A Few Thoughts on The Palm Pre

Thomas R. Hall tinkered with a Palm Pre this weekend and sent me a few of his preliminary thoughts on it. I thought his email was so interesting that it should be shared, and he graciously agreed to letting me reprint it below.

While these are just Thomas’ thoughts expressed to me, he is such a clear and logical person that I didn’t have to clean up the wording at all: it’s very readable, and I think you’ll find it interesting. For me it was also timely, because I’m on the verge of getting a new phone, and I am leaning strongly toward a new iPhone (even more so after Thomas’ email).

Here are Thomas’ impressions:

I played with the Pre this weekend at a Sprint store. It’s… okay. Not bad at all for a first device, and the multitasking is awesome. But even without running a ton of apps simultaneously (I closed them when I wasn’t using them and often had nothing open, just the phone in standby), the battery went quickly! Like 1.5 faster than the original iPhone 2.0 release quickly. I doubt it would make it through the day, even with only moderate use. This may get better with OS updates (as it did on the iPhone 2.x series), so we’ll see. The Pre gets WARM quickly. This is a problem with power-hungry CDMA phones, so a GSM model may fare better. Time will tell.

The UI isn’t consistent. I think you would find some things that would bug you. Tap targets are small and with a small screen, I don’t see it being good for anyone with big fingers or older eyes. It’s like they were having an identity crisis with the UI. Are we a keyboard-based UI or touch-based? An example is that you have to use the keyboard for copy/paste but touch to access menus. So you move from the physical keyboard up a long way to the top of the screen when the keyboard is extended. It’s hard to describe, but it feels inconsistent. I think a lot of folks who like it like the new, shininess of the UI and aren’t noticing this. But I think it would fatigue the user subconsciously. The Android OS doesn’t suffer from this. It marries keyboard with touch well.

Lack of apps will hurt Palm in the near term, but I’m sure that will get better over time. Multitasking, Synergy, and notifications shine on the device, but those are mainly UI elements. Notifications are great on Android as well, and something similar to switch apps could work on it. Synergy is also something that others could introduce.

I think the real allure for some is the physical keyboard. I don’t see Apple going that route, so Palm and Android devices (and BlackBerry) have that going for them for part of the market. Also, while the calendar, mail, and contact apps are well thought out and usable, tasks and memos are terrible. With tasks you can have different lists and show all lists or one and then all, completed, or remaining tasks. No priority or date sorting, etc. And memos are just notes on a corkboard. Pathetic. Not usable for productivity purposes for now.

I think the OS is a great 1.0, the hardware is beta at best (they could have made it slightly bigger to get a bigger keyboard and batter in there), but I hope it keeps Palm going, as I can see this becoming better in the future. And competition is good for consumers, as Apple, Google, and Palm all have to keep raising the bar.

I have other thoughts, but I’ll stop my rambling for now. I think for me, I see an Android-based device in the BB Curve 8900 form factor, but with a touch screen being my main device for productivity and general browsing, etc. I still see the iPhone or iPod Touch as a media consumption device as well as for running other apps (not my main productivity ones I need on hand all the time), unless Apple opens up their APIs to allow for a richer calendar/contact/PIM experience.