as this may sound, the MPAA feel they’re not paid enough for their movies they produce; so by adding 3D, they can expect us to pay (alot) more to see these movies.  If it wasn’t the MPAA’s intention to sponge more money from you, then why don’t theaters tell you to keep your glasses and not place 3D glasses disposable containers everywhere?  They don’t because they’re required to have you to pay the full extra cost to see that movie in 3D every time.  That’s the second reason why I don’t like 3D.

I can tell you that the only movie I’ve gone out of my way to see in 3D was Avatar.  Which they did very well.  However there have been alot of films that have done a shitty job with it.. I can name three off the top of my head:

• Final Destination 4
• Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland
• Clash of the Titans

Adding 3D to a shitty film does not make it better.  And that really bugs me.  It’s one thing to pay to go see a shitty movie, it’s another when you’re forced to pay MORE to see them in 3D.  That’s just rubbing salt in the wound.

This is my third and last reason why I don’t like 3D:

3D is being shoved down our throats.  The whole focus of 2010′s CES was 3D HDTV’s.  That’s all it was, a huge hype for 3D.

Lets pretend you bought into the hype:  You just bought your brand new 3D HDTV, and you’re having people over for the Superbowl party, your HDTV comes with 2 pairs of 3D glasses, but you invited over 10 people.  So these are your options:

1. You go out and buy 8 extra pairs of 3D glasses
2. You have your friends to bring or buy their own pair of 3D glasses
3. You turn off the 3D feature on your HDTV and watch the game w/o 3D
4. You have your other 8 friends watch the game on another TV because they can’t look at a blurry screen

Option 1 sucks for you because you’re paying money for something you’ll rarely need.  Option 2 would be pretty shitty for your friends if they don’t have or forgot their 3D glasses.  Option 3 defeats the point in buying a 3D HDTV.  Option 4 defeats the purpose of having a party when the party is split up.  No matter how you look at it, all these options look pretty shitty.

At this point in time, the negatives certainly outweigh the positives of 3D.  That one time when I went to see Avatar I couldn’t help but feel like a dumb ass having to wear 3D glasses to watch a movie.  They look tacky and you look stupid wearing them.  It must feel worse for those whom wear glasses having to stack glasses to get the 3D benefit.  If manufacturers are able to come up with a way to produce 3D effects on their TVs without requiring us having to wear 3D glasses then (for me) that’s a huge benefit.

After 1 year, 11 months, and 7 days, the time has come for Dale to get a haircut.   It’s  unbelievable that this actually happened… But it did…

Dale’s Haircut Parts 1 & 2:

Dale’s Haircut Parts 1 & 2 with commentary:

First things first… iPad… Really?  When I first heard Steve Jobs use that word, I thought he was referring to some form of tampon.  Seriously.  I’m not joking…  Ten minutes later I see links to the MADTV spoof where they actually poked fun at Apple with a product called an iPad which was exactly that: An advanced tampon.  Check out the MADTV iPad spoof below:

Rumors were circulating around the net that Apple was going to call it the iSlate, and to be honest, I like that name alot more then the iPad.  MacRumors.com claimed that back in 2007, Apple had purchased the domain name iSlate.com. According to ArsTechnica, Apple has a scheduled “internal hall” meeting to discuss the iPad.  My hopes would be that somebody would notice the MADTV spoof and perhaps change the name.  I mean c’mon, let’s face it, the iPad is a terrible name.  I’m convinced whoever inside Apple came up with the name probably named it after that spoof. But enough about the name. So what is the iPad?  It’s basically a giant iPod Touch with a 9.7 inch screen.  Literally.  Every aspect of the iPad is identical to the iPhone or iPod Touch.  The O/S is a modified version of the iPhone/iPod Touch software, just scaled to fit on its 1027×768 screen. The iPad will come with iTunes built into the device.  In addition it will full support of all the 132,000 iPhone/iPod touch applications already available in the catalog.  It can run these apps in the  native iPhone 320×480 resolution, or run them in a “fullscreen mode” where it doubles up the pixel size of the application, which means the application runs at 640×960.

Aside from the iPhone/iPod Touch application support, it’s going to have support for “iBooks” which will definitely give Amazon a run for its money with their Kindle; (perhaps Amazon should lower the price on the kindle considering its lack of features).  Any books you purchase through iBooks will appear on a bookshelf as displayed on the right.   Other then that the iPad will include all the same applications you’d find on an iPhone or iPod Touch:

• Safari
• Mail
• Notes
• Contacts
• Google Maps
• YouTube
• Calendar
• etc…

In addition, the iPad has the same limitations as the do the iPhone/iPod Touch, no multi-tasking, no support for Flash, which to me is a huge disappointment.  During the announcement, you can see Steve Jobs on stage sitting on a couch casually browsing the web.  Immediately you can see an icon where some flash animation should have appeared.  You could also see him switch in and out of applications; again – no multi-tasking… Very disappointing.  I just love how Steve Jobs during the announcement was like “who needs netbooks?”  Really Steve?  …Really?

The iPad (just like the iPhone/iPod Touch) does not have a removable battery.  So over the years when the battery can’t hold a charge anymore, you’ll end up with an expensive paperweight.  Steve Jobs claimed while he was on a 10 hour flight from San Francisco to Tokyo, he was able to watch video the entire time which (admittedly) is impressive.

The only way to sync the device is using the same proprietary plug like what the iPhone/iPod Touch have.  What… No support for wireless syncing? (Even Microsoft’s Zune HD has this.)  There are no alternative connectors or USB ports on this unit (which really shocked me).  No SD card slot, no nothing.  Any sort of input or plug will need to use Apple’s proprietary plug if you need to load data onto the unit.

Apple will be releasing six different models of the iPad. The differences between these models will vary with the amount of storage space: 16GB, 32GB, and 64GB.   All models will have wifi 802.11(a/b/g/n) but the other three models will have wifi as well as 3G.  The downside is the 3G connection will only be provided via AT&T (Apple, you should have learned from the iPhone you fucking idiots).  The starting 16GB model with wifi only will cost $499, which is impressive considering how Apple normally overcharges for their other products.  Here’s breakdown on the iPad pricing:

Wifi only:

• $499 for 16GB
• $599 for 32GB
• $699 for 64GB

Wifi + 3G Connectivity

• $629 for 16GB
• $729 for 32GB
• $829 for 64GB

The available plans for 3G (provided with AT&T):

• $14.99 for 250MB of bandwidth (this plan is a rip off)
• $29.99 for “unlimited data (probably a 5GB cap, but still a decent price.)

All in all… I’m not impressed.  Again, the iPad doesn’t offer anything significantly unique from what Apple originally announced with the iPhone and iPod Touch.  And because of that I don’t see any compelling reason why I should use it over the iPhone or iPod Touch.  It’s not something I could easily carry around with me on the go due to its size.  Even if I did, I’d have to get a protective cover to prevent the screen from getting scratched or cracked.  With a netbook or laptop, this isn’t a problem as the screens aren’t exposed.

I was hoping that it would be the ultimate device to use for video playback, but considering how it’s restricted to certain video codecs, this becomes a substantial limitation as to what you can or can’t watch.  Also having no support for flash eliminates about 90% of all available video content on the web.  Also the resolution is lower then I expected… 1024×768 – which makes the screen more square then widescreen.  This means if  you were to watch high definition 720p content, you’d see approximately 1 inch of black on both the top and bottom of the iPad screen because it has to scale down the widescreen video to make it fit.  If you were to watch widescreen 16:9 content on the  iPhone/iPod Touch, the black borders would not be as thick as those screens are more rectangular with their 480×320 resolution.

I’m surprised it doesn’t have a built in webcam.  Hell the Phone has a camera, and can even capture video… Why wouldn’t this at least have a webcam?  The iPad could have been a great device to use with Skype, or any other Instant Messenger that supports video.  Certainly would have made it more useful.  I guess Apple needed to cut costs to make the price appealing.  Who knows, maybe next year they’ll include one in a newer model.

Oh and Apple, you really, really, REALLY need to change the name… I think the “iSlate” would’ve been more appropriate…  The name is iPad fucking terrible.

Yes I did say at some point I’d have a review of the Palm Pre phone up on the site.  And I did say it was going to be a video review too… However I would have been restricted to having to use my webcam to record the video and doing so would’ve been problematic for me to edit due to the format the video records in.  So I had no choice to but to write out the review.

I consider myself an advanced phone user, and I also heavily rely on my Pre.  In this review, I will be making some comparisons of the Palm Pre from other phones I have used in the past.  Also keep in mind any negativity towards this phone are things that Palm can easily integrate/improve overtime through future software updates.

After owning the phone since the day it was released in the U.S. (June 6th 2009) I must say that this phone is definitely the best phone I have ever used.

You can read up on the Palm Pre technical specifications here.

The Palm Pre Design/Build

The phone itself is actually one of the most comfortable phones I’ve ever had.  Holding it in my hand is kind of like holding a light polished rounded stone.  There are no sharp edges on the phone when in the closed position.  However that isn’t the case when you slide up the screen.  The bottom edge of the phone where the keyboard resides is rather sharp and can literally cut cheese.  You can see a video demonstration below:

My primary complaint when it comes to this phones design is the phone is kinda top heavy when the keyboard is exposed.  It’s difficult to hold properly while laying down on my bed composing a message.  The phone is meant to be held up right vertically when using it.

There have been many people complaining online about the build quality of their Palm Pre phones.  A lot of people had to get replacements due to this “oreo” effect where vertical sliders would loosen causing the touchscreen to rotate (see picture).  In most “oreo” reported cases, the screen would have this wobble where it was loose but not so much like shown in that picture.

There were other cases where hairline cracks would form where the USB port is on the right of the touchscreen.  Overtime, it would spread over the screen.  Others reported cracking appearing from where the orb button is below the touchscreen.

I consider myself lucky as I haven’t had any serious hardware issues with my phone.  The only issue I’ve had is when I’d slide my phone down, it would unexpectedly shut off.  This was due the battery being loose.  Nothing that a small piece of foam tape could not fix.

The Pre has a beautiful vibrant touchscreen measuring 1.72 inches across, and 2.58 inches vertically, the screen is smaller then the iPhone, but has the same 320×480 resolution.  The only differences between the Pre and iPhone is that the Pre touchscreen has a plastic overlay where the iPhone has glass.  With the Pre having a plastic screen overlay, it’s almost certain that at some point it’s going to scratch.  If you have a Pre, get a screen protector as soon as you can.

The phone’s keyboard buttons have this awkward ‘gummy’ feel to it.  After using my Blackberry Curve for quite some time, using the Pre’s keyboard has actually slowed down my typing speed.  The keyboard on my Blackberry would click when I pressed down on the keys confirming that the button was pressed, this isn’t the case with the Pre.  Overall, I think Palm should have used RIM’s design when they designed the Pre’s keyboard.  Its taken me quite some time to get used to it.

Battery life on the Palm Pre isn’t all that great, and to this day still sucks.  When I first had the phone, after fully charging it, I’d get roughly 4-5 hours of life from the battery.  Little did I know at that time there were a lot of things turned on that didn’t need to be running all the time.  The GPS was always on trying to acquire a signal, as was Bluetooth.  Turning both of these off extended the battery life approximately 1-2 extra hours.  A few online retailers are selling higher capacity batteries for the Pre, however with some of the higher end batteries, you end up having to apply a thicker back plate which adds bulk to your phone.  You may want to consider investing in a some additional phone chargers if you’re set on using the default battery (assuming you consider yourself a heavy phone user.)

Overall thoughts on the design: Other then the issues I mentioned in my review, the phone’s design is pretty decent.  I will admit I’m a bit disappointed when it came to the build quality of the Pre phones.  Battery life isn’t all that great but turning off the unnecessary features definitely helps.  Again, I recommend getting some sort of screen protection on the phone.  Best Skins Ever has a full body protective skin you can purchase for a cheap price of $7.99.

My experience with Web O/S

The operating system on the Palm Pre is the primary reason I bought this phone.  When Palm announced the Palm Pre back at 2009′s CES, I was on the internet everyday learning as much about this phone as I could about the phone (thank you PreCentral.net.)  I was really excited when watching their video demo because the phone had a lot of neat features.

Synergy was the focus of the Palm Pre, being able to wirelessly sync your data in the cloud (internet) without having to rely on a computer.  This for me was the ideal setup as I believe you shouldn’t have to keep remembering to backup your phones data to a computer.  (Yes I’m lazy, but realistically there is no reason why this sort of thing shouldn’t be automatic.)

The other reason why I went for the Pre is that it uses webkit, a layout engine in the browser.  This means you don’t get those crappy mobile versions of websites.  You get the true intended layout of that website, just like as if you were on your desktop/laptop.  The browsing experience is similar to the iPhone, double clicking on text will zoom in so that the text wrapping layout will fill the screen.  See my example on the left.  You can also hold your phone horizontally and the gyroscope will rotate the display for you.

Since I use Gmail as my primary email, the Palm Pre is a perfect phone (at least for me) as it automatically syncs my contacts with any changes made either from the phone or directly through Gmails interface.

It also works the same way with Microsoft Exchange, but I’ve never tested it as our company doesn’t run an Exchange server.

In addition, you can link your Facebook account to the phone and it will extract your friends information (profile picture, emails & phone numbers) and merge the contacts together so that their information is consolidated.

I really dig that the Palm Pre pulls the Facebook profile picture and associates it with your contacts.  It’s nice because when you go to contact these people, that picture essentially becomes their avatar.  So if/when you receive messages from them you’ll see their avatar appear next to their message.

The only downside with the Facebook integration is you have no control of being able to manage your Facebook contacts once they’re on your phone.  So if you have that one friend on Facebook that lives on the other side of the country whom you rarely talk to, you’re stuck having him/her appearing as a contact on your phone.  That’s the only downside to synergy.  I’m sure a future update to the phone will allow better control of this.

So like more other smartphones, the Pre can:

• Email
• Take Pictures
• Text Message
• GPS
• Calendar
• Browse the Internet
• Play Music

I must say I was rather surprised to find that the Palm Pre lacked a lot of basic features that any other smartphone would have out of the box:

• Lack of flexible options setting custom various notifications (Text, MMS & IM all share the same sound)
• Cannot attach video/audio to MMS messages (only pictures)
• Cannot capture short video clips
• Cannot voice record memos
• No voice dialing

It wasn’t only until recently when Palm pushed out version 1.3.1 which FINALLY (after 5 months) allowed us to change the default notification tone.  Now there are ways to get some of these other missing features.  You can download software from PreCentral.net called “Web O/S Quick Install”.  Follow the instructions on their forums, and once you have Web O/S Quick Install setup, look for a program called “Preware.”  Once Preware is installed, you can run it as an application on the phone and apply these patches which will enable a lot of these basic  features.  But take note, these patches are not official.  If you experience any problems with your phone, Palm is not responsible.  If you have any problems, you can ask the good folks at webos-internals.org for help.  You can always doctor your phone back to when you first got it, if the issue seems irreversible.

Another unique thing about Web O/S is how it handles multiple applications.  Each application will display in its own card.  This method allows you to easily swap back & forth between applications.  Clicking on any of the cards will bring the application to full screen.  When you click the silver orb below the screen, you’ll see the card view display.  Here you can easily pick and choose what applications you want to open or flick them away which closes the application.

Overall thoughts on Web O/S: The thing I have keep reminding myself is that Web O/S was built from scratch.  I don’t know off the top of my head how long Palm has been working on Web O/S as it’s still very new.  As I stated before, there are a lot of basic features that were overlooked and I’m sure down the road Palm will address the majority of user complaints.   If Palm had a full time online community manager to address the complaints and questions their community has, I think the majority of those people knowing their questions/concerns have been answered/heard would stop bitching.

Closing remarks

I knew what I was getting into when I decided to be an early adopter of a first generation device.  Palm only recently stopped supporting Palm O/S and put 100% of their focus into Web O/S.  This is a good thing as it means your phone won’t feel out of date as long as Palm keep pushing out those updates.