[READ ME] Dashs blog #1 for cnet

[iamdasht19]

please tell me what you guys think of what i have text wise.... some more links (liek to videos) and pictures including screenshots will be added tomorrow (blogging starts thursday now the way it looks) please be honest so i can make this the best that it can be

My First Thoughts On The Palm Pre:
Screen:
When first booting the device up I was expecting a slightly fuzzy picture since my current device is a touch pro, to my surprise I saw a crystal clear image with a sharp crisp look. The 480X320 screen is just beautiful with support of 16 million colors. My first test that I had to put the device through was how it looked while in the sun, to my surprise (even at noon) the glare from the sun was reflected nicely by the screen and it was still very readable without a lot of strain or stress on the eyes. By the time I had tinkered with it for a little bit I noticed that the greases from my hands and sweat was making a glare when the sun hit it. That was a downer, a easy fix I found for this was to use the case that came with the device as a quick clean cloth.
Touch Sensativity:
Im not sure about others but on my devices I love having a responsive screen that doesn’t take much pressure to process a touch. The Pre nailed this no doubt! The screen is the perfect sensativity meaning you just have to tap very lightly to get a register but not too light in where its overly sensative. This is a big factor for me since I send many texts and emails throughout the day and don’t want to waste time having to click multiple times to do a process since it didn’t register the first time. A cool feature dealing with the tocuh is the ripple effect. Everytime a touch is registered on the device a ripple effect happens showing you that the touch did go through, additionally if you press and hold you will get a halo feature appearing on the device which you can than use to change icons on your launcher.
Phone:
The phone feature on the Pre is very east to access and use. The phonepad has very each to touch numbers as well as option buttons. The only thing that I have noticed is that every once in a while when scrolling through my recent calls I get a little lag if I try to scroll through tooo fast. The use of this feature and the ability to find contacts, and lists easily makes this a great device on the call side.
Operating System/UI:
As many people that know me realize, I am a true diehard Windows Mobile FanBoy, ever since I picked up my first ppc (treo 700WX) I have been addicted and owned multiple phones. With that said I kept an open mind and was really excited to be one of the first batch of people to give this a shot and see what WebOS is all about. From the moment I finished the initial set-up I knew that Palm placed a lot of time into the device and the UI. The swipes are very smooth and they seem to have all the correct drivers in place to allow the device to run smoothly. Upon tinkering further I noticed that there are many new features as well as some that they have adapted from the past palm models and OS. I do like the “Card” feature, but I do have one gripe about it. Why cant the cards be minimized completely but still open? I like being able to see them and all and realize that they can be minimized to an extent but why block the background wallpaper all the time? I like to leave cards of my commonly used applications (accuweather, infopedia, tweed, sms,email) since they do open almost instantly compared to the slightly sluggish speeds if they werent open currently. The one feature I grew to love quickly is the notifications and how they are set up. While I was surfing the net testing the browser I received a text message, only the bottom part of the screen showed that message and I could still type and the same was for when a call came through! This is a great feature that I wish windows mobile had since personally getting cut off while on the net happens quite a bit. The launcher is pretty cool and can hold up to 5 icons which are interchangeable. To change the icons I found that you just hasve to open up the apps tab (on the far right of the launcher) and than when in there just click and hold the icon that you want to remove unti l you see a halo form around it. Once you see the halo you just drag over to the page and than do the same to add the icon of your choice to the launcher. Last but not least the lock feature is basic, stylish, and easy to use. Its consists of a large digiital clock with a yellow circle with a picture of a padlock inprinted on it. To unlock the device all you have to do is slide that yellow dot up and the screen will than unlock. For the contacts I have a couple compalints, first of all the user has to scroll all the way through if they don’t want to type to get to the contacts at the bottom of the list. I feel that they sgould have it where you press and hold and you should be able to press the letter and have it bring you to that part of the contact list. The other gripe I have is that the contacts that have pictures with them take a little longer to load than the normal ones without images. Soundwise the speaker is great and of high quality but why did Sprint/Palm lock down the ability to be able to switch notification sounds? This doesn’t make since to me sicne every phone since the beginning of phones have had interchangeable alerts. Hopefully this gets fixed soon.
Messaging And Email:
The messaging feature on the phone is a pretty cool one. It is laid out in two different forms, you have the conversations and buddies tabs. The conversation tabs is your threaded text message style with contacts from your phone. Buddies on the other hand is your instant messaging programs so you can talk via im without any additional apps. The only gripe that I do have with the messaging format is that there is no way to forward a text message if needed. Hopefully that will get fixed in future updates. (or app)
Email is very easy to set up. All you have to do is click on add new account and fill I nthe blanks. Many people don’t understand what a lot of the lingo that is used means or what the server addresses are. I have found this to be a very helpful webpage that gives you all the domains and server addresses for the top email clients.
http://www.emailaddressmanager.com/t...-settings.html
Battery Life:
In my daily life I can easily send and receive over 600 texts and 200 emails a day from various places (including SmartPhoneJunkie which im co-founder of) so I need a battery that isn’t going to die quickly. Out if the box the device was only half charged, not wanting to damage my battery I fully charged the device before I tinkered. (trust me it was hard not to pick it up and fiddle with it) once charged it was about noon, I decided to put it to the test and started texting people that this was the number I wanted to be contacted on for the next month for testing purposes. Oh boy! Hahaha, that was a mistake if I should say so myself. Before I realized it I was over 100 deep in text messages, this would have drained my Touch Pro pretty quickly but suprisingly I was still at 96% battery life! Not believing it I decided to setup my email addresses, 154 emails later I still hadn’t dipped below 90%. At this point I decided to call a close friend since I know she would put my phones battery to the limit. (she likes to talk J ) after finally hanging up the phone an hour later I noticed my battery life had dipped down to 79%. I tested these results over the next few days proceding this and the battery life hasn’t drained any faster as of yet.
Charger:
Prepackaged with the pre you will find a charger and usb cord along with a little cylinder. These are your charger pieces. You can charge your device via usb from your computer by just plugging in or by using plugging the usb into the cylinder and than to an outlet. For those that don’t like the fact of always removing the little plug and charging the phone via usb can look into the touchstone charger which is wirefree and runs 70.00 at local stores. The cool features about the touchstone is that it comes with a very nice matte back cover that feels better in hand and is less slippery than the stock one when talking. To use the touchstone charger all you do is snap the phone into place and let it be, if a call comes through to the touchstone it will activate the speaker on the device until you pick up the phone when it will than automatically switch back to the earpiece for you. I highly recommend one of these for all users sicne it is also a nice docking station so you don’t have to worry about the device falling or getting knocked off from the table.
Camera:
The camera feature (3.2 MP with flash) on the Pre is very basic which in a way is a good thing. The speed of the camera is the strong point. You can take the picture and take another one right after without lag or delay to save or view the image. The negatives about it that I have noticed so far is that the image clarity isnt the best(not as clear as on my pro which has 3.2 MP also) and that they don’t have different settings to chage the basics such as mp’s, sports mode, rampage mode, etc. i also like the mirrored back of the slider so you can see what you are taking a picture of if you want to get yourself and a firend or scenery behind you.

App Catalog:
The app catalog doesn’t have too much in it at the moment but will grow in the near future. There are some very good apps in it including connect 4, fandango, tweed, pandora, etc, already including in the store which is still in beta but very nicely laid out making it easy to find what you want. The most impressive feature is that you can search by the type of app that you are looking for. I can’t honestly wait until the app store starts to grow some more and see what fellow developers are coming up with for this device.
Keyboard:
I don’t have the biggest of hands but don’t have the smallest either so the keyboard was my biggest worry about this device. I have owned other devices in the past such as the treo pro and after some time the keyboard not only cramped my fingers it also cramped my hands. To my amazemnt this keyboard doesn’t cramp my hands too bad. I found when I feel my hands getting a little cramped that I can just hold in one hand and use my thimb to press the keys on the keyboard. The keys are a harder rubbery feeling key with a nice texture, this makes the Pre a lot easier to type on than if it had the hard plastic keys with no give making them hard to press.
Internet:
The net feature on the device is up and down. When you are in good signal areas I havent used a faster browser, but when you get down to one bar or so it tends to slug more than other devices like WM per instance. One thing I don’t like is that in the code there is the ability to add tethering to the device but sprint already said thaty it wouldn’t be allowed with this device which I don’t understand. Smartphone and ppc users through sprint have became accustomed to being able to tether with our devices and could be a huge turn off to many people looking to make the switch from a differnet smartphone or to a smartphone for the first time.

Nifty Features/Design:
Synergy- this is a cool feature that is very useful for a user like myself. When I set up my gmail account on the Pre it will sync and than ask me if I want ot being over my contacts and calender lists from my google account. This saves so much time since I now can have my address book with me quickly and efficiently sicne I am a constant emailer.
The design of the device is very smooth and elegant with a pinch of sport. The slidout keyboard on an angled cut Is a great addition to help shield from the sun when texting outside. The phone is made very solidly and quality wise have no major problems. The two things that bother me about the design is the battery cover and no status lights. The battery cover can be taken off by pressing the little tab in on the bottom of the device and than sliding up. Ha, easier said than done. The easiest way that I have found to get it off is to get my nail under the cover and than work it to the top when it will than pop off without any troubles or damage. (hopefully will be fixed in future models) For status lights ive always been a fan. I set my phone down at work quite often and go do something on the other side of the office, I can’t here the phone over there since it is louder in my area. (other phones ringing non-stop) All I have to do on my pro is glance over and see if the icon for a notification is flashing or not. I cant do this on the pro which means you have to physically turn the screen on to see if you have anything missed. That a little of a killer but we do have a led circle on the front which im sure in no time will have script wrote to make it work as a status indicator.
Expandable memory is always nice to have. Unfortunately the Pre relies on the 8gb internal memory as its only source. 8gb is plenty on a device for some but what about the ones that want to add music or movies (when supported) 8gb isnt much for music. I would have loved to see even an 8gn and 16gb version, this device is supposed to be the iphone killer so why not give the option for the extra memory to help make it happen? This could turn off many people and have them go with or stick with the iphone over the Pre.

[VenumX]

very good dashy i really like it! I would just make sure to make corrections to this part:

"The phone feature on the Pre is very east to access and use. The phonepad has very each to touch numbers as well as option buttons. "

And there were a couple spelling mistakes that seemed to have occurred due too typing too fast really like the way you worded everything though!

[iamdasht19]

“ Originally Posted by VenumX ”

very good dashy i really like it! I would just make sure to make corrections to this part:

"The phone feature on the Pre is very east to access and use. The phonepad has very each to touch numbers as well as option buttons. "

And there were a couple spelling mistakes that seemed to have occurred due too typing too fast really like the way you worded everything though!

thanks and yeah havent spell checked it yet sicne i got that all spat out in under an hour

[Sh0wNuF]

I like it d/\sh. Your blog is good at pointing out the great things about the pre and also providing the negatives without making them seem like deal breakers. My only advice would be to proofread it or have someone else proofread it before posting it just to eliminate some of the grammatical/spelling errors as they can be kind of confusing to those who don't know you as well as we do...I saw near the end you were talking about the pre but you replaced the "e" with an "o" making it sound as if you were talking about the pro. Other than that I think you have a talent for phone reviews...keep up the good work bro

[tlpalmer01]

very nice review dash, if u had to chose today whether u could use only 1 phone which would it be, ill ask u this later on in the month?......

[jr5416]

Wow bro u outdid ur self on this on i would have never been able to type that much well deseved win for you congrats again

[CYBER WEESJE]

He bro realy nice revieuw i like it very well put thats why you won this thing the now that you are the right one to do this


grtz cyber weesje
moderator@spj

[iamdasht19]

“ Originally Posted by tlpalmer01 ”

very nice review dash, if u had to chose today whether u could use only 1 phone which would it be, ill ask u this later on in the month?......

as of now i would stay with the pro but with advancements of webos in the future i could see them becoming big and giving a run for my vote.

[puertoblack2003]

“ Originally Posted by D/\SH ”

as of now i would stay with the pro but with advancements of webos in the future i could see them becoming big and giving a run for my vote.

nice brotha lets see if you can get your hand on the hero for review ;0)

[iamdasht19]

“ Originally Posted by puertoblack2003 ”

nice brotha lets see if you can get your hand on the hero for review ;0)

hahahahah im hoping, my blogs are all going ot be outrageous like this and im actually going to put time into the blog wacth and every day sicne it is a daily blog.... i would love to get a side job through cnet writing reviews and getting to review all thee electronics for free we will see what happens though since im not sire how the competition is going to be

[VenumX]

“ Originally Posted by D/\SH ”

hahahahah im hoping, my blogs are all going ot be outrageous like this and im actually going to put time into the blog wacth and every day sicne it is a daily blog.... i would love to get a side job through cnet writing reviews and getting to review all thee electronics for free we will see what happens though since im not sire how the competition is going to be

word that would be sick bro!