Palm Pre from Sprint

Sprint PCS launched the first real competitor to the iPhone in June 2009 with enthusiasm and excitement. The gist of the marketing campaign was that this phone will sync your life and make you feel as useful and sexy as the Pre's sleek design.

I have been looking for this phone since my husband got his first PDA in 2004 and until the Pre nothing even promised my dreams.

Trying to make my own dream come true I have forwarded my yahoo mail to my phone and browsed the web on my Palm based Sprint Centro.

Why I Bought a Palm Pre

I work at places that do not have computer access and traveling to rural areas that don't have cell phone towers and consider myself reasonably techie but only so far as it makes my life easier. I don't have an iPod and even though I have a nice calendar on my Centro that should hot sync to an electronic calendar on my computer that can share with my husband's office Outlook so I will know when his flight is arriving I am still using pen and paper because so far its easier.

The one thing that I did use my Centro for, besides checking e-mail, making phone calls and having the alarm ring to remind me I have to be at my daughter's piano lesson every Tuesday, was the Dat-a-Viz Documents to Go application on which I type 1,000 to 2,000 words at a time.

Each new phone and PDA gagdet has sparked my attention. If the iPhone was available anywhere other than AT&T I might have been on that bandwagon but I'm happy with the Sprint Network and since I didn't already have an iPod the iPhone was the apple of other eyes and the Blackberry just isn't the right gadget for me.

When I First Bought My Palm Pre

The idea of the Palm Pre made me giddy with glee and weathered my skepticism all the way through the display at Best Buy and the Sprint Store and into my possession.

When I got the black beauty home and plugged it into my laptop I made a happy discovery that my laptop thinks it is an iPod. The Pre harvested my husbands iTunes library and added it to my happy phone!

Making phone calls, snapping pictures and handeling email word well on the pre. It is not lightning fast and you do have to tap reload so that it checks your inbox and syncs with what you checked on your computer. I do not get much after 7am so it is very useful that my Pre lets me know everytime one arrives.
On the pre a little tag comes across the bottom of the phone and you can open the email or swipe it away for later.

Like the iPhone the Pre does tricks with apps that you download. The ap catalog is growing every day but it no where as large as the iPhone. In addition to full access to the web, which thinks your Pre is a computer and not a phone, you can visit the .com or .mobi version of any site.

You can access Facebook or MySpace and complete credit card transactions, access the AP news wire service and even read books on the Pre. The screen is bright and the standby battery time is awesome and I run my speaker phone through my car speakers for hands free driving and to listen to all my music.

2 Big Complains

The Pre will not do the one thing that I needed it to do. There isn't a Docs to Go application for the Pre yet and the keyboard is not as comfortable as the Centro. The Palm Pre comes with a Dat-a-Vis viewer but you can not create or edit Word documents which is the only thing that I need my phone to do besides making a phone call!

Dat-a-Vis is working on launching a Pre Version of Docs to Go Spring 2010 but even with the application I am skeptical because the ergonomics of the keyboard are weak. I don't think there is any way I could type 1,000 words like I did on my centro and the value of flipping the screen is lost because of the fixed keyboard position.

Overall, the Sprint Pre is a good first try at my perfect phone but it is still just a phone.