Review: Palm Pre
Bluetooth
The Pre supports audio Bluetooth profiles as well as PAN for data tethering and PBA for phone book access (with cars). You can connect it to mono, stereo and hands-free headsets, but not other devices such as computers or other phones. I had no problems pairing with headsets of any variety, and music playback / phone calls sounded pretty good.
Calendar
Because this is Palm we're talking about, the calendar is pretty powerful. It can be synced with your online calendars (such as Google or Exchange) and has a very easy-to-use interface. Any appointments made on the Pre will sync back to your main online account. This is exactly how it should be.
Clock
The Pre has pretty much no options when it comes to the clock. You can choose 12 hour format or 24 hour format. Whoop-dee-doo. As for checking the time, when the screen is locked, a quick press of the power/lock key brings up a bright, readable digital clock display. It works perfectly fine as a watch replacement, even if you can't alter the way it looks.
GPS
The Pre has GPS and comes pre-loaded with both Sprint Navigation and Google Maps. Using Google Maps, the Pre was able to pinpoint my location to within about 50 feet in just several second. After perhaps a minute of fine-tuning, it could get as close as 10 feet. That's about as good as you're going to get. Google Maps worked perfectly well at mapping routes from A to B, and the menu lets you see things such as traffic, the satellite view, perform searches for points of interest and more.
Sprint Services
The Pre comes loaded with a lot of Sprint's services, such as Sprint TV, Sprint Navigation, Nascar, etc. These all work as they do on most other phones and don't offer any real surprises on the Pre.
Tools
Some of the included tools include tasks, memos, calculator, help and more. There is a tool for backing up the device, though that happens automatically. You can also check for firmware or other software updates with ease.
YouTube
The Pre has a built-in YouTube client. It works pretty well. It lets you search all videos or sort through the most viewed or most popular videos. Most videos I watched started playing within about 10 seconds. The videos play in landscape orientation, meaning you need to rotate the phone sideways. The videos looked good. What I didn't like is that you can't share the videos, save them as favorites or bookmark them.
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Palm Pre (CDMA)
