Do I really want to turn in my iPhone for the Palm Pre?
The chance to test drive the new Palm Pre seemed like a gift from the gods. On the same day I read about the opportunity, I was moments away from taking a hammer to my iPhone.
Now I love my iPhone but I was having issues with it that customer service didn’t want to deal with so I was scouring the Internet for alternatives. Those issues have since been solved but I couldn’t turn down the offer to see what the Palm Pre was all about. Given my penchant for changing cell phones more often than the Boston Red Sox change shortstops (for those who don’t follow baseball…that’s a lot) I figured I could at least see what Sprint had to offer and find out if I could fall for another smart phone the way I had for my iPhone. I was born to use a smart phone. I use my phone to text, to blog, to surf the internet, to follow Major League Baseball and to listen to music. Using it as an actual phone comes last on my list so my preference is for any smart phone that serves my needs best. I’ve only been using the Pre for a couple of days but if my experiences with it continue the way they have thus far, well I’m going to have a big decision to make.
There’s plenty of time over the next month to cover all that the phone does and doesn’t do so I thought I’d focus today on music. My favorite part of the iPhone, hands down, is that I have can listen to music, text, surf and use my phone all with one device. I always know where my phone is since I’m always listening to the music on it. It’s handy for me since I’ve been known to misplace an item or two. Being able to transfer my music from my Mac to the phone was encouraging but the most surprising part, for me, was the sound quality. I listen to many kinds of music. I played many different genres and various qualities of sound and they all came out sounding like I was listening to digital radio.
Most of the time I’m listening to my music through earphones and the music was of similar quality as listening through earphones with the iPhone. But today I had the opportunity to use the Pre in my office without the earphones and the quality absolutely blows away that of my iPhone. The iPhone tends to get crackly if you mess too much with the volume controls. That didn’t happen with the Pre. The volume controls are such that you can turn it up and down seamlessly and without blowing out your ears or suddenly losing sound altogether. A visitor to my office asked where I was hiding the radio because the sound was so clear. Even at its lowest setting, the sound is crisp and impressive.
The newness of the phone itself is a draw but finding that its not only a shiny new toy but also a legitimate music player encourages me to be hopeful that I’ll be this enthusiastic about the rest of the phone’s features.
You have a month to win me over, Palm Pre.
http://www.cnet.com/au/news/to-pre-or-not-to-pre/