Palm Pre

It looked as if Palm had struck smartphone gold when it showcased the Palm Pre for the first time at CES in January. Here was a phone, complete with what appeared to be an iPhone-rivalling OS, but with proper, grown-up multitasking and no iTunes lock-in.

The anticipation was at fever pitch. But months went by and all was quiet - then a launch in the US, and still nothing for Europe. Until suddenly, out of the blue, Palm announced it was launching with O2 on October 16. Joy. Elation. Excitement, once again.

But with the Pre in our hands are we still as keen? The short answer is no. WebOS may look slick in the demos, but in use we encountered frequent stuttering and a lot of pauses. When it works, it works very well, but when it doesn't it's teeth-gnashingly annoying. And note these aren't early glitches, soon to be ironed out; the Pre has been out for some time in the US and any problems ought to have been sorted months ago.

It's a shame, because the interface itself has much to recommend it. The multitasking OS means you can play music and browse the internet at the same time, for example, or flick back and forth between various applications, cutting and pasting text as you go.

Palm also places this multitasking front and centre. Rather than hiding away running tasks in a pokey dialog box, in webOS all your running applications are represented in a series of thumbnails: to see them just hit the single button below the screen and the view pulls back, allowing you to scroll through them left and right, rearrange them by dragging and dropping, and terminate them with a dismissive flick upwards.

It's a clever system, but not without its annoyances. It can be a little confusing, for instance, that emails open in a separate card, while the switch from the account view to message browsing keeps you in the same place. Palm's approach also ensures that the launching of applications takes a back seat. You can launch frequently used apps from a five-icon shortcut bar (which runs along the bottom of the screen in the task card view), but for everything else, you have to tap another button to fire up the application launch screen.

Another hindrance is the context-sensitive dropdown menu and status area, which are a constant presence at the top of the screen. This is simply too small to be able to press with consistent accuracy.

Integration
Fortunately, the core applications themselves all work fantastically well. The device supports Microsoft Exchange email accounts, the usual POP3 and IMAP, as well as specific email services such as Gmail, Yahoo and Hotmail, and adding accounts is as simple as pie.

We particularly like the integration between social networking, email and contacts apps. Despite the fact that these are all accessed separately in webOS, they're able to share information: pictures of people you're friends with in Facebook will turn up in your contacts list, and at the top of emails and messages received as well.

Contacts from different sources (Google, Facebook, Outlook and LinkedIn) are cleverly combined, but never merged, so if you need to remove an account related information can cleanly be extracted. Text messages, email and social-networking communications, meanwhile, can all be grouped under the contact they pertain to - in a kind of conversation view - while the calendar combines appointments from your Facebook, Outlook and Google accounts, all on one "layered" screen.

Browsing the web - that all-important activity - is a joy. The browser is webkit-based, just like that of the iPhone, and in conjunction with the Pre's multitouch screen, web pages can be manipulated intuitively with a few well-chosen gestures. Most impressive, perhaps, is that following links rarely requires more than a single tap. It's very easy to be accurate.

Palm's rival to the iPhone App Store - the Appcatalog - again works well, but it's early days and still lags far behind when it comes to choice. Elsewhere, there's a smattering of useful tools and apps: including a YouTube video viewer, Dataviz Documents To Go, and Google Maps, and - naturally - a music and video player.

The touchscreen that gives access to all of this wizardry is fantastic. It's 3.2in across with rounded corners - just like the cards that represent tasks - and since it's capacitive you only need brush it with the tip of your finger to press a button, or lightly caress its surface to drag icons to and fro. Its accelerometer works well too, re-orientating the screen in an instant. The resolution - 320 x 480 - keeps things looking crisp and clean, and it's as bright and vibrant as the iPhone's display.

"A small soap caddy"
Elsewhere, the Pre boasts all the hardware you'd expect, with quad-band GSM, HSDPA data speeds, a GPS radio, 802.11bg Wi-Fi, 8GB of storage for your photos and music files, a 3.5mm headphone jack, plus a decent 3.1-megapixel camera, complete with LED flash; although there's oddly no ability to shoot video.

The rest of the package, we're lukewarm about. The sliding keyboard hidden under the screen means it's pretty thick, and its profile isn't exactly sexy either. At first sight it looks more like a small soap caddy than an alluring piece of tech.

Build quality feels more than a little rattly too, despite a solid-feeling sliding action. But the biggest irritation is the lip that surrounds the keyboard. One wag has gone so far as to post a video on YouTube using the Pre to slice a piece of hard cheese; we can report that it really is that sharp. So, despite a usable keyboard - the Pre's small rubbery-feeling keys are surprisingly responsive - this isn't the most comfortable phone to tap out messages on.

And, to compound its physical shortcomings, battery life from the 1,200mAh cell is underwhelming, with the Pre coming up short of the likes of the iPhone 3GS. Even in the short time we had our hands on the handset before going to press, we ran it dry with only light use in just over two days.

Final thoughts
So we're unconvinced by the Palm Pre. It has its strengths, and these lie in its ability to combine contacts, messages and calendar information in an elegant fashion, and from multiple sources, plus its fantastic web browsing ability and its neat treatment of multitasking. But it has weaknesses too: stuttering speeds, a less-than-alluring hardware package, an occasionally confusing OS, and poor battery life.

Palm's baby is bound to gain a following, especially among Apple antagonists and those who can't stand the iTunes lock-in. But with an identical pricing structure to the iPhone 3GS, it needs to be better than its opponent; alas it isn't and it fails to topple Apple's finest as a result.
Price when reviewed: £84 (£97 inc VAT)