RSS Feed
Follow on Twitter
Facebook
Watch on YouTube
This post was published 7 months 9 days ago which may make its actuality or expire date not be valid anymore. This site is not responsible for any misunderstanding.
Last year, Palm took CES 2009 by storm introducing the Palm Pre and webOS. In November 2009, Palm introduced the Palm Pixi, a smaller, slightly less powerful brother to the Pre. Both were available on Sprint as their exclusive carrier. A year later at CES 2010, Palm introduced the Palm Pre Plus and the Palm Pixi Plus. Both devices brought some improvements and changes. Palm Pre Plus doubled the RAM (256MB – 512MB) so you can run more applications at once, and it doubled internal memory (8GB – 16GB) so you can store more photos, music, videos on the Pre Plus. They also redesigned the front of the Pre Plus, they removed the front button in favor of the Pixi-style gesture area. The Pixi Plus added Wi-Fi which was a huge complaint with the original Pixi. After using these phones for a couple of days, what do I think? Read on and find out.
Hardware
One of my main complaints about the original Pre was the build quality. I’m happy to report that on the Pre Plus, the build quality is so much more solid. No more creaks, there is nearly no play at all in the slider. Pixi Plus is solid, not a problem here.
The screen is bright and vivid, although the screen on the Pre Plus is noticeably brighter than the screen on the Pixi Plus. Just a quick recap, the screen on the Pre Plus is 320×480 resolution, it’s a capacitive touchscreen with multitouch capabilities. The screen is made out of hard plastic; still not as good as glass, but holds up fine. The Pixi Plus is 320×400 resolution, same capacitive + multitouch goodness.
Keyboard. I’m really, really picky about my keyboards. The Pre Plus keyboard is better than the one on the Pre, but still lacks the awesomeness found on the Pixi Plus. The keyboard on the Pixi Plus is a pure joy to type on. The keys are raised, have a great clicky feel to them. The one on the Pre Plus isn’t horrible, although the keyboard are much less clicky and because of the slider, it’s much less raised leading to a less perfect typing experience.
The gesture area works great on both devices, I definitely prefer the buttonless design over the one found on the Sprint Pre. The door that has access to the microUSB slot on the Pre Plus is still really flimsy. Overall, I’m happy that Palm really improved the overall quality of the hardware.
Software
The Pre/Pixi Plus is currently running webOS 1.3.5.1, which is identical to the software found on the Sprint Pre and Pixi. Palm said that webOS 1.4 will be available as an OTA update in February, so I’ll just go over the main features of webOS.
After booting up the device, you’re presented with your wallpaper or choice and a dock. Each applications runs in a little window which Palm calls “Cards”. With these cards, you can run them in the background, all you do is swipe up from the gesture area, and you’re back out to your wallpaper, with the application running in a small window. Then you bring up the launcher again, and launch the next app, and the card you opened stays exactly the same. When you’re done with the app, just flick up and the app closes. To rearrange the cards, just hold down on the card and move it where you want. Depending on the amount of RAM in the device, the amount of apps or cards you run will vary. The Pre Plus can handle 50+ cards, Pixi Plus stopped at around 17 cards.
Another cool feature is Synergy. It pulls in all your contacts, calendars, IM buddies, emails. It got really messy after I pulled in two Gmail accounts, because all the contacts, even people you just emailed once is in the contact list. Therefore, I don’t bother to use the Contacts app, I use Universal Search, another great feature Palm build in. How do you access Universal Search? Just start typing in Cards view, you can search your contacts, dial a number, or even search Google, Google Maps, Wikipedia, and Twitter.
The web browser in webOS is pretty good, especially since multitouch and double tap to zoom is included. Some of the heavy HTML sites didn’t render properly, some little things were slightly off.
The App Catalog on webOS is pretty small with only a handful of really good apps. The UI for the App Catalog is nice, the search doesn’t seem to work really well. For example when I search “Facebook”, it brought up a whole list of apps that have absolutely no connection to Facebook whatsoever, and the last listing was the actual Facebook app.
I love the Mobile HotSpot app. With that, I can tether my Pre/Pixi Plus to my laptop or any device that has Wi-Fi. I got good speeds, around 2-3Mbps. The Mobile HotSpot app is a battery drainer, after one hour of use, I lost about 40% battery life. The pricing for the Mobile HotSpot is $40 a month in addition to your data plan, and there is a 5GB cap. It’s relatively pricey, but it comes in handy sometimes.
Network and Call Quality
Verizon has great coverage, and the network was pretty stable where I am. For some reason, the Pre Plus would drop out of EV-DO every once in a while, which was kind of weird since the Pixi Plus didn’t do that. Call quality and both devices are great, the person I called said I sounded great, caller sounded pretty good on my end.
Pricing
The Pre Plus costs $149.99 with a new two-year contract and rebate. The Pixi Plus costs $99.99 with a new two-year contract and rebate.
Conclusion
Palm did make some improvements on the Pre Plus and the Pixi Plus. The bump in storage and RAM is welcomed, and the addition of Wi-FI on the Pixi Plus is also great. Battery life is a pretty big issue, and the device is not as speedy as some of it’s competitors, such as the Motorola DROID which is also on Verizon Wireless. I think webOS has great potential, I hope Palm will fix these issues in the next update of webOS.
You can subscribe by e-mail to receive news updates and breaking stories.
Loading ...