Palm Pre reviewed: Does it live up to the hype?
We haven't seen so much buzz over a phone since the iPhone, but for the past six months, all eyes have been on the Palm Pre.
Introduced at CES 2009, the Palm Pre quickly became the most anticipated phone of the year, not only for what it meant for Palm and Sprint--two companies struggling behind their competitors--but also for what the device promised. The multitasking features, the notification system, a physical keyboard, multitouch screen--all these factors combined made it, in our opinion, the most legitimate rival to the iPhone yet.
We all know the six months that followed the Pre's debut were a little tortuous: the long wait for an availability date and pricing; the not being able to touch the Pre without supervision.
Well, now that is all over. While the June 6 release is still a couple of days away, we've been lucky enough to spend the past few days with the final product, poring over every detail of the device. Does it live up to all the hype? Well, you'll have to read our full review to find out. And get comfy: the review is a bit long, but there's a lot to talk about. Also, check out our Palm Pre screenshots gallery to get a more in-depth look at the Palm webOS.
Read our full review of the Palm Pre.
Palm Pre unboxing video
Bonnie Cha is a senior editor for CNET, covering smartphones and GPS. When she's not testing the latest gadgets, you can find her chasing after her crazy lab or surfing in the chilly waters of Northern California. E-mail Bonnie. 
This is sort of misleading, especially to be in the RSS feed on iGoogle.
That doesn't bode well. I've yet to see a G1 in the wild...not exactly a smashing success.
One comment about your review, tho'. The Pre won't be hitting the street, and the full review at this writing 43 "reviews". You guys really need to police your reviews a little better - the garbage reviews really dilute the validity of your review system.
I was going to type a lot more to refute your points and defend her, but I ended up thinking that I would just waste time on someone who probably isn't even going to really pay attention to what I say.
Also, lay back on the coffee. It becomes steadily apparent that you became inebriated with more caffeine in your second comment.
A days USE for any smart phone is decent. Not to mention its made better by a removable battery.
And 8gb IS a lot of storage.
When something is followed by "beta" it usually means standby for full version which hopefully wont suck.
Why wouldn't you suggest it to business users? Battery? U mean the one that last all day and can be removed and replaced? Good point.
I'm not saying this phone is perfect. But something tells me that you tried a little to hard to bash it and the best you could come up with didn't make sense...."when you look at the big picture"
And if you look at the big picture your review misses its mark. I'll give you the keyboard. It may suck. It probably does suck. But you bash the battery to the point that you dont recommend this phone to the people it was "made for".
But in reality: It runs multiple apps at one time off one battery all day. "ALMOST"
and if it doesn't you can swap it out. I feel like an unbiased review would have mentioned that....call me crazy...
What will you people come up with next to continue justifying your jobs? Sheesh... let it go folks!
Ha ha, I kid. But you guys do know you're on a tech news forum, right? They're supposed to cover stuff like this and if you had any inkling of the cellphone gadget world, you'd know that this stuff is big potatoes.
One side note about battery, it seems Palm has been plagued by this problem for several phones now. Granted, I suspect most smart phone batteries don't last as long as simpler phones. But, when researching the Treo line I found that you had to turn off the GPS radio to greatly extend battery life. Maybe Palm needs to find a different GPS radio provider? I've never seen any mention (not that I looked) about who's providing their radios in the various phones.
Scroll down to the side-by-side photos showing the keyboard.
P.S. G1 IS WAY BETTER THAN PALM PRE IN EVERY ASPECT
I prefer a more objective and in-depth review like Engadget's.
- by jxcuadro November 10, 2009 4:53 AM PST
- Palm tried very hard to make the best iphone, and failed miserably. They are not Apple, they are Palm. So my point is if you are palm, try to make the best pre not the best iphone. This phone is a real waste of money. I have had it for about 3 months and it has not been a pleasant experience. Battery is my main concern, it last about 5 hours only if you don't use it at all, just on. This is why Palm recommends charging the phone as frequent as possible claiming that this helps the battery. Another disappointment is Palm's inability to bring all those great 3rd party programs that I liked using on my PDA. Palm only has 357 applications in its catalog and not even one of them worth trying. In addition, it does not has a flash player program included, you get tied up to you tube mobile.
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