I am going to take a slightly different approach to this one.  We’ll start with my ten second, Twitter review of the Pixi:

Wow!  Palm’s sophomore WebOS device is just impossibly thin.  It works great, though I will say the screen and keyboard both suffered from the small size.

OK, for those of you who were compulsive enough to count, I know that was 154 characters, but you get the point.

I termed this one a quick look, rather than a full review because it is not going to be as in depth a look at the Pixi as I normally take with device reviews.  The reason for that is that the operating system and functionality is virtually identical to its predecessor, the Palm Pre (you can check out all of those parts, here).  So, if we wanted to delve deeper into the device, it would really just sound like a redux of the Palm Pre review.  So, rather than do that, I thought we could take a quick look around the hardware,and then talk about some of the primary differences between the Pixi and the Pre.  Aside from the impossibly thin design, we’ll look at the screen, keyboard, processor, and a few other areas.  So, I will just step aside here and let you dive right into the review.

I absolutely loved the design of this phone.  It feels better in my hand than any phone I have used.  Unfortunately, my infatuation was short lived, quickly fading by the time I started using the phone.  Like the Palm Pre, I found the Pixi to be absolutely revolutionary in its design, but fell flat in execution.

There are essentially three functional components to this phone: the screen, the keyboard, and the gesture area in the middle.  The gesture area works great.  Like the Palm Pre, it allows you to swipe your finger in order to navigate through the Pixi’s interface.  Where the Pre used three circular zones to achieve this effect, the Pixi refines this concept into a single horizontal strip.  Not much to look at when it is not in use, but it will light up when you swipe to confirm the action.  I thought this worked much better than the Pre, and had far fewer “misses” when I was attempting to swipe.  Additionally, the center button on the Pre has been replaced with an upswipe gesture.  It took me a few tries to get used to this change, but it worked just fine.

The second element here is the keyboard.  The layout of the keyboard is the exact same four row keyboard as the Pre (right).  Unlike the Pre, which felt pretty spacious, the Pixi keyboard (left) just feels cramped, with keys that are roughly half the width of those on the Pixi.  These tiny keys make it extremely difficult to type accurately on the Pixi.  This is obviously a real problem for a device like this, which is designed to be a complete communication tool.

Likewise, while the screen is bright and crisp, it is tiny.  At just 2.6 inches (320×400 pixels), it is by far the smallest screen I have ever used on a PDA or smartphone (by comparison, the Pre is 3.2 inches, and 320×480 pixels.).  This makes watching video nearly impossible, and really outs a crimp on usability generally.  The tiny screen affects the entire user interface.  By way of comparison:

Here is the screen next to the Palm Pre.  You can plainly see the difference in the size of the two screens, and how this can affect usability. 

Most importantly, though, is the ability to read email and surf the Internet.  While it is not impossible to perform these tasks, you can see in the above images that it will require considerably more zooming and scrolling that the Palm Pre.

After using both of these devices, I can tell you that any screen smaller than that on the Pre is far too small for this interface.  And at roughly half the screen size, the Pixi is finished before it even starts.

Now, I had heard from numerous sources that the terrible lag made this one almost unusable.  I have to say that this was not my experience at all.  Mind you, I downloaded the WebOS 1.3.2 upgrade, which was supposed to solve this issue, and I have to say that it seems to have worked.  I compared the Pixi directly with the Palm Pre, opening the same apps side by side, and noticed two interesting results.  First, in almost every test, the Pixi loaded the apps significantly faster than the Pre.  Second, while the Pre stopped loading apps after 8-10 cards were opened, the Pixi just kept right on going.  I opened almost every app on the device without complaint or slowing down.  Now that is multitasking, which even left the Palm Pre well in its dust.  Likewise, I found that many of the apps on the Pixi loaded and ran faster and smoother than their Palm Pre counterparts. 

One other noticeable omission on this one, though, is the lack of Wi-fi, which was available in the Palm Pre.  To be honest, this does not really bother me much since I rarely use Wi-fi with my phone.  I know a lot of you do, however, so be aware that Palm, for whatever reason, chose to revert to their old ways and release this one with no Wi-fi access.

I have to say that I liked the Pixi a lot more than I expected.  When I first saw it, my initial impression was that Palm had followed a tired design with the front facing keyboard, and tales of terrible lags left me more than a bit anxious about testing this one.  What I found, however, was an impossibly thin device, with what should be a familiar design with its front facing keyboard.  I did feel that this design suffered, almost fatally, from Palm’s effort to cram it into this tiny package.  The result was a too small screen on top of a cramped keyboard.  I really liked this latest implementation of WebOS, and I was surprised to find that it ran even better than WebOS on the Palm Pre.  As with the Palm Pre, however, my real problem with this device was the less than stellar implementation of the device.   It almost pains me to see what should be the best mobile operating system available today fall flat again and again due to implementation and execution problems. 

The Palm Pixi is available from Sprint for $99 with a two year contract.

What I Liked:

• Great design
• Skinny, skinny, skinny
• Redesigned gesture area was much more effective
• Noticeably reduced lag time compared to the Palm Pre

What Needs Improvement:

• Device is way too small
• Cramped keyboard
• Tiny screen
• No Wi-fi

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