I like the Palm Pre better than the iPhone

Share

So I've got a Palm Pre and you know something, I'm going to go out on a limb and say it: I like the Pre better than my BlackBerry 8330 and yes, better than the iPhone.

Now before you launch a verbal barrage, please note that I wrote "I like it better" rather than "I think it's better." All three devices have their strengths and weaknesses that... well, wait a minute. Lets get to that in a bit. This post isn't supposed to be a comparative review, not yet at least. I'll have a big splash on Aug. 27 when the Pre goes on sale here in Canada. Let me just tell you why the Pre suits my lifestyle better than the iPhone or my work-issued BlackBerry.

I've only had the Pre for a week now - picked it up last Wednesday at a Palm press event - and have not been allowed to tweet, blog or write about it until this morning. (Palm and Bell had me - and every other journalist who got a Pre at the event - sign a strict embargo agreement). So now that I'm allowed to write about it, I have a few thoughts to share, and I'll continue to share until its launch.

It's hard here in Canada to approach things like the Pre's release with a great deal of excitement, let alone objectiveness, because of course the Pre has been out in the U.S. for three month and now finally comes to the Late White North. While the iPhone 3Gs was available here at home at the same time as it was in the U.S., the Pre wasn't and consequently the iPhone captured much more of everyone's attention. I have to say, I was far more amped about getting an iPhone when it came out than I was last week for the sneak peak at the Pre.

Since its release down south, U.S. media and tech sites have spilled gigabytes of ink comparing the Pre to the iPhone 3Gs and to various BlackBerrys. So, it all sort of zapped the excitement for me. In fact, when I returned to the office last week with the device, I left Pre sitting in its bag and didn't open it up until later that night. No big rush.

But if I wasn't stoked about the Pre then, I am now.

I suppose I knew it would be different even before I fully unpacked it. I'm familiar with Palm devices. I've played with a long line of Tungstens, Treos and Centros over the past few years - some of which I liked, some I hated - and the thing I noticed right away was how attractive the packaging was. I know, sounds silly, but its rectangular box and installation booklet are so appealing to the eye I actually noticed the packaging. Of a Palm device.

I wouldn't say Palm is known for boring or austere handsets, but I would say past designs (of phones and boxes) have been, well, boxy. Palm has never matched Apple's flair for design. So I suppose the fact that I noticed the packaging is sort of important because it tweaked my interest. And I'm happy to say that the pretty box holds a pretty phone, too.

More on that in an upcoming post. For now, I just want to focus on some basics.

The Palm Pre fills a big gap that exists between the multimedia super-device that is the iPhone and the e-mailing super-device that is the BlackBerry. While the Pre beats neither in their core strengths - multimedia and e-mail, respectively - it does both well, which is more than you can say for the iPhone or various BlackBerrys. Anyone familiar with those devices knows that sending anything longer than a Tweet on Apple's crowning glory is a tap-tap-tap... backspace... tap, tap... backspace-exercise in frustration; and watching a video, playing music or surfing the mobile Net on the 8330 (or the Bold, for that matter) is equally unfulfilling.

Since the iPhone came out and I picked up a review unit, I've basically walked around with two wireless devices. I'd surf and listen to music and watch videos, download apps and play games on the iPhone and I'd call and e-mail on the BlackBerry. Frankly, the world should be a place where you can do everything you want (and how you want) on one phone. We're not there yet, but the Pre is closer, right now, at reaching that point than any BlackBerry and, yes, even the iPhone.

So what's so great about it?

There are a basically three innovations in the Pre that totally kick butt. One is the ability to sync all of your contacts, the second is its universal search functionality and the third is the ability to open multiple applications, keep them open and navigate between them with a flick of the finger. I've never seen any of those core functionalities on other phones and after using them for a week I feel like it'll be hard to live without them.

In a nutshell, Palm Synergy, as they call it, gathers all of your contacts and calendars and merges each one into an all-access Rolodex card where you can send an individual an e-mail, a Google Talk message, a SMS message or call their various phone numbers. After setting up the Pre, I brought in all of my Globe contacts, all of my Rogers/Yahoo contacts from my personal e-mail account via Outlook, all of my Gmail contacts and calendar events and all of my Facebook friends' contact information. The last one is a coup. I've got about 180 friends on Facebook, many of whom I've not added into contacts because, well, they're on the site. Now, when I open up So-and-So's contact card, all of their numbers and addresses are right there. And when you message someone, it doesn't matter if you SMS phone number A and then SMS phone number B and then send a note via Google Talk, all three outgoing messages and any replies from any of the numbers appear in one continuous message window.

The universal search function is equally cool. Slide open the keyboard and type. As you enter each letter, the Palm OS starts offering up possible results - M shows me five apps: AP Mobile, Memos, Google Maps, Messaging and Music. Add an 'i' and now I see a list of contact names, including a lot of Mikes and Michaels (you can see where I'm going with this). Add the rest and all my Michael contacts are listed. If I continue typing and add Jackson or Jordan or Valentine Smith, the display changes from contacts to a four-option menu: Google, Google Maps, Wikipedia and Twitter. All that means if I'm looking for a noun (person, place or thing) I don't need to launch the browser and type into the search field, or launch contacts or launch anything. It's all automatic.

And the third thing - opening multiple apps and web pages - is totally underrated. All at once I can have e-mail, contacts, phone, Google Maps and AP Mobile open at the same time as well as half a dozen web pages. For any iPhone users, you know how great it is to be able to open eight web pages in Safari and navigate from one to the other. Being able to do that with apps is equally as cool. The Pre's touchscreen also makes it a snap to navigate. The apps and web pages appear like a row of cards laid out on a table and you just slid your finger to scroll and tap on the window you want to go back to. With a BB or iPhone, you always have to go back to the desktop (for lack of a better word) and launch, or re-launch, a second app. (Ok, i know you can play music in the background on the iPhone and open up a second app but that's the exception).

Is the Pre perfect? No, not by a long shot. It can't tether, ( Update: it can, actually, and although Sprint in the U.S. does not allow it, Bell will allow tethering) can't shoot video, has an absolutely anemic app store (a little more than a dozen apps versus Apple's 65,000 or so), has a processor that's just slightly above adequate (launching apps is not instantaneous like it is on the iPhone or BlackBerry) and runs out of juice kind of quickly. But I'll get to those over the next few weeks leading up to the launch.

Until then, I keep trying to convince the Globe's IT department to let me hook the Pre up to the ultra-secure Exchange so I can get all of my work e-mails flowing into the Palm. That's not going to happen, but a guy can hope? It would be nice to walk around with just one phone.

The Palm Pre launches Aug. 27 on Bell Canada's network and will cost $599.95 without a contract and $199.95 with a three-year contract.