Palm Pre Plus Review

About a year ago Palm released the Palm Pre Plus as follow up to the Palm Pre smartphone. Since Palm was aquired by HP in 2010, many legacy Palm smartphones are available for very affordable prices currently. The Palm Pre Plus can be found for 150 – 200,- Euros without a contract, which is an unbeatable price tag for a fully fledged smartphone with a great mobile OS.

The packaging nearly hasn’t changed at all, as you’ll find all the usual stuff like an mini-usb cable, ac adaptor, a pouch, earplugs and a short manual besides the Palm Pre plus device. Originally the Palm Pre was shipped with a plastic cover, which needed to be replaced by a soft rubber cover in order to be able to charge the Palm Pre with the charging stone. This is a nice move from Palm, as it’s not only practical regarding the charging stone, but also makes the Palm Pre Plus feel like higher quality compared to the plastic backcover of the original Palm Pre.

With the Palm Pre you could just press the hardware button on the front and wake the phone, but now you have to reach for the power button every single time you want to turn on the screen. Sadly it’s still a chore to open the cover when the keyboard of the Palm Pre Plus is not slid out. One of the most frequent complains about the Palm Pre was the general built quality. Palm used a little bit too much plastic components considering the price tag the Palm Pre had when it was released. Especially the slideout mechanism for the Palm Pre keyboard was a weak spot. The Palm Pre Plus comes with an optimized slider, as it’s not as wobbly anymore and just feels more solid. You’ll get used to it pretty fast, but i would prefer softer keyboard buttons.

It’s still the same resolution and the quality of the screen was already very good on the Palm Pre, which didn’t change much for the Palm Pre Plus. Palm Pre Plus hardware verdict

Overall the Palm Pre Plus is a nice facelift which comes with better hardware and built quality. The slider mechanism is also sturdier this time around. Especially the very cheap price tag makes the Palm Pre Plus an interesting device for light user which want a great mobile OS but don’t want to spend too much money. Even if we might not see any further update after WebOS 2.1 for the Palm Pre Plus it’s still worth a look.

Palm Pre Plus specs
 

Operating system	Palm webOS platform
Network specs	UMTS/HSDPA and EDGE/GSM
Display	3.1-inch touch screen with a vibrant 24-bit color 320×480 resolution HVGA display
Keyboard	Physical QWERTZ keyboard
Email	Microsoft® Exchange email with Microsoft Direct Push Technology POP3/IMAP (Yahoo! Mail, Gmail™, AOL, Hotmail®, etc)
Messaging	Integrated IM, SMS, and MMS
GPS	Built-in GPS
Digital camera	3 megapixel camera with LED flash and extended depth of field
Sensors	Ambient light, accelerometer, and proximity
Media formats supported	Audio Formats: MP3, AAC, AAC+, AMR, QCELP, WAV Video Formats: MPEG-4, H.263, H.264
Image Formats:	GIF, JPEG, PNG, BMP
Wireless connectivity	Wi-Fi 802.11b/g with WPA, WPA2, WEP, 802.1X authentication Bluetooth® wireless technology 2.1 + EDR with A2DP stereo Bluetooth support; WiFi Tethering (Personal HotSpot)
Memory	16GB (~15GB user available) USB mass storage support
RAM	512 MB
Connector	MicroUSB connector with USB 2.0 Hi-Speed
Headphone jack	3.5mm stereo
Palm Synergy	Includes aggregation for Facebook®, Google™, Google Talk™, AIM Instant Messenger.6 and more.
Universal search	Searches user’s applications, contacts, dialing information, web and more.
Activity cards	Third party and ROM applications accessible as movable, multi-view cards.
Palm Services	Includes over-the-air backup, restore, remote erase, and software updates.
Palm Touchstone	Charging Dock Compatible
Dimensions	Width: 59.6mm Height: 100.7mm Thickness: 17,5mm Weight 138,5 grams