When I purchased my Palm Pre, I purchased a Touchstone charger for it.  I love the Touchstone and its whole concept.  When I am working in my home office, I just lay my Palm Pre on the “puck” and wah-lah, it is charging.  If I answer the phone while the Pre is on the puck, it automatically answers like a speaker phone.  If I pick the Pre up off the puck, it automatically takes it off speaker phone.  It really functions as a great business office phone.  (Being “built for business” is an important point and one I am chomping at the bit to write about in my next post.)  Yet, the Touchstone has had some issues.

When you purchase the Touchstone, you have to replace the back cover of the Palm Pre with the Touchstone back cover.  (As a side note, Verizon’s Palm Pre Plus comes with the Touchstone cover I believe.)  It is similar to the original back cover, accept instead of being a smooth, glossy surface, it is more rubberized.  I think this is for two reasons.  One, I think the rubberized surface helps the Pre sit on the puck.  Two, the cover has the metal antenna (for lack of better words) inside for the inductive charger.  I am figuring it gets a little warm in there, so, they had to make the plastic thicker.  In any event, I unfortunately have had three issues over time with the Touchstone:

• My first Touchstone (or the back cover) “buzzed” or “hummed” ever so slightly after the Palm Pre was fully charged.  In my Zen like home office, this was not good.  After surfing the net some, I saw that other people reported this and, some, said that swapping it out for another unit made the problem go away.  I swapped mine out and, sure enough, the hum was gone.  However, there was another disruption in the Zen river rock.
• With my 2nd Touchstone Cover attached, I began to notice that as I “thumbed” on the keyboard, the unit “creaked.”  Related, it just did not feel as solid as it did before.  I was on the road for a week and swapped my cover back to the original cover (as I was not taking the Touchstone on the trip with me), and, wow(!), I immediately noticed how much more solid the unit felt.  After my trip, I swapped back to the Touchstone cover and I was in church taking notes.  I (and others) noted how “creaky” and loud it was.  So, I called Palm and kudos to their customer service; they said, “no problem, we will send you another one” which I had in a matter of days.
• My 3rd cover is much more solid and quiet than my other Touchstone cover.  However, sigh, the charging on the puck is intermittent.  It keeps going in and out of charging mode, “duh-dunking” every time.   Frustrating?  Yes.  Yet, again, kudos to Palm.  Customer service was apologetic and did not give me any hassles; another one is on its way.  I am optimistic that I will be back in “river rock on a pedestal” soon.  Also, I am optimistic about Palm.  See my next post about that thought.

Tags: Palm Pre