Sunday, June 28

A month later, do I still like the Pre?

So, I was in SF this weekend and was showing off the Pre at various events and parties - and the Pre had all sorts of reactions.

The first and foremost are that people seemed to think that it is "cute" - as in, holding the round black piece of phone, they are quite amazed. For the first week, I heard endlessly about the ability for the Pre to "cut cheese". Yeah, yeah - funny. I can use an iTouch to cut soft cheese as well.

As for the functionality of the phone, there are some niggly details that are killing me still - and I even downloaded the 1.0.3 update - but no avail. These issues are:
  • Battery life
    5 hours talk (or use) and less than a day standby. Yes, even when I forget to plug it in, the darn thing runs out of juice overnight more times than I can count. Another friend in the Valley also had terrible experience with the battery life - because of the problems, he missed a numebr of phone calls - and when we got together, I offered my TouchStone to charge. But lo, he only had the plastic backing.

  • OS Slowness
    So thrilled about the multi-threading - but there is definitely a lag in the operation. Almost makes me wish for my treo once again. Starting apps, modifying elements, flipping between them - not sure what is causing the slowdown.

  • Camera Phone Replacement
    My Sprint store said they would call me when the replacement phone came in - but no news yet. And we are a month out. Big issue for me: do I want a replacement when I learned that all of the actions on the phone do not get backed up - so I lose my history and settings from my current phone when I switch over to a new one. Very upsetting.

    And then the camera - almost like playing my own form of lottery. Sometimes it works (especially when I am entering a new person into my contacts), but more often than not - just sits there with the grey cloud. Very frustrating.

  • Auto-capitalizing login names in form elements
    Oy! This one is driving me crazy - when I am logging into Facebook or google Mail from the Pre web browser, the first thing that happens is the login name gets the first letter capitalized. Why? Guys, come on - what's the deal? Can't you make this a setting or something?

  • Hardware beginning to loosen up
    So, since I use the phone regularly, I keep finding the top piece beginning to shift a little bit more every week. Granted, it is plastic - and I am wondering if there will be some wear-and-tear that will cause problems. Only time will tell.

  • Anemic App Catalog
    This is not a new story - but I have been trying to do development for the Pre - and do not even have the Mojo Development Platform for myself (which I was promised would happen). Quite frustrated actually about the dearth of apps - and I want to build FourSquare with the guys.

  • google Maps on Pre is a memory and processor suck
    Recently, when I was traveling between San Diego and LA, I was trying out the google Maps on the Pre to see if it could help me get to my destination. Aside from the inability for this version of google Maps to retain my previous destinations (like it did on the treo version), the google Maps App is a memory and processor suck - as in, within 5 to 10 minutes of tracking your position (and potentially using the traffic option) the Pre gets hot, slow and can not open other cards/apps. Come on google/Palm - can you repair this? I get incredibly envious of the iPhone apps, and this is at least one that should be solid.
Yes, I still have it - and since I am still on Sprint, I will keep it - but boy, iot takes some getting used to.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the comments on the Pre. I like the Sprint Navigation better than the Google Maps. It is pretty helpful. I have noticed my Pre only gets hot occasionally. Haven't done a real battery test yet.