View Poll Results: Is the Pre Ready for PrimeTime?

**widmark** · 06-24-2009, 03:25 PM

I got my Pre about 4 days after it was released. Debating whether I will be keeping it or not and return to my Blackberry 8830 until the Pre is a little more evolved. The Pre is a great device and Palm is presumably working on the fine tuning now. But the missing refinements and bugginess is slowing me down more than I hoped, even though I realize this is like a 3 week old baby. It feels a litte beta-esque.

- Autotext - why can't I enter in shortcuts for text entries as I can on the BB8830?
- Email Signatures - Only "global on" or "global off" exists. Would be nice to be able to select whether or not to add a signature for each email, or even choose among multiple sigs. Note that in the Blackberry, using autotext you can create multiple signatures or use autotext to accomplish this individual email choice to add a sig or not.
- Contact/Calendar Connectivity - I can't select a contact and tie a calendar event to that contact.
- Bluetooth Quirk1 - Pre Bluetooth shows connectivity to my headset when there is none. I reboot Bluetooth or the Pre and this is usually fixed, but with the tremendously long boot up, the latter option is especially painful.
- Bluetooth Quirk2 - Calls coming in default to hand speaker and must be manually switched to Bluetooth headset ON EACH CALL. Is there a reason? Let the user decide on the default answer... or base the answer on whether a headset is actively paired to the Pre.
- Hold Key for Caps - This may be some proprietary technology from RIMM, but I miss being able to hold down a letter to convert it to a capital letter.
- Email Search - I miss the ability of the Blackberry to perform very advanced searches of emails received. I haven't even found a rudamentary email search in the Pre.
- Cursor movement is very imprecise, and even worse than the iPhone with its mini magnifier. Blackberry has figured this out... any possibility of making the bottom button work as a mouse like the Blackberry roller to allow a precise cursor placement? The holding the orange key down and using your finger to move the cursor probably works for Edward Scissor hands or Freddie Kruger, but for the rest of us with fleshy fingers, its very clumsy and slow to get a cursor to move exactly where you need it.
- Tethering! My Blackberry 8830 tethered fine, and will miss this.
- Touchstone - It would be fantastic if it also had data syncing capability while on the Touchstone, but I confess I have no idea if this is even technologically possible.
- Expandable memory (note the 8 GB iPhone equivalent is selling for half the price of the Pre). I miss that capability on the BB8830 to add a mini card.
- Bigger keyboard! - nothing new but it would help tremendously.
- Screen Lock - Is there a way to manually lock the device? Haven't found it. I have made more than a few accidental calls. Yes there is a user presettable idle-time before the screen fades/locks. There should at least be a manual lock option.
- Yahoo Calendar Wireless Sync - I hear its coming... when?

I know this looks like a underhanded plug for the Blackberry. The Pre blows the Blackberry away with its screen, synergy, multitasking, wifi, Sprint TV, streaming video like You Tube, simply awesome Sprint Nav (its available on the BB 8830 but the bigger screen makes a big diff IMHO), and OS/app memory (the BB8830 has very limited onboard memory which is the only memory avail to you for apps/OS.. rendering BB App world virtually useless). Plus, I use Exchange mail and Blackberry Enterprise is significantly more expensive than using ActiveSync... I have been saving about $30/mo with the Pre over the BB. [Side Note - how is RIMM going to maintain this overpriced business model against the iPhone and others like the Pre where BES costs are eliminated as well as up charges at the phone user level... i.e., Sprint charges BES users $20/mo... seems like a doomed medium and long term pricing model especially in this economy, unless your end users are the DOD and need supercrypted email].

Really though, many of the benefits of the Pre are sizzle... but its missing the steak... the productivity nuances that BB has nailed. I use a smart phone for productivity first and entertainment second. I want to keep this device so I am hoping perhaps unrealistically that Pre updates most of the software shortcomings before my 30 day trial of the Pre on Sprint expires... else its going to be a tough decision to be honest, even with the prospect of paying $30/mo again to go back to BES until Palm has gotten the Pre polished up.

**buchkoba00** · 06-24-2009, 03:29 PM

Screen lock, you mean other than tapping the upper right hand button?

**widmark** · 06-24-2009, 03:35 PM

Originally Posted by buchkoba00

Screen lock, you mean other than tapping the upper right hand button?

Thanks... that was a wish item that should not have been... the upper right hand button works fine.

**soleobjective2** · 06-24-2009, 04:04 PM

If this phone is slowing you down in the workplace then maybe it isn't right for you at this time. It might be a better idea to wait for the updates and kinks to be worked out so you can stay up to speed

**widmark** · 06-26-2009, 01:00 AM

Best idea is for Palm to make the improvements fast so that I and many others who are wanting to switch to the Pre can comfortably stay there! This stuff is the "fine print" on the user experience that people (mostly Blackberry switchers) won't really think about until they own a Pre. Switching is already disruptive for the user, and its expensive for Palm/Sprint to absorb a returned Pre, so its in everybody's interest to fix asap. I am just putting it out there... most people won't bother. Its too time consuming!

**Furius** · 06-26-2009, 01:35 AM

As it stands right now, the Palm Pre can compete with the best. After a few months if Palm plays their "cards" (pardon the pun) right.......then the Palm Pre can pretty much outdo any smart phone that isn't running WebOS.

**widmark** · 06-26-2009, 02:09 AM

A nitty wishlist add-on... Pre's Screen Lock screen currently is not customizable... only the time and a lock symbol show when the screen is locked (over whatever the background picture is). Next tweak Palm should allow users to customize the Screen Lock... for e.g., so folks can put their names, and Emergency/Call if Found phone number smack on the front as I can... dare I say it... on my Blackberry 8830.

Yes, if you are hardcore and have lots of time, you can add this info to your wallpaper with a photo editor. But I don't have that kind of time. I'm too busy writing on Pre Forums! :wink:

**Janamba** · 06-26-2009, 06:39 AM

My Bluetooth Quirks , WHen I have m BT connected and the phone rings , after it rings on the phone it comes through my headset or BTD so when I hit the button on the side of the BTD, it has to ring agian on the phone befor it answers on the BTD , I wish they both would ring at the same time. My 2nd BT Quirk is when I have the phone in my hand and doing something or looking through my e-mails and it rings, I ( for some reson ) always hit the phone button on the phone and I am talking but its not coming through my BTD, it goes through the phone and I have to hurry and try to switch it to the BTD setting , why does it not see that I have my BTD connected to the phone and connect to it no matter what.