One of the hottest mobile devices (I won’t call it a phone) to drop this summer has been the Palm Pre, which is currently available exclusively on the Sprint network.  I did not think I was going to have a chance to lay hands on one of these for a few months, so I was quite excited when one of my Sprint contacts emailed to ask whether I would be interested a review unit.  Of course, my response was an enthusiastic yes, and within a few short days, I was opening the lid of my brand new Palm Pre.  Well, not exactly brand new, as these review units make their way around from one reviewer to the next for a while.  And not exactly mine…as I will have to send it back.  But for the next few weeks, it is all mine, and I plan to share that experience with all of you.  To kick things off, I thought we could start by talking about the hardware and accessories.

Let’s go ahead and crack open the box.  On top, in its throne of cardboard and paper padding, there is the Pre itself.  We’ll just go ahead and move that aside for a moment, and see what else is in there.  Peering past that layer of manuals and quick start guides, we find a relatively neatly arranged assortment of accessories.  Among them are:

a microUSB sync/charge cable.  I had heard a rumor that this was not a true microUSB cable, but a connection which was similar but did not match the microUSB.  I tested it out with the microUSB cable from my Amazon Kindle, and found it worked just fine.  Go figure.

There is also an AC adaptor, so you can plug the Palm Pre into a wall for easy charging.  This is a component which many device manufacturers have been leaving out of the box, forcing you to purchase one separately or charge solely through the USB port on a computer.  After a few days, though, I could see why it was included.  My universal AC adaptors were not able to power this one, so you have to use the Palm branded adaptor.

iPod-style earbuds, for listening to music.  We can just ignore those.

A relatively nice pouch style case.  Though I will say that this Pittsburgh Steelers fan was not impressed by the brown and orange color scheme.

One thing which was notably absent was the Touchstone charger.  You will have to buy that separately.  Also sold separately is the car charging adaptor, which would have been nice to find in the box.

OK, a few seconds ago, we set aside the Pre.  Well, it is time to revisit it and take a much closer look at the hardware.  The first think you will notice is the size and shape of the device, which is extremely unique.  It is oval shaped and very sleek, like a water smoothed stone (please do not try to skip the Pre across the water surface in your local pond).  The downside to this unique texture is the slick coating they put on the whole unit.  While it helps the feel of the device in your hand, it also makes the Pre extremely slippery, almost like a bar of soap.  In order to lessen this effect, there is a rubberized ring around the middle of the device.  Unfortunately, this was not nearly enough to grip without feeling like it would just fly out of your hand.  I recommend finding a nice case as soon as possible.

The top of the device features a 3.5 mm standard headphone jack, which I was absolutely thrilled to find after so many Windows Mobile devices without one.  Next to that is a switch, which I initially thought was a screen and button lock.  Instead, this is a mute switch, which I thought was unique and much appreciated.  Next to that is the power button.  Give it a tap to turn off and lock the screen,  Hold it a little longer to power off the device.

The right side has no controls, however, you will find the connection for the microUSB sync/charge cable here.  I was disappointed to find a little plastic door here.  I have a strong dislike for these plastic doors, which generally just get in the way, and eventually break off anyway.  I don’t really think these plastic doors offer much more than a cosmetic benefit, and I wish manufacturers would leave them off or come up with a better solution.

The left side features your volume controls.  Not much to say here other than up for higher volume, down for lower volume; and I thought Palm did a great job of camouflaging these buttons into the side of the device. 

Nothing much to see on the bottom of the device.  Just a small button, which will release the back of the device.

Speaking of the back, let’s go ahead and flip this thing over and take a look.  On the back, you will find the speakerphone and a 3.0 megapixel camera.  We’ll talk more about that in a later installment.

Pop off the back cover to reveal the 1150 mAh battery.  I had heard horror stories about this battery.  Charge it three times a day.  It will lose a charge in 2-3 hours.  The truth is though, I was pretty impressed by the battery life.  Not blown away, but impressed enough to say it feel pretty close to the mid range average for mobile device batteries.  On a heavy use day, in which I did a lot of downloading, texting, emailing, and plenty more, I was still able to achieve six hours of battery life.  On a light to average use day, I topped out well over 12 hours.  I’m not sure whether the battery horror stories were exaggerations, or whether the recent firmware upgrade fixed whatever issues were causing this.  The bottom line, however, is that this battery is certainly adequate.  It could be better, but I have often said that the battery is the weak link in all mobile devices; and this one turned out to be at least as good as the batteries in most mobile devices I have used.

One thing which you may have noticed is missing from this picture, though, is a memory card slot.  While the 8GB of memory the Pre packs is more than many Windows Mobile devices, it is really not enough for the multimedia capabilities of the device, especially video.  In comparison, the iPhone, which also does not offer a memory card, starts at 8GB and goes up from there.  Most of the Windows Mobile devices with smaller storage feature memory cards.  The Pre falls in the middle.  Its 8GB of storage are plenty for using your device as a phone or PDA.  But once you start adding in music, photos, and especially video, it will quickly become insufficient.  The Pre should have offered either more memory or a microSD slot.

OK, enough holding you in suspense.  Let’s take a look at the face of the device, where you will find a fantastic 3.1 inch touchscreen.  It could have been a little bigger (it is slightly smaller than the iPhone’s 4 inch screen) but I found it was plenty big, bright, and crisp for everything I needed (and that picture should give you a nice wet your appetite for our next installment on the WebOS interface and software).  It did attract its own fair share of fingerprints, but that has been a consistent compliant of almost all touchscreens I have used.  Beneath the screen is the home button, which you will see in action in our next installment.  For now, all you need to know is that when you push it, the Pre will revert to the home screen. 

You might also notice a rather large border on the bottom of the device here.  The home button almost seems to get lost in that area.  Well, before you go decrying what appears to be wasted space, let me tell you about that.  This space is actually a gesture sensor.  Slide your finger across this space from right to left…and you will instantly shoot back one screen in your browsing.  Not too shabby.

OK.  I think that about does it…oh wait…what’s that?  You want to know more about the keyboard?  OK.  Go ahead and slide it out, and we can talk about my biggest problem with the Pre.  Namely the fact that this is one hard keyboard to slide.  The combination of the angle at which the screen sits when opened (slightly tilted) along with the slipper coating, makes this a particularly touch slider.  I found myself constantly wrenching and muscling it open…which can’t be good.

Once opened, I have to say that I enjoyed the keyboard on this device.  It is essentially the same keyboard as the Centro and Treo Pro, which I did not mind at all.  I found the keys felt good, gave pretty good tactile feedback, and were easy to use.  They were a bit small, but the spacing ensured that mistakes were minimized.  The other complaint I had here was that there appeared to be no rhyme or reason to the placement of the special characters and symbol keys.  It would have been nice if Palm had extended the keyboard slightly in order to add an extra row for numbers, which would also have allowed a more intuitive layout of special characters.  Other than the occasional “lost” character, though, I did really like this keyboard.

One last hardware feature I found hidden on this device.  While the keyboard is opened, flip it over to the backside.  Look at that shiny little mirror.  Pretty cool hidden feature, I thought. 

So far, there is an awful lot to like about the Pre, with that bright, vibrant screen, easy to use keyboard, and overall shape and design.  But the hardware is really not the main attraction.  The main attraction is the WebOS interface and Synergy sync.  We’ll take a look at that, as well as the included apps and App Catalog in our next installment.  Stay tuned, we have plenty more to cover.

Check out more at Sprint or Palm.

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