30 Days Came And Went

All good things have to come to an end, with that said I would like to throw out one final thanks to groups of people that have made this all possible. First Of all I would like to thank Palm, Sprint, And CNET for making all of this possible by working together to help promote this great phone and WEBOS as one. I would also like to thank everyone at SmartPhoneJunkie and PPCGeeks PPCGEEKS for bringing this opportunity to my attention as well as convincing me to try placing in my "application" for this contest. Without all of the above being a part of this I would not have been able to test this great device and blog about many of the useful features, how the device works, the size factor, etc. And finally thanks to the readers because without you none of this would have been thought of since the user themselves are the people that make a blog or webpage what it is and as a Co-Founder of a site i can't stress that enough. But without further ado here is my overall thoughts on the device.

The form factor and overall look of the device is amazing for the most part. The solid gloss black color screams for the consumer to pick it up, the bright clear screen draws you in with the millions of colors, the slideout qwerty keyboard screams to be pressed, ans the great angled slide grabs the attention and keeps the eyes focused on it. In a design for a device you cant ask for more than that, but with the good comes the bad. When the device is slid open revealing the keyboard it exposes a semi-sharp cheese like slicer that overlaps the recessed keys so they don't make contact with the screen when closed. This to the frequent phone user is troublesome since the keyboard is a huge thing on a device and having an imperfection there can be the beginning of the end. The only other flaw with the general make-up of the device is the "Oreo Problem" that many users have faced. The oreo problem is where the phone can move quite a bit from side to side as if you were un-twisting an oreo. (you can check this out i the video below and sprint does replace these devices with new ones.)

WEBOS and the user interface in general is very user friendly. The thing i struggled most with was memorizing all of the keyboard shortcuts and different gestures that are included in the stock WEBOS firmware. The Pre's user interface is very easy to get the hang of and self explanatory with help from the tutorial upon booting up the device for the first time. To multitask between tasks "cards" are used, a card is a image of the application or game that you are running. the cards appear across the screen so applications can be left running in the background and easily and quickly switched between. You can change the size of the cards by clicking on the background away from the cards, on top of that if you click and hold on a card you will than have access to move that card wherever you would like so you can have at the beginning of the "carousel" or at the end if desired. the epic downfall for many is the time that certain apps or cards take to open. Hopefully in future builds the lag will be fixed but at this moment the lag can be frustrating but not a total killer. For more of the basics and to mostly put this into perspective take a look at this video below.

The keyboard scares many people with the keys being half the size of the normal slide out qwerty keyboards, this at first is a daunting task but after some use and practice is perfected without too much trouble. I have medium sized hands and for the first week or so when typing I would either hit the letter next to the one I was wanting on occasion or completely miss the rows on the very edge since it is hard to fit your finger to get those keys without using the tip of one. About 2 weeks of typing on it daily made a world of difference, now typos are a thing of the past on my Pre and typing isn't as bad as what first seemed. (although you still may get the occassional hand cramp.)
Calls, Email, and texts are main functions and uses of many cell phone users today, with the Palm Pre this is done easily and with little effort or knowledge of the OS. The thing that blew me out of the water the most with the Pre was the fact that the signal strength was great! (thanks to a great radio version) On top of the great signal the call clarity is crystal clear. The only thing Palm should work on in that field is allowing the speaker phone and the earpiece speaker to go louder since sometimes it is hard to hear on the device. As for emails the Pre is behind WM in functionality and ease of use, with the Pre you can "peek" at your messages by starting at the middle of the message and doing a zoom in feature swipe. (this can be found in my blog from earlier today and still is hard to do) The zoom and the easy swipe off the screen for deletion are the two main features that are positives with this email client over WM. WM is a better client through my testing because not only did the messages get to me sooner, they are also easier to read and have faster load times. In my busy life where every second some days can matter I can't be sitting around waiting for emails to download or open. The texting features on this device are great! On top of having threaded text messaging with the picture of the person your talking to in the corner (if added) you also have a instant messenger tab. If you have the information of their user name stored in your contact list the threaded sms will support all types on conversation between text or I'm between the two of you.

To get the user based per say app store you will have to do something called rooting. Rooting can be tough to do but you will be able to find out how to by looking through my blogs where you have instructions. What if rooting isn't for you? You can go one of the site routes than, you will still have to download and install the sdk (developer tool) to make this possible. From this you can download additional apps (instructions in blog earlier this week) that allow you to just drag and drop the homebrewed apps or even download and install directly from your phone! I have rooted my device and also use the last two above mentioned ways of downloading and they work great! Not only do they function as they should they allow you to get your hands on the applications and games that fellow users of the Palm Pre use. A great resource for learninghow to do the above mentioned as well as find the newest apps and games is precentral. Precentral

With the above basics and important features covered above and many others throughout my different blogs here on CNET I would like to say what I feel is coming for WEBOS and even the Pre in the future. I myself am not influenced enough at this time to make the Pre or any WEBOS device that would come out my main line of contact. WM is snappier, more customizable, quicker, more feature filled, has multiple UI's, can easily be skinned, and much more. Palm and WEBOS will be to that point one day but have a great future with WEBOS. For the initial release this product has made a splash and has quickly and efficiently got its name brought into the clutter of the big dogs known as no other than WM, Iphone, And Android.

I would like to end my first ever Month long blog through CNET with this: Take into consideration what myself and other fellow bloggers have said but don't hold it to heart when making a decision. With different build dates things are slightly changed to make the device better so a new one might react different than one from the original batch. Pick the device up, play with it, slide the keyboard out, ask questions, ask to loo through the manual, do research, and have fun with it. If the device isn't exciting to you right off the bat than steer clear from it because you will quickly lose interest. Thanks for reading and a big than you to all that have commented on my blogs with ideas, comments, or just a thank you :)

For the last time take it easy CNET and WEBOS users and we will def stay in contact :)