Palm Pre, suffers from being post

I tried a Palm Pre the other day, and my opinion was mixed. The first problem was with Oxford Street rather than Palm or O2. I went in search of a store, and found one with displays which excitedly announced the new phone, but there were none in sight. I thought it a bit strange because there every other type of phone was evident, including a bank of iPhones. So I stood in a short queue, and when I got to the front was told they had one demo model charging out back, but the others had all been stolen the day before! So I walked another couple of minutes down the road to the next O2 shop.

What first struck me about the pre was how much the screen looks and feels like the image is on the surface. The screen is bright, and the black of the casing combined with its curve makes it feel like you are touching the image. I like that.

In general I found it to be responsive, and pleasant. There were some areas of the software which I found counter intuitive and annoying, for example when I was editing a calendar entry there was nothing to say done or cancel, and it took me a while to realise I should return to the home screen and swipe that screen out of the way. It was only when I relaunched the calendar that I could return to the month or week view.

I found this in a couple of apps, and though Palm might tout it as a feature (auto save and therefore no done or cancel button) I found it a bit offputting that you to have to return to the home and remove the view by swiping it away.

The other thing which I thought badly resolved is that when you are editing text it is difficult to place the cursor in the right place because your finger obscures the letters, and there is no pop up magnifier (as in iphone) or any other device to help find where you are.

I really like the small alerts which appear at the bottom of the screen. This is something which I'd like to see on the iphone: the ability to have discrete signals of other events without an alert box, and the ability to have a sense of upcoming data and incoming information on one screen when you switch it on.

I am not very concerned about running more apps at once, until there is a significant improvement in battery technology (like double the capacity), so for me this ability is not all that exciting on the pre.
The contact app, with synergy, the ability to gather all of your contacts profiles automatically is axciting, and i'm sure something which Google and Apple will seek to incorporate in their OS's.

Overall I thought the software was very good, but felt not completely coherent. If Palm had been earlier in the game this would have had far more impact, but there is a big phone market, and I'm sure they will iron out some of the less intuitive parts. Until there is a bigger take up I cannot see the gap closing between the 2-300 apps and the 85-90,000 on the app store for iPhone.

When it comes to keyboards I am on the side of the virtual. I find the keyboard on the iPhone pretty good for most things, though I look forward to the day when apple allows wireless keyboards to be tethered to it for serious typing. Tiny physical keyboards just don't do it for me, and I think the Pre keyboard is awful. I found it difficult to find letters, even more difficult to handle numbers - pretty bad on a phone - and the edges of the casing made using the keyboard quite uncomfortable.

Lastly I want to look at the case. The facia is fine, and the way the screen has been handled is very attractive, but the general experience of handling the Pre was disappointing. It is meant to be organic, and this should extend to all modes of handling, but once you open the keyboard you find sharp edges, and these are in places where your hand grips the phone making it quite unpleasant. Palm will need to do some work on the case for version 2 of the pre - which I hope is in the pipeline.

I bought a palm pilot back when they first came out, and used it and various other versions for years since. The iPhone blew Palms offerings away, and I am now a very happy iPhone user. Having said that I was very excited to see Palm coming back with a great niew OS and phone. With my brief experience of the Pre, I would say it is not there yet but has a very interesting product. The arena of mobile devices is now buzzing with touchscreen smartphones, and Palm had better get moving to stay in the fray.