Palm Pre Plus review – Too expensive
Sum and Substance:
Thumbs Up:
This phone brings WebOS to AT&T, it includes good contact management and multitasking features. Free Touchstone dock included, QWERTY keyboard is improved, 3 MP camera takes great photos and editing videos is easy.
Thumbs Down:
Low battery life, Palm Mobile Hotspot app. is not available.
Inside the Trunk:
Technology: WCDMA (UMTS) / GSM
Band: WCDMA (UMTS) / GSM 850/900/1800/1900
Phone design: Slider
Caller ID: Yes
Other features: Camera, AGPS, EDGE, GPRS
The Whiz Kid Speaks:
Palm Pre Plus has a 3.1 inch LCD display with resolution of 320×480 pixels. It supports 24 bit or 16.7 million colors. Supported audio formats are eAAC+, WAV, AMR, AAC, MP3, AAC+. Connectors include 3.5 headphone jack and microUSB port. The rated talk time is 300 minutes and standby time is 350 hours.
PIM features include calculator, reminder, calendar and alarm clock. Supported video formats are H.263 video and AMR audio, MPEG-4 and H.264. Data/Messaging features include Microsoft Excel support, Microsoft PowerPoint support, XHTML Browser, Microsoft Word support, Mobile blog. Supported email protocols IMAP4 and POP3. 16 GB built in memory.
Razzle Dazzle:
When we first saw this phone, we thought it was an exact replica of Palm Pre. Both the phones have pebble like shape and also come with a super sexy 3.1 inch HVGA screen. But this phone has some changes done to its design which in turn improves its look. The center knob, which get you the Deck of Cards view is removed. But you can still access the function in the gesture area.
Inside Dope:
AT&T first showed us the Palm Pre Plus at CES 2010. This phone was launched on May 16 and don’t expect lots of surprises on this phone. This handset is quite similar to its Verizon counter part. The only major difference is the presence of GSM/UTMS radio on this phone instead of CDMA. Being an AT&T phone, this device comes with host of AT&T services. Apart from that, software and hardware is mostly the same.
This phone would have been better if the internal hardware offered something new but this phone finally gives AT&T customer access to the gorgeous WebOS which is excellent for multitasking. The feature set is good and the handset is easy to use. This is one of the better smartphones that we have seen in our labs. Before this, AT&T gave us Motorola Backflip which was a disaster in the market and other phones like HTC Tilt 2 and LG Expo was more focused towards business users. We would have recommended this as an iPhone alternative if the price had been a bit low.
The phone is priced at $149.99 and you have to sign a two year contract with the service provider. Verizon’s model comes for $100 less and comes with free Mobile Hotspot service. AT&T in turn offers free Touchstone dock but it is a limited time offer. There is another iteration of iPhone lurking in the corner so we will recommend you to wait for it instead of buying this phone. We strongly think AT&T should knock off $50 of this price tag.
Palm has revamped the keyboard for this phone but it is still small so people having larger thumbs will have problems. The travel space between the buttons is reduced and the keys now offer tactile feedback for which we should thank the manufacturer. The original Pre’s had gummy feel to the keys and typing was not comfortable on them. The new layout lets us type faster and there are not a lot of mishits too.
Palm Pre Plus comes with power adapter, USB cord, wired headset, reference material and carrying pouch. Also noteworthy is the free Touchstone dock with the phone for a limited period. This phone has all the features that you’d love on the WebOS and it includes the Deck of Cards multitasking function, Synergy and also the notification system of Palm. As mentioned above, there are not a lot of differences between AT&T Pre Plus and Verizon Pre Plus. The former runs on GSM//UMTS/HSDPA network and gives you world roaming quad band capabilities. The phone comes pre installed with WebOS 1.4.2 so you get all the new features of the OS which includes video editing and recording. There is no full support for Flash content for the browser yet because Adobe hasn’t delivered Flash 10.1 plug in to Palm’s phones.
Palm Pre Plus comes preloaded with lots of AT&T services like AT&T Navigator, Yellow Page Mobile (YPMobile) and there is also support for AT&T’s new cloud based services of Address Book. One feature that we would have liked this phone to carry over from Verizon’s model is the Mobile Hotspot utility. This feature would have let you use this phone as a mobile Wi-Fi router and let you connect up to five devices at the same time. That feature is exclusive to Verizon at the moment.
Palm Pre Plus comes with a three megapixel camera which is the same as other phones in the Pre family. The picture quality too is equally impressive, there is no change in results. The stills were sharp with lots of colors for indoors and outdoors.
Software and hardware of this phone is pretty much the same as the Verizon’s model. As compared to the Pre, the Flash memory is doubled. Out of 16 GB, you get to use 15 GB. The RAM has doubled and this lets you run more applications at once. The performance is also zippier.
Nitty Gritty:
This is a feature rich cell phone but we are wary of the high price. Verizon offers this phone at a much cheaper price.
