My top 5 wish list for the Palm Pre
(Credit:
Corinne Schulze/CNET)
For a first-generation device, the Palm Pre is quite impressive. Palm has developed a strong operating system in WebOS, beating the competition in certain areas and laying a solid foundation for future devices. However, as with any product, there's always room for improvement.
Earlier this week, I listed five of my favorite things about the Palm Pre and as promised at the end of that post, here are five things that I dislike about the smartphone or would like to see in future updates/devices. Fortunately, some of these issues, as well as others not mentioned here (voice dialing, video recording, Bluetooth tethering), can be resolved through over-the-air updates, but here's my Top 5 wish list based on the smartphone as it is now.
- Improved battery life: While the overall reviews (from both tech journalists and Pre owners) have been positive, there's been one universal complaint about the Pre and that's battery life. Palm has already identified a bug with the AIM client that is sucking more power than it should be and has promised a fix for it. There are also ways to optimize the battery life and the smartphone has a user-replaceable battery, so you can always carry an extra with you. However, it's not a completely unlikely scenario that I might be using the device heavily and have no access to an outlet or perhaps forgot an extra battery and inevitably end up with a dead Pre on my hands. Again, an issue that can be dealt with, but it's still a drag.
- Enhanced contact management: As I said in my post from Tuesday, overall, I really like the Synergy feature of the Pre and how it seamlessly imports all my contacts and calendar appointments from my various accounts. However, as I also pointed out, there needs to be a better way to filter or group contacts. This really became an issue when I synced my Facebook account, since I don't necessarily know every "friend" or keep in constant contact with them, so it'd be nice to assign them to have some sort of filter or easier way to manage them. Universal Search helps when you've got a specific contact, but if you're simply viewing your address book and have to sort through a long list, it can get pretty unwieldy.
- Better Universal Search: The Pre's universal search works well, but right now, it's limited to just contacts, applications, the Web, Google Maps, and Twitter. The Palm Pre holds a lot of information, especially with the Synergy function, and its incapability to search e-mails and calendar entries is a bit of a head-scratcher for me.
- Soft keyboard: As I've said many times before, a physical keyboard is a must for me (just a personal preference), but that doesn't mean I think a soft keyboard is completely useless. In fact, the Pre needs one. When viewing Web sites in landscape mode, there's no way to enter text into search fields without having to flip the smartphone back to portrait mode and using the physical keyboard. Does it take a huge amount of effort? No, but it's still inconvenient. We had similar issues with the T-Mobile G1, RIM BlackBerry Storm (lacked portrait keyboard), and Apple iPhone (lacked landscape), all of which eventually resolved the problem with updates, and hopefully Palm will do so sooner rather than later.
- More memory: This can't be fixed on the current Pre, but hopefully something Palm considers for its future WebOS smartphones. It might be that 8GB of memory is enough for some people, but I would still like the option of an expansion slot. If not that, then higher-capacity devices. I happen to think that the Pre has a pretty decent-sounding media player and a beautiful screen for viewing videos, so I'd like to load up the phone with a bunch of media without having to worry about the remaining storage. Plus, I like what I've seen so far in terms of applications, and as more become available, I imagine I'll download more. Not that apps take up a lot of memory, but still.
Those are my big-ticket items. Now, once again, it's your turn. I've already received a number of e-mails with wish list items and other issues, such as limited Microsoft Exchange support (specifically PIN service and remote wipe), soft ringtones, limited copy/paste, and not being able to forward text messages, but if you've got the same concerns or new ones, share them below.
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. 
Here are the major problems:
1) Can't tether - Palm could have really stolen market share from Apple if they had insisted on this from Sprint (and lived up to their original spec). The old Palm products can tether with no problems, so why upgrade to Pre?
2) Sprint network can't do simultaneous voice and data in many locations. So if you are online your phone calls are going to voicemail. Really tacky.
3) No HotSync support in Classic. This is an unbelievable omission. They have no upgrade path for any customers still using Palm Desktop.
4) No local sync option. Companies do not want confidential PIM data going through Google.
5) Universal search isn't universal and doesn't even search the calendar. Existing Palm users could conceivably have 14 years of calendar data at this point.
Overall Palm's marketing department seems to have not done basic market research. In fact, they seem to have purposely thrown their most loyal customers over the side.
Or you can go further and get a BlackBerry or a Nokia N97.
Here's a question: does memory = storage capacity? I've always thought of memory as RAM and the flash/HDD as storage. Is the term memory interchangeable?
Also when you try to delete contacts downloaded from facebook it tells you , you cannot delete facebook contacts! I am thinking about deleting them from my facebook all together so they dont show up on my phones list.
Other than that, love the phone, works awesome. Dont think Ill need more than a few GB of memory, so Im good there.
Battery life is a problem. Forcing someone to go out and buy an extre $50 battery almost sounds like a sales ploy...
?
When you have the files you want, connect the Pre to your computer via USB. On the Pre, select "USB Drive" and find the newly added drive in My Computer (on Windows). Then drag your audio files onto the drive in whatever folders you want to create, and the Pre will automatically find them and add them to your music library. When done, safely disconnect the Pre from your computer.
I find it very interesting that the Pre's Synergy and Google Wave arrived at about the same time. Mostly because these are both new tools that affect the way to communicate. They essentially blur the lines between individual communications across different platforms. Could both be a prelude to a totally new way to think about communications? It's certainly good for speculation.
Right now, it's just a touch-screen Blackberry with a hide-away keyboard.
Battery is killing me, I dont even use the aim client so it cant be that. I just ordered 3 micro USB cables so every PC I'm at I will be chargin the Pre.
It needs some type of on the fly Power Profile App.
ie
LOW POWER MODE: Brightness Down, Location Services Off, Bluetooth Off etc
It would be cool to manage your preferences of these profiles as well (ie brightness = 30% in low mode).
One thing that KILLS ME is the inability to hide anything associated with your Palm Profile. For instance, I have the ability to hide certain google calendars in preferences (holidays, personal, work) but am not given the same option for the Palm Profile. It just seems lazy (one of those, its not a bug its a feature).
To sum, my "Why I love the Pre" post would be 100x as long as this post, but goes without saying.
Most early adopters are probably not serious smartphone users and don't own many legacy apps. If they were, they probably will end up returning the phones due to lack of apps.
If there is no timeline on when SDK will come out next week, I may be lured to get an iPhone 3GS instead and wait until Palm Pre becomes more mature. I don't think I am the only one who think this way. Unfortunately for Palm, time and money are running out.
1. Battery Life
2. Lack of App's
3. Quick contacts list on the main screen without having to slide the keyboard down everytime
4. Soft keyboard
5. Youtube bookmarks
But over all I am very pleased with my new Palm Pre. And I ended up selling my 8g Iphone 3g, I'm going to miss my app's on the iphone. I'm hoping palm is working on getting more app's out soon!!
Paul
I have so many contacts on my gmail account that I have no use for on my phone
even my facebook contacts need to be filtered down
Palm should give you a options for this !
as far a soft keyboard goes
one of the things I'm hoping for is a t9 keypad which will allow for one handed typing
to quickly send out message while doing something else
and a landscape one for the web browser too
it's funny that nobody has complained about the music player
which is lacking a lot of functionality ,
More options in the camera like a timer etc.
and lastly a widget system for the home screen {probably hoping for too much}
like widgets thats shows your next calendar entry
or to do list, stickys, weather etc. like how Android has !
My second gripe - build quality. It is a bit on the fragile side. I already have a replacement phone coming in, my slider is separating. USB cover is just silly, and battery cover is ferocious to get off.
While I love the river stone feel of it in my hands, its a wet and very slippery one, and needs just the tiniest border around it with a better grip surface. I'm getting all the cardio workout I need every time it slips from my hands :)
Battery life certainly could be better, though I'm getting a good 6 hours with frequent general usage, including wifi on most of the time.
I'm with you on the limitations of universal search. What it does is great, what it doesn't do is a real drag.
Wouldn't it be great if Palm created a dual slider with keyboard in both portrait and landscape orientations? While I love the aesthetics of the phone (its the perfect size) I would gladly sacrifice some of its slimness to have both.
More memory isn't a big issue for me, I'll just use the cloud more, but I would welcome removable storage just for the convenience.
Palm definitely has a hit with the Pre, and as more useful applications become available for WebOS (Evernote to day - YES!!) I'm loving it even more than those first few hours alone with it. I'm convinced they're listening to people like Bonnie, and its only going to get better and better.
http://us.kensington.com/html/15462.html
And I prefer it this way, because it's nice to not have to reboot the phone.
Sure like the ability to replace a faulty battery without having to disassemble the whole phone though! Which is fairly hard.
If your Exchange server requires you to not use a SSL connection, then you can't use it with your Pre! That's like half of the Exchange users that can't use the Pre! Well, I'm gonna be returning mine pretty soon, because that's crap.
NO FILE EXPLORER!!!
Serioulsy? Come on Palm. I'm sick of this. If I wanted to be unproductive and have limited functionality, then I'd get the iPhone.
BACK TO WINDOWS MOBILE FOR ME! I'M GONNA LOVE WINMO AFTER USING THIS CRAPPY PRE
You can get a fairly inexpensive certificate from godaddy and solves a lot of headaches. The old Palms used to let you connect without a certificate but not only the connection wasn't secure it also had issues with going out of sync.
It's not a wise decision at all. It's the worst decision they ever made. Fix it Palm, or you're Pre is going back to the store.
I can't do it on mine because all my servers use SSL. It looks like it allows you to type HTTP so theoretically it should work not sure though. Unfortunately I don't know anyone with an unsecure server to ask them to let me try. If it doesn't work then we need to find out if Palm really is disabling unsercure servers or it's just a bug.
All they had to do is put in a check box for "Use SSL Connection", and everyone would be happy.
I also put the phone to a stress test just to see how long the battery can last under intense usage. I used pandora to stream music and used it with my S9 stereo bluetooth headset at the same time did some browsing and emailing just to pass time and the battery last a little over 6 hours. To me that's pretty amazing compared to some of the other phones I have used in the past. I would be great if it could last longer but it's normal to drain the battery that quickly when you are doing all that stuff at the same time. Compared to it's predecessor the Treo 755p with the hack for stereo bluetooth could only last at best 3 hours and that was without streaming music, just playing audio from the memory.
I go to work around 7a and am down around 20% by noon. And I consider my usage to be light. I've got the screen set at 50% brightness, I have bluetooth off and wifi on, i'm logged out of aim, and my email updates every 15 minutes. I also don't play around with it excessively.
So, is my battery life WORSE than normal??? Or is yours better? Anyone else?
also make sure you have the latest update. I heard some of the phones that were shipped didn't have 1.02 update on them.
On my phone have 2 exchange accounts and 2 other email accounts and they are all set to push so that can't be the issue. I am really curious to know what's causing the problem.
I seriously doubt it was the email or Palm media player as I have been using those intensly since Saturday. Pandora I started using a couple of days ago and I have had some issues with Pandora changing songs so that gives me some indication that it might be Pandora. On the other hand this morning was the first time I opened sprint navigation so that's also a suspect at this point. It would be nice to know if anyone else has had any issues with any of these two. The memory leak can cause serious power issues which is basically the problem they are having with the messenger right now.
And BTW, you should use wifi, it helps to maximize battery life. Simply because its a much lower power protocol than cellular networks, hell it's low power is why wifi's range is so small.
the question i have is it worse then the other phones you are compairing it to, iphone?
Also, the multitasking capability, while hyped up is actually a dud. The iPhone doesn't allow 3rd party apps to multitask, but the critical apps like phone, SMS, email, iPod, etc... do multitask and the AT&T network allows for full voice and data at the same time. Since Sprint doesn't do this, and the Pre is dependent on the Sprint network for now, the Palm doesn't really do full multitasking, specifically where it matters most...being able to have full data access while on a phone call.
I don't know what the heck they were thinking with 8GB of storage. I'll be looking forward to the 32GB I'll be getting with the iPhone next Friday.
The Pre would've rocked about 2+ years ago. I'm not sure they're going to be able to catch up...especially with Sprint as their partner.
My absolute must haves (okay and a couple wants):
- More apps with a Home key! Many of the apps, including built-in things like the contacts list and music player, don't have a way to return easily to the main screen of the app without exiting and relaunching it. That gets really annoying after a while, especially if you want to do multiple things in the same app. If there is a way to do this that I am just missing, please someone clue me in!
- If, say, your contact list got imported by a cust service rep 8 times, you need to have a way to check which profile actually holds the contact info. I deleted what I thought were copies of a profile only to have all the phone numbers disappear from the main entry. I didn't find a way to switch profiles for a contact to see which profile contained which data.
- It would be nice if the music player had a way to delete MP3s which made it on to your Pre without having to connect to the computer.
- Likewise, a file browser would be most helpful!
- by itseriko June 12, 2009 6:17 AM PDT
- I would love to see visual voicemail.
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- by thepack90 June 12, 2009 7:08 AM PDT
- You can go back in text without having to tap in the exact location or deleting the text before it. If you hold down the orange button on the keyboard and move your finger in the direction you want to go on the screen it will move the cursor in that direction.
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Showing 1 of 2 pages (65 Comments)I wish I could delete that NASCAR app. It's a waste of valuable space since I will never ever ever use it.
I would like a way to go back in text without clicking on a text field or deleting text.