Palms-on with the Pre

死老妖

A little quality time with the Palm Pre (and some very happy, verytired Palm folk) reveals more of the details...but one crucial one goesunanswered.

It's still not released, which seems astonishing considering theamount of uproar the Palm Pre has caused since its unveiling Thursdaymorning.A lot of people have put a lot of effort into the Pre, andthose who were showing off the smartphone at the Palm Lounge on Fridaylooked like most of us felt when we got back that last set of grades incollege and realized that good heavens, I may be graduated yet. And they may well: On closer examination, the Pre is still worth getting pretty excited about.
Iwalked in with a list of questions, but to be honest I also walked inwanting to paw the gear, which (multiplied by hundreds of journalistsand invited guests) would explain the very obvious security presencearound the lounge. The presenters were even, according to one of thepresenters, instructed not to take both hands off the Pre at anymoment. (I'm pretty sure Tom Hanks' security wasn't as tight as thatphone's this week.)
# B$ y; o7 v3 x! ySo there are some things I don't know about-- how sturdy the Pre is when you toss it from hand to hand, whetherthe keyboard slide (a tricky little piece of engineering, with thatcheek-fitting curve) feels smooth and properly springy; whether it'seasier to carry in my front or my back pocket. More seriously, I don'tknow what sound quality is like -- the elephant in the Zengarden-themed room.
0 M- m& a) d# n& tBut I do know that the questions that couldbe answered were answered much to my satisfaction on Friday. Scenesfrom an exhibition:

• Texture is key. Certainhandset manufacturers have learned the hard way that the physicaltexture of the keys is important to those of us who spend a lot of timetyping. Palm's gone with the "jelly key" feel for the Pre; the keyshave just a touch of squish to them, easing the impact on fingertips.Typing on this thing feels nice.

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• Screening for visibility. Some at our table wanted visualcomparisons, so we all threw our phones on the table to provide pointsof reference. (In our photo: Top row: BlackBerry Pearl 8130. Centerrow: Palm Treo 700w; Palm Pre with keyboard extended; Apple iPhone;unknown Nokia, perhaps the E71. Bottom row: Sidekick LX.) The 320x480Pre screen measures up larger than all but the iPhone and Sidekickscreens, nearly doubling the screen area of the Pearl. With thekeyboard extended, it's quite a long phone, comparable to the Sidekick;closed, it's smaller than the relatively petite Pearl. Screen qualityis nice; photo colors were rich and true, and video playback wassmooth. I found the type crisp too, though it'll be interesting to seehow that goes in brighter light.
• Hey-ho, Treo.Our impromptu comparison of handy smartphones shows that the Pre'skeyboard is close in size to that of the Treo 700w, seen in our phototo the far left of the middle row of phones. (The Pre, with thekeyboard out, is immediately to the right of the Treo.) Arepresentative confirms that though the keyboards are not identical,there's a family resemblance. The Treo also was the genesis for thePre's threading sensibility, though the newer phone also includes IM,texts and so forth in discussion threads.
• More than one way to...The interface offers alternative ways to perform various functions. Forinstance, you can dial by tapping the contacts icon and touching thescreen, by opening the keyboard and starting to type a name (the searchwill narrow it down for you), or by dialing in the traditional manner.On the other hand, what I thought was a trackball below the screenturns out to be a button, and it does just one thing -- takes you backto the main card screen. In a different vein, users can customizelabels in their address books, which is a small thing until you or yourfriends start to carry multiple mobile phones.
• Touchy, touchy.As for the multitouch, it seems to work well, and the close-cardgesture -- flinging the card off the top of the screen -- makes mesmile. The black "gesture area" under the screen works appropriatelyand includes a tiny discreet light behind the tint to signal whenyou've gestured.
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Curves and angles. That chassis curve is no joke; laying on atable, the Pre will wiggle a bit if the surface jiggles. One can onlyimagine how it'll behave on vibrate. The Touchstone magnetic-inductioncharger also has some interesting stuff happening with surfaces; forinstance, if you put the phone on it while you're talking, the callswitches to speakerphone. Palm also envisions the Touchstone as aviewing stand; if the phone's on it, the screen tilts up at avideo-friendly angle.
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• Snip, plop, yay. The iPhone user at our table askedabout the two features most desired by that platform's owners: MMS andcut-and-paste. Yes and yes. The demonstration of the latter showed itto be very clear-cut and intuitive to execute. Also? Removable battery.Just saying.
• Smart with sloppiness. Just as thephone can compile conversations from text, IM and such into a singlethread, it can figure out when one person in your address book hasmultiple listings. The rep told us that the software compares 4-5 datapoints (phone number, name, etc.) and can fold listings together ifthere's a match; if the software sees a few similarities but isn'tsure, it'll flag you to check for yourself.
• About exclusivity.Palm reps clarified that though any developer competent in HTML, CSS,and JavaScript can write an app for the phone, and they're fine toowith third-party sites hosting such apps (within reason), there willindeed be a Palm Pre apps store. It'll be somewhat curated, too -- no$1000 rubies. The Sprint deal, on the other hand, is not apermanent exclusive. A Palm rep told me that the company hasdemonstrated the Pre to other providers, and they expect to releaseversions for other services down the road. (Eventual GSM support wasbroadly hinted but not confirmed.)
• It's not ready yet.A partial list of things that remain undone on the Pre: There's novoice dialing yet. There's no VPN support. A list of native apps hasnot been finalized. They're working on extending the battery life to atleast a day. The handset plays back video, but it's not able to shootvideo yet -- though that could be something that can simply updatedover-the-air. There are accessories -- I noticed a nice zippered casepassing from hand to hand among the Palm folk -- but no one's tellingyet what they are. And there's no price set. The company is stillsaying it'll ship during the first half of 2009 and, as multiple repssaid, they'd prefer sooner to later.

Overall? I'm stillcrushed out -- concerned about sound quality, but quite certain thatunless the phone is far more expensive than Sprint currently expects (ashout of "$599?" for one visitor elicited incredulity from Palm reps),I'm still looking forward to this like no other gadget I've seen thisweek.

thatblue

tianfeng

什么意思嘛？晒机还是烤机？难道还要撒胡椒面花椒面？

flyhh

阿鬼，你还是讲中文吧

mingox

最下面的那个图一对比，palm真的设计的太没有男人味了。