The Cell Phone Quest – Part 2

I do have to admit, I am biased going into this discovery process.  Since it is my desire to move back to Sprint from Verizon, I am leaning towards Sprint phones.  Emotionally, the phone I am leaning toward the most at the moment, is the Palm Pre.  Seems fitting then that this phone would be first to be reviewed and it’s the Pre’s race to loose.  Just being honest.

The Pre is the newest phone from Palm.  If you have followed the phone market at all (and why in the heck would you?) you’d know that Palm has fallen off the edge in recent years.  A company that was once the dominate leader in the smart phone space has gotten behind and become irrelevant.  Most in the industry feel this is Palm’s last shot.  They have made it a good one.

I like the Pre for several reasons.  It’s smaller and fits better in your pocket better than an iPhone or some of the larger Blackberry devices.  It comes will all the features I am looking for (touch browser, corporate email, GPS, song and podcast capable, etc) and a promising new operating system called the WebOS.  The plans are also cheaper with more minutes at Sprint. 

It does however, come with some serious drawbacks.  The battery life is terrible (it can only get better with future updates).  The phone itself is $199 after rebates.  I would have liked to have seen it come in at $99 and compete with the iPhone on price.  There are limited applications available (iPhone had the same problem when it was first launched) and no promise of more coming.  Since launch two weeks ago, it has already had 3 updates (this is good and bad) and the reviews on usability have been mixed.  The case is not as nice as some others and the keyboard is very small.  It scores better than my current phone, but the iPhone is yet to come.

Here is how it scores:

Remember, I search so you don’t have to!