Palm webOS review – Smartphone Round Robin

I started using Palm devices back in 1997 with the Pilot 1000 and then spent several years moving through a full lineup of Palm devices. I still have a few Palm devices, including the Centro and Treo Pro. I purchased a Palm Pre on the day they were released last year, but had to return it because I just did not have a great Sprint signal and found the hardware to be a bit weak with a wobbly display. I found the operating system to be fantastic while app support was weak at that time. I asked several questions in the PreCentral.net forums and received some excellent responses from the readers there. With the Pre coming soon to Verizon Wireless with a MiFi capability I am going to take a serious look at the devices again because I have a special place in my heart for the Palm name. This week here on Nokia Experts I am taking a look at two Palm webOS device (the Pre and Pixi), the operating system, some capabilities & functionality, a quick comparison to S60 and Maemo, and some closing thoughts.

Hardware: Palm Pre and Palm Pixi

I had a Pre for 11 days and have to admit I miss it now and want to add it to my smartphone collection again. I loved that there was a hardware keyboard with a beautiful touch screen, along with a user interface that blows away what the iPhone provides. The first time I had a chance to see the Pixi was when Dieter brought one to the Smartphone Round Robin event. I was blown away by the miniscule size of the device, while still having a functional keyboard and display. I have a few thoughts on each device below, but recommend you visit the incredible reviews of both of these over on PreCentral.net. Dieter’s Palm Pre review is one of the BEST on the Internet and even includes 12 videos, found in the sidebar. The Palm Pixi review is also one of the few you will even find on the Internet and covers all aspects of this ultra-portable device.

Palm Pre When I first held the Palm Pre in my hand I had the immediate urge to go to a lake and skip it across the glass smooth water. The Pre feels great in your hand and is one of those devices you want to keep flipping around in your hand over and over. I love the way the viewable part of the display rolls right up to the rest of the front for a seamless experience. There is one single button on the front that I understand is removed in the Pre Plus. The display slides up to reveal a full QWERTY keyboard with rather sticky buttons. The keyboard is quite tight, but I found it to still be very usable and prefer a hardware keyboard over a soft input keyboard in most all cases.

There is a 3.2 megapixel camera on the back and it does take decent photos. Video capture will be supported in an upcoming firmware update, but is not yet enabled. I found the battery life to be pretty poor when I tested the Pre out last year and understand that firmware updates have improved the battery life over the last year.

Palm Pixi While the Palm Pre feels like a smooth stone, the Pixi is impressive because of its ultra-compact form factors. It is one of the smallest smartphones I have ever held and it is impressive that Palm was able to pack in a QWERTY keyboard, full color display, and more into the device. The Pixi is not a power user webOS device, but one designed for Centro users. The 2 megapixel camera with flash takes decent photos, but not as good as the Pre. The QWERTY keyboard is smaller than the Pre and is one that requires typing more with the sides or ends of your fingers rather than just the flat part of your finger.

Buttons are minimized on the Pixi and I cannot stress enough how extremely pocketable the device really is. I doubt any readers here on Nokia Experts would go for the Pixi since readers of enthusiast sites like this are primarily power users and the current Pixi is not a power user device with no Wifi, limited amount of memory, fairly basic camera, and performance I heard was less than the Pre.

The Palm Pre Plus and Pixi Plus have been announced for Verizon Wireless with a 25 January release. The Pre Plus has double the memory of the Pre and does away with the button under the display. The Pixi Plus gains WiFi and comes in multiple colors. Depending on the plan price, I may see about transitioning my MiFi account to a Palm Pre Plus account.

Operating system: Palm webOS

Palm didn’t just look at the iPhone user interface and come out with something similar. They truly created an operating system from scratch, based on Linux like Maemo, and developed something that is extremely intuitive and fun with a major focus on cards, multi-tasking, gestures, and Synergy. When you launch an application you can use it to your heart’s delight and then if you want to go to another app with the intent to come back later you simply press the home button and get back to a home screen where each running application appears as a card. You can then quickly flip through these open applications by sliding your finger across the display. If you flick your finger up on the display it throws away (aka closes) the application/card. It is very easy and fun to use and I have heard of people opening up apps just to fling them up and away. This is the way to do multi-tasking and is similar to the visual thumbnail task manager we all see on Maemo 5 on the Nokia N900.

You can slide your finger/thumb up from the bottom and open up a ribbon bar that then lets you slide left and right to open up selected apps and utilities too. Gestures are used throughout the device to create a highly fluid user experience. There are gestures for scrolling, swipe up, unlock, and back, to name a few.

Synergy is Palm’s term for integrating your information across multiple applications and sources so you don’t have to look everywhere for this information. It is truly a way for the fast processor and powerful operating system to do work for you and is what I want to see implemented on all mobile operating systems. I especially like how you can quickly view multiple calendars in a single interface that are color coded for different data sources.

Notifications are also very well done on the Pre and are much like what I have seen on Google Android devices, which completely blows away the rather non-existent notifications on the iPhone.

I found a decent number of applications on the Pre when I was using it and even though nothing can compete with the sheer number of apps on the iPhone, there were apps for most common functions and now that Palm has opened up the developer program I am sure we will see plenty more soon.

S60 and Maemo comparisons with Palm webOS

I’ve been integrating some comparison talk throughout this review, but here are some more comparisons to check out. I would honestly have to say that webOS currently beats the S60 and Maemo user interfaces, but the Maemo platform is still pretty modern and getting closer to what webOS provides. I do think that Maemo has a browser that can’t be beat yet and honestly rarely limits me in doing ANYTHING on the go.

S60 If I switch from a S60 device (say the Nokia n97 mini) to a Palm webOS device I would lose a great camera, good media player, and platform with thousands of available applications. I would gain a device with a slick user interface, well integrated cloud services, much better notification system, and much better gaming platform. The games we saw at CES coming to the Palm in February were truly awesome and nothing on S60 can currently compare with them.

Maemo Maemo is more interesting to me at this time with the power user functionality, but it is still more of a science project rather than a platform for the mass market. Like the webOS, Maemo does a great job integrating services. I would like to see Maemo do a better job with PIM data like we see on webOS and am hoping for more as Maemo develops. The user interface is not as slick on the N900, but it is still very functional and more modern than what we see on the S60 platform. The web browser on the N900 cannot be beat by webOS and the keyboard is easier to use on the N900. I would like to see applications with better user interfaces on Maemo like we see on webOS and I know it can be done with the proper incentive.

Wrapping up Palm webOS week

IMHO, Palm was on the ropes at the end of 2008 and needed something big to keep them relevant in the smartphone game. They did just that with the major Palm webOS and Pre announcements at CES in January 2009. We then saw the Pre actually launch in June 2009. I don’t think it has taken off like people hoped with availability just on Sprint and the rollout of 3rd party apps to be quite limited so again I thought they needed to do something to get things going again in early 2010. At CES they announced webOS devices were coming to Verizon with AT&T showing a slide that webOS devices were coming to their network too. We see that their 3D gaming is very impressive (coming as a firmware update in February) and things are shaping up for Palm and webOS. 2010 is going to be a year of choices for consumers with the smartphone market loaded up with outstanding choices across all networks.

I appreciated chatting with Dieter about the Palm Pre and Pixi, along with webOS, and learned enough about the Palm webOS (ease of homebrew, etc.) that I am very interested in getting another webOS device. Then again, Nokia has much better multimedia support and they too will have devices with much better user interfaces in 2010 so don’t give up hope for Nokia just yet.

Palm webOS devices are very attractive in the mobile space today and my long affair with Palm is a major factor that keeps me thinking about one of their devices. I am still not completely sold out on the idea of Palm gaining any huge market share in the mobile space though and still think they have a lot to prove in 2010.

7 Comments to Palm webOS review – Smartphone Round Robin

Leave a comment