The Palm Pre 2 is a refresh of the PalmPre that brings us webOS 2.0 -- but that's about as exciting asit gets. Like the PalmPre Plus, the best we can say about the Pre 2 is that this isa slightly better version of a very good phone. The problem is, doesanyone care anymore?
Palm Pre 2
The Good
The Bad
The Bottom Line
Prices for the Pre 2 haven't been released yet, but we'llupdate this review as soon as they're available. We expect it to be oneof the pricier smart phones.
WebOS like a boss
Check out our reviews of the Palm Pre and Palm Pre Plus,because the Palm Pre 2 sticks very close to its tried-and-true recipe.We'll focus on the differences in this review, although none of themare world-shatteringly huge.
The new version of webOS is 2.0, and Palm promises it'sfaster than ever. The software now takes advantage of the hardwaregraphic processor to be even more whizzy, and the Pre 2 also doublesthe processor speed to 1GHz. It shows when opening apps, which pop uppromptly, although there was the occasional pause when we woke up an appthat was paused.
Palm's 'deck of cards' feature is still present and correct,which means that if you have several apps open, each is displayed as alarge thumbnail on the home screen. You can easily swipe between cardsto move between open apps, or swipe a card up towards the top of thescreen to close the app.Â
You can now group cards together so that you don't have toswipe quite so much, and have a pile of cards related to aparticular task. The groups also get created automagically. For example, when we opened a link from the Spaz Twitter app(apologies for that name -- we don't condone it, but the app is free andworks), it opened in a browser window. Press the touch-sensitive homebutton to minimise the app to the deck of cards view, and the browserwindow is shown stacked on top of the Twitter window. You can stillinteract with them both, and you can manually split up the cards orstack them in a different way.
That said, we think the deck of cards could be more useful on aday-to-day basis if the cards worked more like widgets. It's great tohave the option to multitask -- topause a game while you respond to a text message, for example. But thecards don't work well as widgets that let you keep up to date withFacebook, for instance, without opening the full app. In our straw pollof regular Pre users, people tend to open apps one at a time, as theyneed them, rather than hold heaps of open apps in their deck of cards.
The Pre 2's menu has also been tweaked so that you can groupicons into screens, and add and remove screens, to organise yourapps.Â
The changes are welcome, but we don't think they'll blow yourmind with their newness if you've used a Pre before. If not, we thinkthe user interface is fun to use and efficient. Getting around using the swipes and gestures only takes a few minutes to learn, andonce you get your head around it, it's easy to use the Pre 2.Â
Ask and you shall receive
Another improvement we're more excited about is the searchfeature. Previously known as 'universal search', it's been renamed'just type', and we can see why. From the home screen, start typing andthe option pops up to search the Web, your contacts and other phonedata, create a text or email, and plenty more. It's a very handy way tomove quickly around the phone's features or find what you want, if youcan get into the right headspace. To write anemail, for example, you have to think of typing first, rather than finding andlaunching the email app.Â
Developers can also write their own search plug-ins. This means you canlaunch the Facebook website, for example, and search for something fromthe 'just type' app, along with the built-in search engines likeGoogle. Whether the overstretched dev teams of various sites can bebothered to get around to this, along with writing Chromeextensions, Firefoxplug-ins, iPadsites and everything else they're expected to do these days, remainsto be seen.
App anxiety
Getting developers on board has been a long struggle for Palm,and its app store has suffered as a result. In our tests, the bigplayers were present -- there's a revamped Facebook app, for example. Butthere are still plenty of holes -- no official Twitter app, for example. We also missed having lots of great free apps to choose from, since the best selection was in paid apps.
Gettings apps on the Pre 2 definitely made us feel likefourth-class citizens, somewhere behind the bulging sleeves of the iPhoneApp Store, the wild wonderland of the AndroidMarket, and even the paltry offerings of the BlackBerryApp World. There are apps, and some of them are very good,but they are far fewer.
Palm has a few plans to sort out its dearth of apps. First,there's a 'PDK' available that it says makes moving apps onto the Palm easier-- apparently Angry Birds was ported in 48 hours. Secondly, Palmpromises its recent marriage with HP will release a bag of moneyto throw at developers. We have our fingers firmly crossed that the AppCatalogue will soon see an influx of goodies, but in the meantime, beaware that if you fancy the Pre 2, you may have to shell out a fewpounds for the best apps, and you may not always get what you want.
More juice is loose
One of the Pre's biggest drawbacks was its paltry batterylife, and that seems to have improved with the Pre 2. When we tested the phone with a number of cards open and Twitter, email and Facebook allpolling for regular updates, we still got a day and a half ofuse out of the handset.Â
Plus, the inductive back panel required to take advantageof the wireless Touchstone charger is included on the Pre 2, althoughyou'll stuill have to pay extra for the Touchstone itself.
There's not much else to tell you in terms of hardware, except that the curved plastic screen has been replaced by a flat glass one.We liked the pebble-like roundness of previous Pres, but the new lookis also fine. The slider mechanism has been rejigged to be less floppy,although it still doesn't feel like the snappiest hinge we've used. The camera has also been bumped up to 5 megapixels, with an LED flash.
Flash, bang, whallop
The Pre 2's Wi-Fi support and great Web browser makes foraccurate, fast surfing. The phone had no trouble rendering sitescorrectly and quickly, and if you can't find the apps you want, youwon't have any trouble getting your shizzle done in the browser instead.
Flash support is new to the Pre 2, and in our tests it workedfine. It doesn't feel as well thought out as Flash on Android, though. For example, we sometimes struggled to activate the controls on a Flashvideo and then move back to interacting with the page outside thevideo. There didn't seem to be an elegant way to switch tofull-screen, either, which is an easy move in Android.Â
We were also sorry to see that (at the time of reviewing) theBBC iPlayer website doesn't support the Pre 2, so even though you can watch the Flash videos, you can't get at them. There's no iPlayer app, either, so you'll miss out on that benefit of your TV licence.
Despite being only 3.1 inches, the screen is sharp and easy toread, and we didn't feel cramped even after getting used to the hugereal estate of the HTCDesire HD. That makes the Pre 2 a good choice for anyonewho's avoiding the recent crop of giant phones and looking forsomething more pocket-friendly.Â
The slide-out Qwerty keyboard is also as good as ever, whichmakes the Pre 2 excellent for emailing.
Conclusion
The Pre 2 is more of the same from Palm, but that's notnecessarily a bad thing. Like previous Pres, this phone is fast and funto use, with a finger-friendly and beautiful user interface that's hadplenty of little improvements. The problem is that while Palmis polishing the Pre, other manufacturers are firing out amazingAndroid phones like a gattling gun of goodness, and the iPhone AppStore continues to bestride the world of tiny programs like a clickablecollosus.Â
We love the Palm Pre 2's smooth, elegant package of smartphone fun, but if you go down this road, you go almost alone. If youcan handle that, you won't be disappointed with the Pre 2, but getready for some lonely nights down the pub while everyone else isswapping app chat.
Edited by Emma BaylyÂ