Display
The single most disappointing aspect of the Pre Plus is its display.
Despite a bright and vibrant panel, the 3.1″ HVGA display’s low pixel density of just 186ppi makes for obvious pixelization on icons, angled lines and small objects, as well as text that is heavily anti-aliased. The resolution of the Plus simply isn’t high enough to display smaller text that is clearly readable without zooming in (which, as you can imagine, is quite annoying when browsing).
The iPhone 3GS’ lousy screen gets a pass by virtue of possessed fans, but Palm is not Apple. Palm can barely afford to keep the lights on, much less fail to make a dramatic first impression with one of the most important customer-facing components of a smartphone.
The rounded edges of the screen bothered me as well. I understand the choice to round the bezel was a nod to the device’s design, but it quickly became frustrating to pan left and right on web pages because a rounded corner devoured a letter or two that would have been readable on a square display.
In fairness, I know that the Pre Plus is not necessarily targeted at smartphone users like me. I like Jovian slabphones of glory that are, as one company described, “racehorse duct taped to a scud missile fast.” This does not describe the Pre Plus. Maybe the intended users–women (if you trust Verizon) or psychic phone whisperers (via Palm)–don’t actually care about screens beyond “YEP, IT WORKS,” but I do–having a screen that only qualifies as “acceptable” is a big fat minus in my book.
Keyboard
The Plus’ keyboard is something of a mixed bag. To begin on a positive note, I found the keyboard layout to be excellent, as I did the travel time and tactility of the keys. It’s clear that Palm put some elbow grease into revamping the keyboard, because the key action really felt great; every tap of the keys gave a very satisfying amount of resistance and clickiness to let me know a button had been pressed.
When it came time to actually type on the Plus’ keyboard, however, I found myself disappointed. The problem lies in the rounded/domed geometry of the keys, which does nothing to intuitively inform the user that they may press two keys at once. This stands in contrast to the BlackBerry Bold, which uses the beveled edges on close-set keys to subtly inform a user that they’re about to typo; feeling a second bevel on the thumbs is a clear indicator that a mistake is on its way.
There are other issues, too, starting with the size of the keys: They’re just too damn small for my hands. As a result of the key size, I was forced to use my thumbnails to type accurately, which is exceptionally inconvenient; typing like this slowed my typing speed, and it forced a sharp–almost uncomfortable–angle of the thumbs.
I have average sized hands for an adult male, but I cannot help but think that this keyboard was not ultimately designed for me. There are just too many size concessions, both in the size of the keys and in the size of the keyboard itself, to believe this keyboard was intended to fit hands like mine. Smaller hands will likely delight at this keyboard, however.
WebOS
WebOS is the operating system behind all new Palm devices, and it is the most pronounced result of Palm’s efforts to catch up with the smartphone era. Sitting at version 1.4 at the time of writing, webOS has matured over the course of ten patches released since June 5, 2009.
The vast majority of my time was spent analyzing and digesting webOS, not only because it offers an experience quite unlike any other smartphone, but also because the Pre feels utterly designed as a vessel for webOS. In other words, it often feels like they designed the many experiential particulars of webOS, then created a phone that would suit them perfectly.
For example, every program in webOS runs on a “card” that has rounded edges. If you recall, the display’s bezel is also rounded, which means applications that are maximized on the Plus fit perfectly on the unique display. This sort of OS/device harmony is evident throughout the entire experience, and I’ll be addressing that throughout this section.
Technically speaking, webOS’ core components are not all that dissimilar to mainstream Linux distros, such as Ubuntu. Beneath the slick GUI, webOS employs the Linux kernel, Upstart for startup apps, GStreamer for multimedia, libpurple for IM, Simple DirectMedia Layer (SDL) for game programming, PulseAudio for audio management, and WebKit for browsing.
From a developer’s perspective, applications are created in web languages like HTML and JavaScript (including the JSON and AJAX libraries), as well as native languages like C and C++. These applications are created with the help of the Mojo SDK, which provides the HTML and JS support; the Plug-in Development Kit, which offers C and C++ support; and Ares, which provides drag’n’drop application creation.
WebOS basics
Navigating and using webOS was not an immediately intuitive experience for me, but it was an experience I came to enjoy once I grew accustomed to the way Palm wants users to interact with the Pre. To be perfectly clear, the initiation period for webOS is short, as the learning curve is gentle–it’s just different.
Interacting with webOS depends entirely on your proficiency with the OS’ many gestures; launching, minimizing, maximizing, switching, navigating and closing apps all hinges flicks of the finger. Rather than list them all here, however, pages 18-24 of the Palm Pre Plus user guide (PDF) does an excellent job of covering them and their functions.
Reading the manual is important because it reveals the two reasons why the Pre can be so befuddling to a new user. First, the gestures are quite dissimilar to those of Apple and the iPhone. Second, and most importantly, the Pre Plus has a dedicated gesture area that is not indicated on the phone itself; this gesture area looks just like the rest of the phone’s front bezel, so it isn’t immediately evident that good juju happens there.
Armed with a knowledge of the gestures, one can get started actually using the Pre. To begin, applications are launched via a dock at the bottom of the screen (the icons can be changed; putting the SMS/messaging app here is a great idea), or accessed via the Launcher, which is accessed by the grey up arrow on the right side of the dock.
The Launcher features three pages, each with its own set of shortcuts to pre-loaded and user-downloaded programs. Swiping left and right on the display changes pages, while swiping up and down on the screen scrolls vertically within a page. Tapping any application on the dock or in the Launcher fires up the requested application in full screen.
Once inside an application, tapping the small light bar at the center of the gesture area shrinks the application to reveal Palm’s innovative Card UI. This is how Palm manages multi-tasking on webOS, a job that the Pre handles with aplomb.
As you can see in the image located to the right, the Card UI provides a very convenient overview of all the applications that are currently running on the system. Swiping left and right on the display pans this interface horizontally, pressing and holding a card allows the app to be repositioned in the list, tapping one of the cards maximizes the app and flicking a card off the top of the screen closes the application.
Proficient users can skip the card UI altogether by enabling the advanced gestures described on page 159 of the Pre Plus user manual (PDF). The advanced gestures allows users to switch back and forth between applications by swiping the full length of the gesture area to the left or right.
Next, the home screen’s dock can be made visible at any time by dragging a finger up from any point on the gesture area to the display. This gesture will summon the dock on a wave that enlarges icons when your finger moves over them; releasing your touch on an enlarged icon will launch the chosen application.
The last basic task in webOS is navigating applications, and it’s an easy one: Swiping to the left from the middle of the gesture area takes you back a screen, while swiping to the right from the middle of the gesture area takes you forward. This gesture is used when you’ve clicked on a sub-menu and want to go back a step or, for example, want to advance a day in the Plus’ calendar application.
The good
WebOS’ greatest strength is its power to multi-task, which it excels at by being bred for the job from stem to stern. Not only does it leverage the hardware to run concurrent apps better than you might expect, but the Cards interface is easily the best multi-tasking UI on the market. Twenty-five concurrent apps? No problem.
Next, webOS’ seamless integration of easy and useful gestures continues to be one of the platform’s brightest spots. Never mind the fact that they take a day or two of acclimation, they feel right. It’s hard going back to other mobile OSes that won’t let you close or switch apps with the flick of a finger–no, you have to press trackballs or download apps to do that.
On the topic of apps, returning to the home screen to launch a new one has become the de facto standard for smartphones that offer multi-tasking capabilities. After experiencing webOS’ always-accessible dock, that standard is one I no longer find all that acceptable. Being able to launch my favorite apps at any time, from any program, was a real joy.
Verizon’s recent decision to include Mobile HotSpot (shown right) free of charge has quickly become an easy-to-use highlight: Launch the app, configure the security and flip the switch. With the Mobile HotSpot running, the Pre becomes a tethered connection for a PC, as well as a WiFi router for up to four devices, all for $60 less than Verizon’s MiFi, and $50 less than the tethering fee for any other phone in the carrier’s lineup. Not bad at all.
Contact integration on the Pre Plus, meanwhile, is outstanding. The contact screen for anyone in your address book is automatically updated with Google or Exchange, Facebook and LinkedIn. The same is true for your calendars. Moving contacts to the Pre Plus was as easy as syncing my day-to-day phone with Google Sync, then connecting the Pre Plus to my GMail, Facebook and LinkedIn accounts.
The bad
Issues with the fluidity of a phone can be hard to assess, because unoptimized software can be blamed just as easily as weak hardware. Nevertheless, the UI on the Pre Plus was often slightly choppy or unresponsive. For example, it was typical for webOS to halt for a second or two while an application was loading. Next, the animation of the dock when dragged into view on the wave had obvious stuttering and, finally, menu and screen transitions were regularly choppy–opening the dialer, which fades in, never once faded into view properly on firmware 1.3.5.1 or 1.4.
Secondly, the mail application is pretty abysmal. Each entry in the mailbox attempts to show a few lines of text beneath the subject and the sender, but anything with a lick of HTML just ends up as gibberish where meaningful text should be. Worse yet, the full view of those HTML-laden emails was chock full of unpleasant rendering errors.
The ugly
Throughout the course of this review, it became time to update the Pre Plus to firmware version 1.4. Despite a WiFi connection to speed up the download–which Palm recommends–the download failed and had to be restarted a good 20 or 30 times. I wish that number was an exaggeration.
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