Palm Pre Plus

Running on the Palm webOS mobile platform, the 3G-enabled Palm Pre Plus for Verizon Wireless brings together all of your important information from where it resides--on your phone, at your workplace, at home, or on the Web--into a single mobile device...

Features

• 3G-enabled smartphone with intuitive Palm webOS platform, touchscreen and slide-out QWERTY keyboard; easy integration with Google, Facebook, LinkedIn and more
• GPS-enabled for turn-by-turn directions; can be used as a 3G Mobile Hotspot for up to five Wi-Fi connected devices
• 16 GB internal memory; 3-megapixel camera/camcorder; Bluetooth stereo music streaming; Wi-Fi-enabled
• Up to 5.5 hours of talk time, up to 350 hours (14.5 days) of standby time
• What's in the Box: handset, rechargeable battery, AC charger, micro USB cable, quick start guide, gesture guide, self-cleaning carry pouch

Reviews

Perfect phone, battery life improving

by Tim Hoag from on 2010-02-07
Ok, before I rant about the battery, I want to warn Palm fanboys about the one change you need to prepare for (note: I am a huge Palm fanboy). If you aren't currently using a Treo or Centro phone, skip the next paragraph. Not a complaint, just some advice because Palm has ALWAYS been the best at contact/calendar management. No one else comes close. If you like the way PalmOS has always sync'd directly with your PC (Outlook, Palm Desktop, etc) - you will need to buy a 3rd-part application to do that with the Pre or Pixi. Palm has dropped support for that. It can synch with an Exchange server like a Blackberry (my company won't support it) or with Gmail (I will never share my contacts with Google, Yahoo, or any other public site). Most of these apps come with a trial period. I recommend that you have it installed on your PC before you do any contact sync or email set up. It worked flawlessly and it's just like I've been doing it with Outlook for many years. When setting up your Pre for the first time, skip the step to set up e-mail so you can synch your contacts with a third party app first. IT's much less confusing. Oh, and DON'T sync with more than one 3rd party app, because you will duplicate every contact. The Pre is able to see the duplicates and show them as a single contact (sort of) but I tried it with more than one, and I had to do a hard reset and then sync with only one 3rd party app to de-dupe the contacts. PocketMirror does wireless sync, but it is VERY slow with my 3,000 contacts. It's a litte faster via Bluetooth. CompanionLink is much faster, but requires a USB cable. Ok, for those who don't care about contact/calendar sync, or who get one of the 3rd party apps, here is my summary of the Palm Pre: FANTASTIC! It is very close to the iPhone in ease of use, innovation, etc. Each has a few unique advantages. But, the Palm wins on the stuff I care about - multitasking being a major item... I can listen to music AND surf the web. Can't do that on an iPone, iPad, or any other iDevice. That's huge. The ONLY complaint I have is battery life, which is non worse than an iPhone. Palm has made major improvements with 1.4, and needs to keep working on it. Battery drain goes down after you have had it a few weeks, because then you aren't playing with it 7x24. 3G access is what uses the most battery, just like the iPhone. I bought a Siedio extended battery from Amazon.com to provide some improvement, and reducing screen brightness also helps. But, if you are doing a lot of web browsing, tweeting, etc... it's going to drain about 10% per hour - but no worse than the Motorola Droid, by the way. I get about 8 hours of heavy web use, once you've charged the battery for a few cycles. So, carry a spare battery (another great feature the iPhone doesn't have - you can quickly swap batteries) - or get an extended life battery like I did. Other than that, I also wish it had a soft keyboard and a few things that would make it easier to surf and text in landscape mode... If Palm would add a few refinements like better landscape support,it would be a perfect phone. And the icing on the cake? The network, of course! The Pre+ runs on Verizon, and not AT&T. That drives all my iPhone fanboy friends crazy. It was well worth the wait for Verizon to get this phone. I recommend this for everyone... I especially recommend this phone for iPhone users so they can get off the AT&T network... Now Verizon can say "there's an App for that" as well as "there's a map for that", and that, my friends, makes this a terrific phone! EDIT: Palm recently released version 1.4 (which auto-magically updates your phone over the air) and it has improved battery performance greatly. They also added the ability to take movies and edit them right on the phone. Perfect for putting videos on facebook and twitter, etc. Folks, you REALLY need to try this phone.

Worth the Wait Because It's the Best Smartphone on the Market

by Steve from New York, NY on 2010-02-12
I've been a Palm user going way back, and loved my Treo 700p through nearly four years of heavy daily use. I'm a happy Verizon customer, so waiting for the Pre Plus to arrive there required patience while everyone moved to the iPhone. It was worth the wait! The design turns heads, especially with iPhone users. The true multitasking OS makes iPhone users jealous--I've had two say they will switch after trying mine. Pre Plus makes the most of WiFi, Bluetooth, and is the only phone that becomes a WiFi hotspot for your netbook/laptop without tethering. Palm's web syncing was seamless, and with my gmail account setup, all my contacts and calendar were wirelessly synced--and are backed up once each day with all the data on my phone by Palm, so there's no more being tied to a desktop app. The phone is fast, intuitive, and very stable. Battery life is good if you keep WiFi off. The apps store is just starting to ramp up, but the best apps so far are: Commuter Computer (NJ Transit and BART), Tweed, Facebook, Kobo (try it, cloud reading--sorry Kindle), Evernote, Weather Channel, Open Table (a little buggy on the login at times), New York Times Reader, Pandora (great!), and Fandango. As of this writing, easily the best smartphone on the market.

One of the best kept tech secrets out there.

by The Toddball from Los Angeles, California USA on 2010-03-01
A perfect hybrid of the iPhone and Blackberry- but better! An arrogant and presumptuous statement you might say? Perhaps. An uneducated and unfair assumption? Hardly. With a flawless interactive touchscreen like the iPhone and a slide-out, tactile QWERTY keyboard akin to the Blackberry, this phone has surpassed ALL of my expectations. I was like all other lonely schoolboys out there on the playground albeit I wasn't out on the playground and I'm 35; hardly a schoolboy. But like the others, I was waiting in vain for my "New Every Two" discount to kick in so I can finally venture into the 21st century with a Smartphone (cue fading echo: phone, phone, phone...). I had done tiresome and extensive research on the "Big 3" that Verizon had to offer: the Motorola Droid, the HTC Droid Eris and the Palm Pre Plus (not big on Blackberrys; too yuppy/primitive/not me). My research included watching way too many videos of these phones on youtube (unboxing, walkthroughs, hacks, Chocolate Rain cameos, etc.), reading far too many blogs to mention and actually fiddling around on the phones. Using the phones. How novel. I'll make this simple: The Motorola Droid I found to be too bulky, far too heavy for a mobile device, suffering from "only child" syndrome and, from the research I did, the touchscreen was WEAK. W. E. A. K. That is problemo numero uno. Next. The HTC Droid was very high on the "Me want, me want" list. I did like the touchscreen response, fairly attractive OS and it is backed by Google which I use religiously. The strike? I was coming from a standard slider phone and doing text messages with a standard phone keypad. Going from that to QWERTY in itself is a big step. Add onscreen-only and you're asking for some serious aggravation, anxiety and frustration. What else we gots? So the Palm Pre had been getting press on it's "revolutionary" webOS and that it was coming to Verizon in January. I was only familiar with it because I would watch youtube reviews and visit the Palm website. I do have to admit that once I played with the Palm Pre I was quite enamored. The shape was ridiculously comfortable. The tactile keyboard was small but, surprisingly, my fairly nimble fingers were able to adjust with ease and the touchscreen was absolutely mind blowing. This is the ONLY phone that Verizon offers where I felt as comfortable using it as I did on an iPhone (which all touchscreens try to rival in terms of responsiveness and illuminosity). When the time came to purchase my new device, the Palm Pre Plus was at the top of my list. I had to lure my girlfriend into the depths of geekdom and let her know how great this phone was too. She relented and now she is truly addicted to this phone. One great, huuge surprise I had on this phone was the multi tasking prowess this has on it. On my second day owning it I used a GPS tracking jogging app and listened to some music on my Bluetooth stereo headset. Now I know an iPhone can't do that all at once. I can't really say enough good things about this phone. I really hope the best for Palm and if you do get one, you're going to see the huge underground following/cult of Palm Pre fanatics that just can't say enough either!

Switched from the iPhone and love it!

by Annette Marie from on 2010-01-26
First, Let me say that I am a die hard Apple fan. I got the first Iphone, then the 3g, then the 3gs. I love the iPhone. However, I have been reading about the Pre for over a year. I looked at the first one on Sprint but decided to wait for the next generation to come out. Now I have the Pre Plus and I can tell you. It's Great! I love it. You can open so many different apps and have them running in the background. You can listen to music while still using other functioins. The charger rocks also! Hello Pre, good bye iPhone

All-around a great phone, and an even better user interface

by nyaiyo from on 2010-03-17
Where can I start? Most people probably want to know about apps. I was really surprised that there are so many apps available. And they're good apps. A lot of 3d games, I use netflix app all the time, twitter is good (new to twitter), podcast app dr. podder is a 10, duke nukem 3d, need for speed. Just so many good apps to list. The camera and video are awesome also. The camera takes really good pictures, better than my camera believe it or not. You can upload pictures directly to facebook, or send them through email or text to other people. the video app was just released in February. Its very similar to the iphone video record app. you can record long videos, and you can edit them when done. Again, you can upload them to facebook, also youtube with videos too. Or email or text them to other people. If you buy this phone, you HAVE TO go to [..]. They have both homebrew apps and patches there, plus a huge group of users that all use the phone and push it to its limits. Basically, these things let you hack your phone securely and easily. It adds sooooo much functionality. And the best thing is Palm knows about it, they're ok with it, and they give you the tools to do it correctly and fix it if something goes wrong. The screen looks absolutely great, its so bright that I keep it at 40% just to save battery life. The keyboard works great. It was a little small at first, but I got use to it fast. I have actually found that the small keyboard makes it much easier to type with one hand. I've saved the best for last. The webOS operating system is by far the best thing about Palm phones. Multitasking is so much more useful than I thought it would be. I can start a podcast download, then click over and send out a text while its downloading. I can be playing a game, minimize it, flick over to my email, then come back and it starts right back where I left off. The way the notifications comes in is really well designed. Notifications pop up at the bottom of the screen in little banners. You can either let them sit there, or flick an up gesture and they turn into little icons at the bottom of the screen(taking up much less space).. that way there is always a little reminder down there, until you decide to take action on the notification. If you just wanted to ignore the banner, you can swipe it off the screen to the right or left with a quick swipe gesture. The things that elicit a notification are receiving texts, emails, a finished download, when pandora or music app switches songs (although these disappear on their own), etc. Notifications come through so often, that its nice to have them managed in a way that lets me choose to keep doing what I'm doing or act on them. Universal search will be your best friend. The Pre will sync with multiple accounts. So I have facebook, google, and my exchange server at work. All the contacts from the 3 places are now on my phone so it becomes a PITA to sift through them all. Well, Palm thought of that. So if I want to find someone, I can just start typing their first name and it will bring up that contact. Usually it takes me 3 letters to find who I need. Universal search works with EVERYTHING though. I can start typing a webpage, the name of an app, a person, or just a term to do a google search on it. so basically, whatever I want to do, I just open my keyboard and start typing. Its soooo easy and it just makes sense. they also have a mobile hotpost app, but it costs $30/month at Verizon. It basically turns your phone into a wifi hotspot, so you can get wifi on anything that uses wireless internet. I am still thinking about getting it, but I have heard you can get it free if you hack your phone a little (instructions at [..]) Sorry its so long, but I almost passed over this phone because I hadnt heard much about it. I am truly astonished, because it is the best phone I have ever used.

Leave a Reply