Palm Pre: What Do You Want to Know?

How prone is the pre to crashing? What happens to your open apps when you take a call? How does it handle documents or attachments to email (especially pdfs?)
Thanks for reviewing!

Does it support dragging and dropping data when connected to a computer?

I know it sychs with iTunes but frankly, I HATE iTUNES. The reason I'm looking at getting a Pre is to get away from iTunes.

All I want to do is connect a device to my computer, have it be recognized as external storage and drag and drop files to it.

Just like my PSP has been doing since 2005.

@lkw Multitasking is what this phone does best. Haven't run into a crash yet but have seen the out of memory message when trying to open new apps a few times--it asks you to close some apps ("cards") by flicking themoff the screen--thankfully this is extremely satisfying.

Calls are treated as just another app, and everything else continues to run when you make or receive one.

And yes, there is a basic PDF viewer app.

@Jordan Lund Yep, you choose whether you want USB mass storage or iTunes sync when you plug in the USB cord. So you can have it both ways--until Apple blocks iTunes compatability!

By the way, sorry guys for our currently less-than-stellar comment interface. Improvements are coming very soon.

is there anything you would point out, good or bad, that jason didn't cover in his write-up? do you know how it holds up to impact? does sprint allow you to put insurance on it? do you know if sprint is gonna allow simultaneous voice and data ever? is that a bear skin rug in the background of your photo? and did you get your Pre before BLam?

holy geez. PopSci has a preview button.

Is there any way that I can suggest articles to popsci for their website. Or simply send in information or articles on amazing new things to someone who might write about it?

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I don't claim to be intelligent. I only claim to be human, in so far as I know.

@Nick does the hula

I'm not the author, just a commenter, but I got to hold a Pre today and play with it a bit...

I don't think it would hold up to impact well at all. The case is pure plastic. I was at Best Buy first and all they had on display were the non-working plastic shells, which I thought was kind of crappy.

So I went to a Sprint store and even though they were sold out of all 15 they got, they did have a live unit I could play with.

It feels cheap. It feels just like the empty case they had at Best Buy. It feels like a toy cell phone you'd hand to a kid.

That being said, the picture is sharp and brilliant. The Internet access was fast and I had no problems playing video on it. The interface is slick and intuitive. But it's hard to justify something that feels like a piece of junk.

I had this problem with Palm before... I loved my Palm III (paid almost $400 to give you an idea how long ago I was using Palm), but I upgraded when the Tungsten came out. The cheap plastic case scratched like crazy... the scratches were coming from the plastic flip cover that came with the unit! It was a cheap piece of trash that turned me off Palm for a very long time.

I was excited about the Pre and looking forward to it, now I can wait for a 2nd generation device that's improved and (hopefully) sports memory expansion.

@Nick I can say that while the case is plastic, I disagree with what appears to be the consensus re: the Pre feeling cheap. If it gets beaten around I don't think cracks are out of the question, but on the other hand, there's no glass screen to shatter.

Can anyone tell me when this device will be available in Ontario Canada?

Whoa... don't buy that bit about a glass screen! I've had five palm pilots going back to a Vx back in the nineties and now I have an iphone. The iphone screen BLOWS them away precisely because it's glass... no scratching (had mine since August and it looks brand new) and the later palm models started to have a "draggy", soft feel to the screen that was really annoying (Treo, T|X)... hopefully the Pre is better. I'm rooting for Palm but find it extremely difficult to imagine that they will compete with the smoothness and ease-of-use of the iphone (let alone the App store). My progression was Vx --> Tunsgten T --> Tunsten T3 --> T|X --> Treo 680 and they were progressively less impressive... maybe the Pre will reverse the trend but it will take alot more than anti-iphone/pro-pre propaganda (which is all I've seen) to convince me.

Will the home screen be customizable i.e. let you have a "today" view for upcoming appointments / events? This is a great feature of my blackberry - a quick glance at my phone tells me where to be or what to do.

@ Jonahu: There is a notifications tray always present at the bottom of the screen where upcoming appointments pop up. It's not exactly like BlackBerry's screen your describing or similar ones on Symbian phones, etc, but serves a similar purpose.

The OS is what shines on this device and is a great start. However, the hardware is very lacking. Let's hope they push forward with the OS and next gen put out a better quality pc of hardware.

My name is Brian, and I just got my Pre on Saturday by a stroke of sheer luck... They "Found" 10 extra units in the back room when everywhere else was sold out.

I LOVE this phone, but I'm getting a little tired of hearing about how much better the iPhone is by Apple fans who haven't even touched the Pre.

Yes, the iPhone is nice and all that, but come on.. let us enjoy our phones in peace. There's no need to tell us that our phone sucks when we just laid 3-400 bucks down on the counter for it.

I hang out at www.PalmPreForum.org a site made for all Palm Pre owners.

Rather than rush up a review after using it for half a day, we're obviously going to put this thing through its paces. But in the meantime, drop a line in the comments if there's anything we can check out for you.

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http://www.tamders.com/

thanks.