(I spent some time writing this up as a part of an application. I thought it was so good, and, because I spent the time I thought I would post it here also.)
Should I buy a Palm Pre over an Apple iPhone?
As with many things in life, it depends.
The first thing you need to ask yourself when making this decision is why you are considering getting a “smartphone” (as these devices are commonly called). The “why” can be generalized into one of two categories:
1) I want to get a smartphone for entertainment.
2) I want to get a smartphone to help me be more productive.
If you think you are in the first category, then, you may want to lean more towards the iPhone. Apple has certainly done an incredible job at making music easily available and a piece of cake to load. Their apps (applications you can load on the phone, some for free and some for a cost) can keep you entertained for hours. However, if you are more interested in tackling life, the Palm Pre is definitely the phone for you.
Palm’s slogan is “Life Moves Fast. Don’t Miss a Thing,” which is the perfect companion to being more productive, whether in your personal or work life. The Palm Pre takes everything that is thrown at you (Emails, Text Messages, Facebook Notifications, Twitter Tweets, Appointments, Tasks) and queues them up in what’s known as “notifications.” A notification can be flat out ignored, temporarily ignored and placed as an icon at the bottom of the screen that you can deal with later, or literally “thrown away.” This is opposed to the iPhone where when one of these life events happens, a message rudely pops up in the middle of the screen, interrupting what you are doing (on the phone, or not) and forcing you to deal with it. The Palm Pre’s “river rock” design is comfortable in your hand, making life comfortable to handle, even multiple things at one time.
The Palm Pre was the first smartphone to truly be multitasking – allowing you to run more than one application at one time. Get a text and need to look at your calendar? Just “slide over” to it, see what you need to see and slide back. You cannot do this with the pre iPhone 4 phones. The new iPhone 4 does have multitasking, however, it simply is not as graceful and will not keep you as productive as the Palm Pre.
Life truly is moving faster and faster every day. If you want a tool to tackle it (and one that has music and apps as well), then the Palm Pre is it. Palm’s website is a great source of information, including videos that will demonstrate everything I have talked about. Palm’s Facebook page has a great video demonstrating how you will truly feel with a Palm Pre in your hand. Finally, if you are looking for a more neutral review, Gizmodo.com is a good source. I hope this helps; now, go be more productive!
Tags: GTD
I’m a great Palm fan (and have been for years) and I love the Palm Pre, but one thing makes me lean towards the new iPhone – integration with my existing address book, calendar etc. on my Mac Laptop. When Palm abandoned its desktop integration with Mac users, for the sake of syncing with the Cloud and Google (yuk), it lost me as a business user.
1) I like to make sure my laptop addresses etc. are synched and saved to back up drive.
2) Google Cloud – not happy with trusting them with my data or my privacy.
3) I don’t want to have to buy 3rd party software for a smartphone that should be able to synch with my laptop if I choose it.
Palm lost a lot of users because of this issue and it lose me. (Check out my Blog where I discuss smartphones: http://www.businessissuestoday.blogspot.com
I trialed an iphone 3GS when my company was looking to make a standardized smartphone decision for its employees. I agree that the iphone is a great entertainment device, but the enterprise side was lacking. The Palm Pre gave us everything we needed and so much more. The exchange server integration is near perfect, all of our calenders, address books and emails are always synced. I love the physical keyboard, no typing mistakes here. Touchscreens are terrible for typing longer emails. The Pre does have some downsides, at least for me, though. I don’t like the fully plastic body, it feels like a toy. Palm’s app store is pathetic compared to Apple, which is where all the strength of a smartphone is derived. The lack of flash, is a neutral argument as both devices lack that, but hopefully the Pre is closer than Apple will ever be (sans jailbreak) I could go on and on. The Pre is the best smartphone I have ever owned.