Hands On: Palm Pixi
Sep 9, 2009, 5:45 PM by Eric M. Zeman
Phone Scoop takes Palm's new Pixi webOS phone for a whirl. The Pixi earns high marks for its small footprint and usable operating system, but Palm had to make too many compromises on certain features.
The Pixi is the latest webOS phone from Palm and it takes things in a somewhat new direction. As the Centro was a step back from the full-powered Treo line of smartphones, so, too, is the Pixi a step back from the Pre.
The size and weight of the Pixi is incredible. So small. So light. Fantastic feel in the hand. The small form factor is thin and will certainly go anywhere you want it to.
The front of the Pixi has a 320 x 400 pixel capacitive touch display. The display looks great, very bright and colorful. Similar to the Pre, below the display is an area where users can swipe up, down, left or right to perform different actions. Below this is the keyboard.
The keyboard feels very similar to the Palm Centro. The buttons are tiny nubbins that are very hard to tell apart. The keys are smaller, and more compressed when compared to the Pre, but they do have better travel and feedback. This device is not for the fat fingered. The keys offer a nice click, but I felt that the entire design was a bit too cramped for my tastes.
The backplate — which has a toughened soft touch coating — is removable and can be replaced with a backplate that is compatible with Palm's inductive Touchstone charger. Palm is also offering five customized backplates that were designed by up-and-coming California artists. They'll let users make the Pixi a bit more personal and expressive.
The ringer mute switch, volume toggle and mircoUSB port are all on the right side of the phone. They were easy to find and felt good. The hatch covering the microUSB port was a bit tricky to open.
The Pixi comes with 8GB of internal memory. There's no microSD slot to make that any bigger. Some might be disappointed by this. I know that I am definitely disappointed that Palm deleted Wi-Fi. They told me that it was to keep costs of the device down (Pixi will most likely retail for $99), and Palm also doesn't believe that the targeted user segment (teens) is all that interested in Wi-Fi. I beg to differ.
The Pixi also downgrades the Pre's camera to 2 megapixels. It still works very fast (even with the flash on), but 2 megapixels seems to be the bare minimum for smartphones these days. Again, price point came into play here. Another, less-talked-about downgrade is the processor. Palm is using a Qualcomm chipset in the Pixi that has a lower clock speed than the Pre, but it does offer better power management.
The Pixi will be sold via Sprint at some point before the holidays. It will come with a new Facebook application developed for webOS, as well as better integration on the software side of things with respect to contacts management.
About the author, Eric M. Zeman:Eric has been covering the mobile telecommunications industry for 17 years at various print and online publications. He studied at Rutgers Newark and University of Kentucky, and has a degree in writing. He likes playing guitar, attending concerts, listening to music, and driving sports cars.
Review: Palm Pixi
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Comments
will this phone will be same as palm pre?
thanks!
Will this phone require a "Simply Everything" plan?
Wi-Fi really that big a deal for teenagers?
But from my experience teens don't really use wi-fi as often as people think. Teens mostly care for messaging.
Why would teens need wi-fi? Most of them text, IM, Facebook, Twitter.
Is a teen willing to pay Starbucks for wi-fi to check their Facebook faster?
Is a teen going to use their phone at home instead of their home computer?
Is a teen going to go to a sports bar really going to connect on wifi?
oh you do?
oh you do? of the hundreds of phones i've sold to teenagers i can count on ZERO fingers how many of them asked me if a phone has wi-fi. and if they want it, there's the Pre....
seriously, sometimes phone reviewers assume every new phone has to have 100% feature sets or they're disappointed. real world use =/= phone nerds like us and our expectations.
for $99 with 8gb of storage, 2mp camera with flash, rev A data speeds, this thing is loaded and the slim form factor is awesome.
Gesture Area = Waste of Space
I would've liked WiFi, but again ... value phone.
They have no excuse for not having a microSD slot. Wouldn't that have been cheaper than the cost of 8 gigs of memory? I know SD cards are way more convenient for me.
Maybe I'm just sore AT&T isn't getting this âšī¸
hehe could be đ. i agree, the SD card slot would be nice, but i've found for the majority of people, an SD card slot = something to spend another $40+ on, 8gb is plenty, and they'd never know what that...
(continues)
Need a new hand model.
bluecoyote said:
I got sick looking at those pictures. Maybe wear a glove to hide the leprosy/psoriasis? đ¤ .
DID you just seriously say that? Your brain isn't even connected to your mouth is it?
And also, get some farking cream or salve or something.
