The embargo on reviews for the upcoming Verizon Palm Pre Plus and Palm Pixi Plus ended last night with a stream of reviews hitting the Interwebs. So what did sites that received the Palm Pre Plus have to say about the latest webOS device?
Overally, it appears the Palm Pre Plus is modest update from the previous Palm Pre (see our review). The bump up for 256MB of RAM to 512MB of RAM is helpful when you open a significant amount of cards (running applications). Other highlights include the removal of the home button and improvements to the keyboard. Similar findings to what we noticed at Palm’s Lounge in Vegas. Here’s what folks are saying about the new Palm Pre Plus and Palm Pixi Plus:
Dieter Bohn from Precentral concludes:
The Palm Pre Plus upgrades the Palm Pre in almost all the right places and has a bright future with new features coming via software updates. It’s a cliché to say this, but: the Palm Pre Plus is the best phone Palm has ever made. That’s exactly how it should be and it’s gratifying that we can expect this kind of quality from Palm now. Let’s just hope that it’s enough to keep them in the smartphone game for years to come.
Joshua Topolsky of Engadget writes:
If you’re a Verizon customer, you can get the excellent Droid, or wait for the forthcoming Nexus One, to say nothing of the BlackBerry offerings on the network (if that’s your cup of tea). If you’re carrier independent, then your choice is even harder — T-Mobile, Sprint, and AT&T offer a stack of seriously great phones that would make even the pickiest geek happy. So why choose the Pre Plus on Verizon? To answer that question, you have to figure out if you believe in the potential of webOS devices; Palm doesn’t have the fastest phone, or the phone with the highest resolution, certainly not the biggest app selection, and it doesn’t have a massive community behind it. What it does have, however, is a brilliant platform with huge potential to change the way you work and live with your phone (provided they tap that potential soon… as in now). If you’re as hopeful as we are that that potential will be fulfilled, your decision should be a simple one.
Jason Chen from Gizmodo says:
Sprint customers: If you’re worried that you bought a first gen Palm Pre only to watch helplessly as Palm released a better Pre on Verizon, stop. The Palm Pre Plus is essentially the same phone as the Palm Pre.
Sure, there are minor hardware differences—most notably the doubling of the RAM and the storage space—but it essentially feels like the same phone.
Sasha Segan from PC Magazine writes:
With two Droids, two Palms, and all the Blackberrys they can eat, Verizon subscribers can’t whine about their smartphone choices any more. The Palm Pre doesn’t “kill” the Motorola Droid. It presents a cuddlier alternate reality, where color and feel win out over widgets and apps. If you’re into messaging and Web browsing on Verizon, and it seems like the Droid is a little too geeky for you, it’s time to retire that old BlackBerry Pearl and move on up to a Palm Pre Plus.
Are you planning on picking up a Verizon Palm Pre Plus or a Palm Pixi? Let us know in the comments.
Yep. I am going to pick up a Pre Plus in late February when my upgrade window opens up at VZW. I figure by then webOS v1.4 will be out and I can jump right in to better performance, flash, and video capturing. Sweet. I hate it I will miss the BOGO offer window (would have picked up a Pixi for either my wife or one of my kids), but oh well. They’ll just have to wait for THEIR turn to upgrade.
Nope. I like Sprint’s coverage, their pricing, and their customer service.
I wish my phone had the updated specs, but as long as the updates keep coming, I’m o.k.
Oh yeah, I will be in line come Monday Jan 25th FIRST thing for my Palm Pre Plus. I have been waiting since last January when I first heard about the Pre and WebOS. BUT, Sprint has NO coverage in my neighborhood (actually no one does except Verizon!) SO, yeah, Palm Pre Plus, you betcha. Oh and BOGO–that Palm Pixi Plus for the husband or the son–just gotta pick the color! Thanks for your reviews and super info on this platform.