Phone features and contacts
While the Palm Pre does a ton of stuff, let's remember that it's a phone first and would only be a glorified PDA without the voice features. While the Pre offers the standard range of voice-calling options, unfortunately the initial version of webOS does not support voice dialling and there is no support for visual voicemail at this time.
The contacts list is only limited by the amount of available memory (about 7GB) and includes fields for multiple numbers, email and IM addresses, street addresses, birthdays, and more. With Palm's Synergy feature, the Pre can pull a contact's information from various sources — Facebook, Outlook, Gmail, and so forth — and automatically fill all the fields in a single contact sheet, so you don't have to go through the hassle of manually entering all the data.
Messaging and calendar
The Palm Pre supports multiple email accounts, including POP/IMAP and Microsoft Exchange. We synced several email accounts to the Pre, including Gmail, Yahoo and Exchange. The set-up for all three was a breeze — often requiring only a username and password to set-up.
All accounts are housed under the Email card, from where you can access your various inboxes. Synergy also allows you to view messages from all accounts under one view, though we think most would prefer to keep personal and work email separate. Email delivery was almost instant and an action, such as deleting a message or moving an email to a folder, is reflected on both sides whether you do it from the Pre or your computer.
There is a separate messaging app that houses all your instant, text and multimedia messages. In this folder, you'll be able to see all conversations with a contact in a single, threaded view in chronological order, regardless of message type.
With the email set up, all relevant Calendars will also be synced to the Pre and brought into one calendar view via Synergy. Appointments are colour-coded to help you differentiate between the different accounts. Alternatively, there is a drop-down menu from where you can view each calendar separately. Again, like email, the synchronisation of our Outlook and Google calendars was seamless. We also created new events from the device, which automatically synced back to our Outlook and Google calendars.
Universal search
With all the data that the Pre can handle, searching for items could be a cumbersome and tedious task, but universal search takes care of that problem. From anywhere on the phone, you can start entering a search term and the Pre will look through your contacts, applications, the web, Google Maps, and Twitter. The feature worked well when we searched for contacts, businesses, and more general terms, but it's not quite as robust as the iPhone's search in that it doesn't search email headers, calendar, notes or the music library.
Multitasking and notifications
If there's one area where the Palm Pre holds the edge over the current iPhone, G1 and other smartphones, it's in its multitasking and notification capabilities. The much-talked-about Deck of Card feature works well, allowing you to keep multiple applications open and running in the background while working in another. Like on a computer, you can minimise and maximise tasks by using the centre button and swiping through the various cards. In addition, the aforementioned quick-launch bar makes menu access and launching new apps a snap.
The notifications bar also seamlessly alerts you to incoming/missed calls, new messages, appointments, and so forth. The notifications are unobtrusive. Email subject headers and a single-line preview of text messages and IMs will appear in the bar. If a call comes in while you're working in an app, you get an alert along the lower third of the screen and you can accept or ignore the call without having the incoming-call screen overtake the app.
With so many apps going at once, you're probably wondering how it affects performance, and we have to say that the Pre surprised us. There was a slight lag when launching applications but the smartphone was still very responsive and didn't show any signs of freaking out, which was very impressive.
Connectivity
The Palm Pre is outfitted with all the wireless options you could need. It works on Sprint's EV-DO Rev. A network, which promises average download speeds of 600Kbps to 1.4Mbps and peak rates of up to 3.1Mbps, and average upload speeds of 350Kbps to 500Kbps, peaking at 1.8Mbps. Alternatively, you can get online using the Pre's integrated Wi-Fi.
Bluetooth 2.1 is also on-board and supports a number of profiles, including stereo Bluetooth, hands-free kits, personal area networking, phone book access, and audio/video remote control. The Pre also includes a built-in GPS-receiver.
Web browser
The Pre's browser is quite good. Based on WebKit, it renders sites on-screen as you would see them on your desktop, and pretty quickly at that. Thanks to the multi-touch screen, you easily zoom in/out on pages with a double tap or by pinching your finger together or apart (as with the iPhone) and you pan pages by touching a point on the screen and dragging your finger in any direction. To enter a web address, simply start typing the URL and an address bar will appear.
Overall, we were happy with the Pre's browser in terms of navigation and functionality, but there were a couple of misses. One was the lack of an on-screen keyboard. Without it, you can't type URLs or enter any text into relevant fields when you're viewing sites in landscape mode, so you'll need to switch back to portrait mode, which is annoying.
Multimedia
The Palm Pre has got a solid set of multimedia features. The built-in media player supports a number of formats: MP3, AAC, AAC+, WAV and AMR music files and MPEG-4, H263 and H264 video formats. The music player offers basic functions: play/pause, track forward/back, and shuffle and repeat modes. In addition to the standard forward/back buttons, you can swipe the album covers to proceed through songs. It's not quite as slick as the iPhone's Cover Flow feature, but it works.
The 8GB memory cap really became an issue when we were transferring our music library. We watched nervously as our storage diminished, so people with large libraries are probably going to have to cull their selections. A microSD expansion slot would really alleviate the problem, but Palm said it didn't fit with the design they were going for.
Video was a mixed bag. YouTube and MPEG-4 clips played back smoothly, and we were quite impressed by the clarity of YouTube videos.
The Pre's music sound quality was quite good. Needless to say, we're happy that Palm included a standard headphone jack. We tested the phone with a pair of Radius Atomic Bass Earphones and Bose On-Ear Headphones, and while there are no audio settings or EQ presets, we thought songs sounded rich and we noticed a good amount of bass. Music is muted for any incoming calls or if you're using Sprint Navigation and it's currently providing audible directions.
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