My take on Palm Pre and the Device Product Experience
June 7th, 2009 by scottjanousek
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Today, I invested into a new Palm Pre. ok, so Sprint isn’t the best operator ever, but hey the device and user experience are actually very good (kudos to Palm for most likely saving their company with this device). webOS is kind of kick ass.
I’ve seen some “game player hate” from iPhone users on blogs. I find that kind of funny, as Palm did just what Apple did, take a bunch of ideas, bundle them together and come out with a great product and device experience. It’s not perfect, but it’s a very good effort from Palm.
Today, I journeyed to a local Sprint store to pick one up. I arrived a bit late around 10 or 11am. However, the store I went to was off the beaten track, so they had 4 left when I showed up. I got #4 (the very last one for launch day). ok, so the lines weren’t like Apple at launch of iPhone, but the people I talked to were pretty psyched to have a credible SmartPhone on their network. I do think the device will sell better than the G1, if people are willing to leap to Sprint.
The device itself, well, if you haven’t tried it, it’s pretty cool for what it is … Palm’s last attempt to stay in the mobile device game. I think they delivered a well thought out device, and user experience. I’ve seen a lot of mobile user interfaces, the Palm Pre is vibrant, fluid, and easy to use. Some might even call it “compelling”.
Is the Pre an “iPhone killer”? Well, maybe future webOS devices, not quite sure on the Pre device. However, it’s pretty clear Apple has stiff competition, not just from Palm, but also all dozens of other hungry OEM’s who want to keep, or grow their precious device marketshare. I’m curious to find out if Apple will deliver a new device this week, or at least make an announcement.
Also, BTW, in case you’re wondering Palm Pre launch does not appear to have Flash. However, I imagine they will push down Flash 10 later this year, OTA. The update system on Pre is just as sweet as it is on the iPhone …
I plan on writing a more comprehensive review of the Pre once I’ve used it for a while, so far I think it’s one of the better SmartPhones I’ve used in a while, but it’s not without flaws.
My Scores (out of 5):
Packaging = 5 stars
UI and Device Experience = 5 stars
Hardware = 4 stars (physical keyboard is not great, touchscreen is decent, display is awesome, GPS works fine, accelerometer is a check, etc)
Purchase Experience = 4 stars (got the last one, but point of purchase crashed 5-6 times while I was trying to check out)
June 9th, 2009 at 2:41 pm
Any new comments on the Pre?
June 9th, 2009 at 2:48 pm
The device is pretty cool. I think it will be successful if all the pieces can fall into place. It will take a while. I think Palm
is Apple’s first real competitor when it comes to mobile user experience … which makes sense, because (some) Ex-Apple
employees helped to define the Pre, and underlying webOS.
Hope the 6 month deal with Sprint is true, Verizon would pick up the Pre in a heartbeat (I think).
June 9th, 2009 at 3:18 pm
Very cool. Any chance you can give some subjective comments on how smooth the animations are — relative to Flash or iPhone? I’ve been very curious on how much speed they were able to wring out of their HTML5′ish environment. I’m also curious if 99% of what we’re seeing is fast because it’s PNG’s and low-difficult layouts that can be panned and zoomed. The Pre has Cairo, Freetype and AGG technologies hiding inside (apparently there is a list of open source software in the Pre’s filesystem). I wonder if it’s used much beyond font rendering… at least for the apps that its shipped with.
June 9th, 2009 at 3:24 pm
I’ve seen worse UI lag on devices … actually, it’s pretty snappy. Some might even say it’s comparable to the iPhone 3G (not sure on the 3GS). I could do a side by side with some other devices … if I had the time to spare. Maybe this weekend.