Comments on: Palm Pre reviewed: Does it live up to the hype?

CNET reviews the highly anticipated Palm Pre for Sprint. See if the smartphone lives up to all the hype.

[SeizeCTRL]

um, maybe I am old fashion, but I expected with a title like "Palm Pre reviewed: Does it live up to the hype?" that the video and article would be the review... not a link down at the very bottom to head over and another page to read the review there.

This is sort of misleading, especially to be in the RSS feed on iGoogle.

[Eric602]

Bonnie- In your box opening video you looked like a little kid at Christmas opening presents!!! That was great. Thank you for keeping us well informed over the last few months. I'm off to read your review. THANK YOU!!

[CDubber]

"Well, we'd say our thoughts on the Palm Pre echo those we had for the T-Mobile G1."

That doesn't bode well. I've yet to see a G1 in the wild...not exactly a smashing success.

[bonesbautista]

The video and review were pretty good - CNET's review isn't as in-depth as what Engadget put out today, but both are making me consider dropping my iPhone and ATT for SPCS and a first revision of the Pre or another WebOS Palm device.

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.

[oneAwake]

Horrible review, it sounds like you have an iphone and you're in love with it. It must be hard to give the Pre any positives. You say you get about a days use out of the battery, can the iphone do that? The lack of an SD slot should not be a con, everyone knew the Pre did not have expandable memory. Adobe wrote flash for the Pre, it should be available by years end, the iphone does not have flash. If you read up on the Pre's processor, you would have learned the Pre is capable of video recording. Palm said months ago "they are not announcing video recording." The iphone cannot record video. I've seen the Pre in person, I do not know why you and 2 other reviewers said the keyboard is a problem. I watched an iphone owner handle the Pre in a Sprint store, she and her husband adjusted to the keyboard in a matter of minutes. Saying nothing comes close to the iphone shows your bias, I would expect you to be impartial. Even old cranky Walt Mossberg likes the Pre, a lot., and that saying a lot. Since you said nothing comes close to the iphone, why not go over the pros and cons of both, then we will see when one comes out on top, you can even include 3.0, because most analyst have said 3.0 is nothing special.

[oneAwake]

Forgot to mention, when a device has a physical qwerty keyboard, why would you need an onscreen one? Does that mean Blackberry's fail too? WebOS lags no worse than windows?? PLEASE!!!

[rnaoncfixd]

Being a bit defensive, yes?

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.

[bleech]

I don´t think most of smartphones even manage to get to one day of battery use, but for some Nokia. So it is usually almost a feature of them, specially for internet addicts over using the carrier data transfer capabilities. Radio antennae do actually suck all the power, and if this really get´s to the end of the day, it actually goes further than most of the smartphones out there.

[Maclamond]

Yeah... I am trying so hard not to sound like a fanboy here. Someone shoot me. I think your review is kinda rushed. Some of the things you said really didnt make sense coming from someone who's Job is to review things.

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...

[Alex Ark]

I agree! When a reviewer makes judgments not based on facts, it shows bias prejudice. Please, I don't have the time to read ones unfounded comments. What I need are specifics. I don't have time for this misleading information.

[sflocal]

Honestly... the media and journalists are the ones "fabricating" this hype. Most of us really d.o. n.o.t. c.a.r.e.. about the Pre or anything else about it. Stop making this thing to be more than it really is. The next fad product for 15 minutes.

What will you people come up with next to continue justifying your jobs? Sheesh... let it go folks!

[jumpjetta]

Yeah, I agree. I was shocked to learn "all eyes have been on the Palm Pre" because I, for another, could care less since I'm perfectly satisfied with my iPhone "2G".

[rnaoncfixd]

Just 'cause you losers can't keep up with the new big thing doesn't mean we all have to hang out in the back with the late adopters.

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.

[aMaclover2]

Wow! What a bitter bunch we have here. I thought it was a great review and it gave me enough information to come to the conclusion that the iPhone is still the best thing going today. What more do you want?

[monkeyfun14]

Oh cause the iPhone has such a great battery life right...

[jumpjetta]

I generally only charge my iPhone at night, and even if I forget, I can usually go another half-day before I have to charge it. Sure, it's not my old Sony-Ericsson brick that could go 4 days without a charge.

[sdf0013]

The review seemed rushed. She didn't say how long they had the review unit before writing the review. I'd guess 2 or maybe 3 days. Even though the review was rushed it seemed to cover more points than the usual review; which I enjoyed. This is the catch-22 of reviewing a hot new product. Everyone wants to know how it actually performs. But, it's pretty hard to do that with just a day or two use. How many of us needed months to discover all the pitfalls of our current phones? Not to mention any possible software updates that usually happen, yes the mighty iPhone included.

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.

[oneAwake]

Palm has pinpointed the battery issue, there is a bug in the AOL app. If AOL is left running it drastically reduces the battery, this makes sense, I experience the same problem with the AOL app on my HTC Diamond. Also, if you set the Pre to check for message instantly instead of every 15 mins, that helps as well. We are not a "bitter bunch", when a reviewer makes the comment, I wouldn't recommend this to business users", and that same reviewer wouldn't/didn't make the same comment about the Pre's obvious competitor(s), that shows bias. The iphone is hardly a business device. Splashgear has photos of the Pre side-by-side with the BB Bold, and other devices, the Pre's keyboard is not that much smaller than those devices. I don't need photos to prove that to me because I've seen the Pre in person, I do not know why these few reviewers are saying the keyboard is cramped. During Enagadget's review the reviewer made a great comment regarding the keyboard.

[rnaoncfixd]

I've been using the Blackberry Curve for a while and got used to it and I just wanted to know if the Palm Pre keyboard is any smaller and less easier to acclimate to or if it's kinda the same deal. The Curve keyboard is quite small to me, but it's manageable.

[oneAwake]

Go to this link: http://www.slashgear.com/palm-pre-review-0345853/

Scroll down to the side-by-side photos showing the keyboard.

[sellersce]

This review just peeved me off... it was not an impartial review. The review seemed like it was just another comparison to iPhone. There also seemed to be little to no justification to the ratings as well.

[feztheforeigner]

IT IS NOT THE ONLY SMART PHONE THAT CAN RUN APPLICATIONS IN THE BACKGROUND GET YOU'RE FACTS RIGHT THE TMOBILE G1 INVENTED AND HAS ALREADY PERFECTED MULTITASKING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THE PALM PRE ISN'T THE ONLY NOR THE FIRST TO DO THIS!!!!!!!!!
P.S. G1 IS WAY BETTER THAN PALM PRE IN EVERY ASPECT

[AppleSuxLeo]

Walt Mossberg loves it...nuff said !

[Stylz_Infinite]

The Palm Pre is yesterday's technology already.. The Touch Pro 2 would be far more of an iPhone killer than the Palm Pre!

[timevoid]

Why does everything have to be compared to an iphone? For the love of god please stop comparing things to the iphone! A phone doesn't have to be good to be "like the iphone", it has to be innovative and the first of its kind to do something others cannot. If I were palm I would try to separate myself as far from the iphone as possible. Each phone has its pluses and minuses. I mean look at sprints Samsung instinct call the "iphone killer"! HAHA! It made me laugh when I actually used one. It was an okay touch screen phone but it sucked at getting applications because no one made them. I understand that apple set the industry standard on entertainment phones but comparison gets annoying after awhile. The only phone that can "KILL" an iphone is another improved iphone. I personally like the iphone because it is so easy and simple but I would not use it for my business. It's purely an entertainment phone not matter how you want to look at it. I am with sprint and I use the palm treo pro for all of my business needs. Anyway, back to the fact. I wouldn't call palm pre an "iphone killer", I would call it sprints version of the iphone and so should everyone else.

[yukitatami]

I'm quite disappointed with Bonnie Cha's review. As a reader, I feel she is biased towards iPhone and seems she only has on-the-surface experience with the Pre. A biased and shallow review makes me wonder what's wrong with CNet. I read many CNet reviews but sorry, this one really sucks. It brings the reader more questions than answers because the lack of credibility of the review.

I prefer a more objective and in-depth review like Engadget's.

[jxcuadro]

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.