Palm's Linux phone "exceptional," says reviewer (LinuxDevices) [LWN.net]

LinuxDevices takes a look at the Palm Pre with screenshots and links to reviews. "Several reviews came to the same conclusion: The Pre may not be an Apple iPhone killer, especially with the arrival this week of the iPhone 3GS, but with its multitasking and synchronization features, it may give RIM's BlackBerry a run for its money in the corporate market. Others note that in order to do that, however, the device will first need to spread beyond the Sprint network, as planned for early next year, to Verizon Wireless and possibly AT&T. Palm will also need to quickly boost the number of available WebOS apps, say reviewers."

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Doesn't look like a phone review

Posted Jun 13, 2009 16:54 UTC (Sat) by proski (guest, #104) [Link] (9 responses)

Like many reviews, this one completely misses the basic functionality, namely making calls. How good is the antenna? How good is the sound quality? Also, how good is the user interface? If somebody called me from her home phone, can I call her back on her cell phone from the list of the recent calls, as opposed to the full phonebook?

Doesn't look like a phone review

Posted Jun 13, 2009 20:52 UTC (Sat) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link]

Phone calls? Who needs them?

Look, it's slim and shiny. What else do you need?

Doesn't look like a phone review

Posted Jun 14, 2009 0:06 UTC (Sun) by k8to (guest, #15413) [Link] (1 responses)

My Commodore Amiga is totally better than your Atari ST. Look at the palette register specs!

Doesn't look like a phone review

Posted Jun 16, 2009 19:05 UTC (Tue) by atai (subscriber, #10977) [Link]

My Atari ST reviews are better than your Amiga reviews. so you lose.

Doesn't look like a phone review

Posted Jun 15, 2009 5:52 UTC (Mon) by Arker (guest, #14205) [Link] (4 responses)

Indeed, this is exactly why I am so unimpressed with all recently made mobile phones.

The telephone part always seems to be an afterthought, tacked on at the last moment to a machine designed to "deliver premium content" - i.e. run up as large a bill as possible.

I am still using my old T-200. Monochrome screen, minimal extras, very little to get in the way when trying to, oh, I dont know, make a phone call maybe?

Because it doesnt have all the extra crap the battery lasts well over a week on standby, about 12 hours talking. Which is after all what I bought a phone for. To talk.

The only thing it is missing that I have any desire to have on my phone is bluetooth. That would be nice. But ultimately unecessary, and far less important than the core telephone functionality and battery life.

I am just dreading the day my baby quits working, because it has been literally *years* since I saw a new mobile phone for sale that I had any interest in. I dont need or want some piece of crap hand-held computer with tons of power-hungry components dedicated to functionality I dont want or need, drawing my battery down prematurely, wedded to an afterthought telephone that doesnt actually work very well.

The netbook is for computing on the go. The phone is for... phone calls.

I dont see why this is such a controversial position to take, but the noted absence of anything vaguely resembling a *telephone* on the market makes it clear that it is.

Doesn't look like a phone review

Posted Jun 15, 2009 7:54 UTC (Mon) by liljencrantz (guest, #28458) [Link] (3 responses)

I've never used my phone for anything other than talking and sending sms:es. Bought an extremely cheap Nokia phone (~$20 with no subscription) with no frills what so ever. Not even a camera. I charge it once or twice per week. Works great.

That said, I'm becoming increasingly interested in a smart phone, since I'd like to do some surfing and IM while on the move.

Doesn't look like a phone review

Posted Jun 15, 2009 8:49 UTC (Mon) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link] (1 responses)

Same here. I bought a slightly less cheap Nokia (because I wanted a
flip-top to make it absolutely certain that I'd never dial 999 by mistake,
as doing that is not affected by keyboard lockouts) and, while it *has*
Java and the like on it, you can avoid all that crud. I don't use the web
browser (it's awful and horrendously costly), do minimal texting and use
its calendar: other than that it's just a Bluetoothed phone.

I get easily a week between recharges: if talking constantly, a good ten
hours (I haven't measured it exactly because I don't use the phone for
that long at once.)

I'm taking it on holiday now and not bothering to take the charger because
I know the battery will last till I get back.

The high-end expensive phones would never manage this, but the cheap ones
do just what is necessary (i.e. be a phone) and do it pretty well.

Doesn't look like a phone review

Posted Jun 16, 2009 11:16 UTC (Tue) by liljencrantz (guest, #28458) [Link]

Have fun on your vacation, but be careful if you're going to some place with bad coverage for vacation. At least my phone gets significantly shorter battery life when the reception is so bad that it barley gets through to the tower.

Doesn't look like a phone review

Posted Jun 15, 2009 9:03 UTC (Mon) by rsidd (subscriber, #2582) [Link]

A smart phone need not drain the battery. My Nokia E63 lasts about as long as previous non-smart phones that I've used. With the gmail app and the Opera Mini browser, I'm fully connected, and the qwerty keypad is very easy to type on. And it has one of the most useful features I've seen on a phone, especially when travelling: a powerful LED torch.

Now, a smartphone with whizzy 3D effects: that's another matter... from what I have seen, you would probably need to keep it plugged into the wall for any serious use.

Doesn't look like a phone review

Posted Jun 16, 2009 19:14 UTC (Tue) by jeffgus (guest, #59146) [Link]

In my experience the antenna is average. It drops out in the same exact spots my old phone dropped calls.

Sound quality is very good. I noticed that the microphone can be very sensitive. My girlfriend can whisper with her Pre and I can hear her just fine. Whispering was difficult to hear with her old phone (HTC Dash).

The speaker phone could be louder. Nokia seems to rule on loud speakers.

Yes there is a recent call list. The phone also puts notifications in the notification area when a call ends. If you have a dropped call, you can tap the notification and call the person back.

Palm's Linux phone "exceptional," says reviewer (LinuxDevices)

Posted Jun 13, 2009 20:33 UTC (Sat) by dkite (guest, #4577) [Link] (14 responses)

5 hours battery life, 3 if used heavily? Exceptional?

Does anyone actually use this stuff for real, ie. carry around, answer
calls, lookup some stuff, maintain a work log, for a whole day?

I would love to see Palm have a successful product, one reason being that
it seems to support CDMA, which I'm stuck with. No IPhone or so far
Android for me. But it has to work.

Derek

Palm's Linux phone "exceptional," says reviewer (LinuxDevices)

Posted Jun 13, 2009 23:44 UTC (Sat) by alecs1 (guest, #46699) [Link] (7 responses)

5 hours talk time is good time. Not as exceptional as in the superb Nokia E71, but still.

Palm's Linux phone "exceptional," says reviewer (LinuxDevices)

Posted Jun 14, 2009 4:08 UTC (Sun) by rsidd (subscriber, #2582) [Link]

Indeed, my Nokia E63 does everything I want and goes 3 days between charges. I use it quite heavily for internet and e-mail. And it has a comfortable keyboard with actual keys. Texts and e-mails I receive from iPhone users are usually full of typos. I don't see why I would want an iPhone or, from reviews, a Palm Pre...

Palm's Linux phone "exceptional," says reviewer (LinuxDevices)

Posted Jun 15, 2009 13:57 UTC (Mon) by paragw (guest, #45306) [Link] (4 responses)

Yep - I would loathe to use any other phone after having my E71 for the past 5-6 months. It does
everything great - call quality, keyboard, media, browsing, battery life (charge once in two days -
moderate usage) - heck it even does corporate email - always on sync, and has a SSH client
available!

The whole 3D and Multi Touch is highly overrated and unnecessary for a cell phone. Sure as a very
low power, highly portable, always connected device a cell phone is great but asking anything more
of it at the cost of basic functions is insanity.

Palm's Linux phone "exceptional," says reviewer (LinuxDevices)

Posted Jun 16, 2009 12:59 UTC (Tue) by Janne (guest, #40891) [Link] (3 responses)

I have a Nokia E71. I also have an iPod touch. I use both devices daily.
And every single day I'm amazed just how crummy the E71 is when compared to
the iPod.

If I compare it to previous phones I have had (all Nokias), it's a great
device. It feels sturdy, and I like the metal case. But comparing it to the
iPod touch (and by extension, iPhone) I'm amazed at the clumsyness of the
software. It's jerky, it's unsmooth, it's hard to use. The UI sometimes
freezes for no apparent reason, I get obtrusive menus that I have to
navigate with a tiny joystick. I can't jump from one entry to another
directly, I have to go through them one by one... It's quite obvious that
it (and just about every other phone out there) are simply extensions of
phone-tech we had 15 years ago. They have just improved the graphics a bit
(and even there the difference is quite minor, mainly just color-icons and
the like) and called it a day. That could be a good thing. If you have used
cell-phones for years, the transition from phone to phone is quite minor.
But that also means that new phones are basically the same as the old
phones. I think it's quite crappy that E71 is so similar to Nokia 2110
was....

I for one am grateful that we had some new players in the market (Apple
with iPhone mainly) that took a fresh look at the idea of a phone, and
delivered something that is simply more pleasant to use.

Take for example the web-browser. E71 has it. the iPod has it. And both of
them has WiFi. Yet I NEVER use the E71 to browse the net, whereas I
routinely use the iPod for that, even when I'm home and I could use my
laptop.

It's just amazing how crappy products phone-companies have been pushing to
consumers.... And no, I'm not really picking on Nokia here, they are all
equally crappy. No Microsoft, Windows on a mobile phone is not a good idea.

The iPhone was first of the "new breed" of mobile phones, and I'm hoping
that pre, as the second such device, will be a success as well. Reason
being that we deserve something better than the crap traditional phone-
companies have been giving us so far!

Palm's Linux phone "exceptional," says reviewer (LinuxDevices)

Posted Jun 16, 2009 14:44 UTC (Tue) by paragw (guest, #45306) [Link] (1 responses)

Your E71 must have some hardware issues - I hardly ever reboot my unit and have never had a
single crash/hang and the browser is just fine for a cell phone. And if you are complaining about
Symbian's UI responsiveness, something is definitely amiss. I have heard a lot of stories about
iPhone needing daily reboot with all the App Store crud loaded.

Some people want to do a lot more with that tiny device - many people I know who use iPhone
hardly use it for its main purpose - for making calls that is. Instead they want to do all sorts of
things - run apps, play games, do multi touch gestures and have ponies!

When I use a phone - I want it to be absolutely reliable, do occasional browsing/directions, do
media well, do corporate email well and have the best battery life possible. The E71 does all of
this and I am quite happy - I switched to it after going through iPhone and Blackberry mind you.

The iPhone still does not have A2DP support, drains battery like crazy, is not stable, has weak
speakers, has no real keyboard and no matter how much I try fails badly at Exchange email. (E71
on the other hand just works - even allows me to define different sync schedules on work hours
and off work hours, weekends and calender is great too.)

So I, like many other people who use E71 could not be happier - there is nothing missing in the
phone for my type of usage.

Palm's Linux phone "exceptional," says reviewer (LinuxDevices)

Posted Jun 16, 2009 20:31 UTC (Tue) by Janne (guest, #40891) [Link]

"Your E71 must have some hardware issues - I hardly ever reboot my unit and have never had a
single crash/hang and the browser is just fine for a cell phone"

At my work I look after about 40 E71's. And they are all crummy. Yes, they are fine when
compared to other "normal" phones. But when compared to something like the iPhone, their
crummyness becomes apparent.

No, I don't reboot my phone, nor does it really crash. It's just unresponsice. Sometimes when I
install apps for example, it just freezes. I just have to wait and trust that it comes around (which
it eventually does). And that is perfectly normal on those phones. And the UI is jerky. Menus
appear in a clumsy manner, the UI is not fluid and smooth, and the UI-navigation is clumsy and
awkward.

It's clumsy. I can't just point to a icon and launch the app, I need to browse to it with a tiny
joystick. Want to hit the icon in the bottom-right corner, but you are currently highlighting top-
left icon? Hit down, down, right, right, right and click on it. 7 button-presses!

Hitting links in that so called "web-browser" is cumbersome, since I have to move the tiny
pointer (Pointer in a mobile phone with no touchscreen?!) by using the joystick, and sometimes
the pointer overshoots the link! Just how bad could it be?

Before I bought the iPod touch, I was more or less happy with the phones I had used. But as I
used the iPod, I started thinking "Why are other phones so crummy? Why don't other phones
work like this?". You could say that the iPod ruined those phones for me, since it made it
apparent just how good they could be, but aren't.

(Note, I'm using the iPod touch and iPhone interchangeably here since they both run the same
OS)

"and the browser is just fine for a cell phone."

It might be if we compare it to WinMO-phones, Motorolas, Sony-Ericssons and the like. But if we
compare it to the iPhone, it's utter crap. Safari on the iPod is so good, that sometimes I simply do
not bother to browse with my laptop. There's a reason why Phone has about 10% market-share
in smartphones, yet it has over 60% market-share in web-browsing among smartphones. It's
because it has a browser that does not suck.

Compared to the Safari on the iPhone, every single mobile browser sucks, and they suck hard.
Iphones browser is simply that good. I'm not yet sure how good the browser on the pre is, but
I'm optimistic. Anything is better than the crap Nokia calls "web-browser".

"many people I know who use iPhone
hardly use it for its main purpose - for making calls that is."

According to Apple, iPhone is three things: A widescreen iPod with touch-controls, a mobile
phone and a communications-device. So makng phone-calls is only one of it's main uses. And I
really can't see it as a negative if people want to run apps on their iPhone. I have all kinds of
apps on my iPod touch, and I sure as hell can't see those apps as negative. I love the fact that I
can play Peggle during my commute ;). I love the fact that I have dozens of books in my ebook-
reader thatäs in my iPod. I love the fact that it has me calendar and email.

Modern smartphones (like the pre and iPhone) are very, very powerful devices. They have multi-
gigabyte hard-drives and 256MB of RAM. They are capable of running sophisticated apps, so
why shouldn't we run such apps on them?

Of course I'm not going to tell you that your phone is crap. We have different wants and needs,
and it would be dumb for me to tell you that "no, in reality you hate the E71". But it is quite
apparent that E71 is a result of 15 years of incremental updates. It's 15 year old design and
technology, brought to modern days.

Oh, and iPhone will support A2DP starting tomorrow ;).

I don't want to sound like an iPhone-fanboy or something. If anything I'm saddened that our
mobile devices are such crap, when they could be a lot better (as iPhone demonstrated). And it
has now been 2.5 years since iPhone has been released, and most phones are STILL crap! Pre
looks promising, but even there it took 2 years!

iPhone is a big, fat embarrassement for the entire phone-industry. Palm's CEO commented
regarding the iPhone-rumors in late 2006 (before iPhone was introduced):

Weve learned and struggled for a few years here figuring out how to make a decent phone, PC
guys are not going to just figure this out. Theyre not going to just walk in.. Yet that's exactly
what they did. Apple, a complete outsider to the phone-market, simply walked in, and utterly
annihilated every single device in the market as far as product-enjoyment and usability was
concerned. Apple singlehandedly showed us just how BAD our cell-phones have been.

Nokia's idea to product-developement has always been to saturate the market with zillion
different phones (It's my job to know about different Nokia-phones, and even I struggle to know
the differences) and piling feature on top of feature, with zero attention being paid to the
usability, the UI and how people actually might want to use those features.

Nokia's CEO has repeatedly thanked Apple for reinvigorating the entire business. And that's
exactly what they did. By showing the crappiness of those other phones, Apple did a huge
service to everyone, competing phone-manufacturers included. Because earlier those phone-
manufacturers were competing against competitors who were pushing equally crappy phones to
the market. It took a complete outsider to really shake the market.

Traditional phones vs. iPhone

Posted Jun 16, 2009 15:08 UTC (Tue) by Cato (guest, #7643) [Link]

A friend got the Nokia E71 and is very happy with it. It has built-in IMAP email, a reasonable web browser, and most importantly works well as a phone and for texting (being "like the old phones" is a great feature at least in this case). It also has WiFi and Assisted GPS so you get a fix far more quickly than on a standalone GPS, and you can download maps dynamically.

Most usefully, it has a complete implementation of Python that includes standard Python classes and Symbian-specific APIs. People do write real apps in it and a simple app was really quite trivial.

While I'd prefer a Linux phone, being able to use Python skills across a mobile phone, desktop PC and a web host is incredibly useful - gone are the days of the proprietary scripting languages for PDAs/phones.

I wouldn't recommend a Symbian phone to everyone, and I prefer touch screens myself, but this one definitely fills a niche. It looks like Nokia will make it more developer friendly in the future as well, and Qt on Symbian could be a nice open source stack.

Palm's Linux phone "exceptional," says reviewer (LinuxDevices)

Posted Jun 24, 2009 17:47 UTC (Wed) by Baylink (guest, #755) [Link]

Wow.. no, he meant "3 to 5 hours battery life".

I can now get from 8am to maybe sunset, after 10 or 12 charge cycles and a firmware upgrade. And that's with AIM off and no phone calls to speak of, and the GPS off. With the factory 1150mah battery.

I *am* a Pre fanboi, and this is just not ready for prime time. Mine's going back this week, and I'll upgrade my 7100i to an 8350i. <sigh>

Palm's Linux phone "exceptional," says reviewer (LinuxDevices)

Posted Jun 14, 2009 16:29 UTC (Sun) by kirkengaard (guest, #15022) [Link] (5 responses)

The Ars Technica review made a bit more of the messaging side, and suggests that battery life is great from that end (rather than phone calls):

"When it comes to IM, having a Pre is basically like carrying a running copy of the Mac OS X messaging client Adium in your pocket. Those on my buddy list who IM me via either AIM or Gtalk can't tell that I'm not at my laptop, and we'll have an most of an IM conversation before I mention that I'm actually on the Pre. (I can't decide if it's a blessing or a curse that I'm now constantly available on IM while out and about, and that I can be so available all day without killing the battery, but it's definitely a new experience.)"

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/2009/06/ars-reviews-t...

Palm's Linux phone "exceptional," says reviewer (LinuxDevices)

Posted Jun 15, 2009 0:29 UTC (Mon) by felixfix (subscriber, #242) [Link] (4 responses)

Are there any similar IM apps for the Android G1? The biggest problem I have is getting IM apps to recognize my company's internal Jabber server. I've only tried 2 or 3, and gave up trying others when the description only lists Yahoo etc.

Palm's Linux phone "exceptional," says reviewer (LinuxDevices)

Posted Jun 15, 2009 15:52 UTC (Mon) by jwb (guest, #15467) [Link] (3 responses)

Android has awesome AIM integration. You go to your contacts list, tap a contact, tap "Chat using AIM", and NOTHING HAPPENS. It's completely infuriating. One can only assume that the people who wrote the Contacts application are on a slightly accelerated schedule with respect to the people who are supposed to be integrating third-party chat protocols.

If you use Jabber, however, it works fine.

Palm's Linux phone "exceptional," says reviewer (LinuxDevices)

Posted Jun 15, 2009 18:06 UTC (Mon) by felixfix (subscriber, #242) [Link]

Huh. I set up my own Jabber account info, tapped "Chat using Jabber", and NOTHING HAPPENS :-(

I guess I'll go poke around some.

Second thoughts ...

Posted Jun 15, 2009 18:10 UTC (Mon) by felixfix (subscriber, #242) [Link] (1 responses)

What I really want is to have Adium on the Android G1. It's not that I am a huge fan of Adium, or maybe it is the company MacOS X it runs on which annoys me, but I'd like to run it on the G1, or something like it. I want it to connect to the company Jabber server and be my client. If that is what is supposed to happen when I tap "Chat using Jabber", great, except it doesn't do squat.

Are you sure everything is correctly configured?

Posted Jun 16, 2009 9:42 UTC (Tue) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link]

I think you need XMPP server with federation support and don't forget that GTalk uses dialback protocol!

The same with AIM: you need this enabled for your Google account - and then you can use it with Adroid too.

If you want to opt-out from Google account... sorry, it's not in the cards. May be later someone will manage to do it, but right now G1 is tied to Google Account as tightly as Blackberry is tied to RIM network servers...

"Chat using Jabber" server allows you to talk with someone who's using Jabber server and "Chat using AIM" allows you to talk with someone who's using AIM, but in both cases you are doing this using Google Account...