I have had a Palm Pilot since 2000 and once they turned it into a phone, I had to have it!  I've been enjoying my Treo 755p for years but I love new technology and was excited when I learned about the Palm Pre.  I waited in anticipation for it and almost pre-ordered it before the June 6th, 2009 release date.  I'm very frugal, though, and even though my Palm Treo resets a lot or locks up, I figured I shouldn't replace something that didn't need to be replaced.

I was doing fine without the Pre until I went to the Success Summit in Palm Desert, CA August 11-14 (Tom Ferry Coaching).  The main topic for the week was social networking and included break-out sessions about Craig's List, YouTube, and Twitter.  Jim Marks, the Twitter speaker spoke highly of the Palm Pre.  When I got home from the Summit, my husband encouraged me to reward myself with the Pre, so I went out and bought it on August 18th!

Here is my review, which just started out as an email that I sent to my techie family and a few real estate agent friends that were considering the phone.  They found my email helpful, so I'm here to share it with you!

Cool things about this phone:

• It's fun to flick away something I no longer want to have open
• It has a nifty sleek design
• The camera is INCREDIBLE - it takes REALLY good pictures.  REALLY crisp, clear, and amazing. WAAAAY better than my Palm Treo's blurry, pixelated photos!
• Unlike my Treo, the camera has a flash!
• Great ring tones - there's even a Dulcimer ring tone that reminds me of Dad (he used to play the dulcimer). 
• The search function is cool.  From anywhere, I can start typing to find what I am looking for.  Example B-L shows Bluetooth and anyone with BL in their name.
• Very crisp screen - excellent graphics.
• If I start typing something that is not in my contacts or phone, it pops up links for Google, Google Maps, Wikipedia & Twitter and I can continue my search at one of those places.  Google loads nice and large on my phone and is crisp and readable.  The letters are large.
• The phone holds 8 GB of memory!!!
• Supposedly it takes your Facebook contacts and adds their info to your contact info in your phone but I didn't see the option to do that.  ??
• There's a real mirror on the back.  Kinda cool for floss-aholics, like me.  But, it's strange.
• When you type "u" it changed it to "you" - kinda cool UNLESS you are trying to cut down your lengthy text message.  You can't override this and go back to "U".
• It's very simple to set up your email accounts.  I was able to quickly set up my office email and my Gmail accounts on my phone and it grabbed the contacts I had in Gmail and gave me an option to merge contacts.  I like the way the Pre displays the subject line of the newest email that has come in.

Not so cool things about it:

• IT DOES NOT SYNC WITH OUTLOOK. AT. ALL. No syncing contacts, notes/memos, tasks and contacts!!!  I should have looked online and read forums BEFORE I bought the phone because there is a $35 restocking fee when I returned it. 
• There are no "settings/preferences" - can't dim the screen.  Can't change the color scheme. Can't make it so it turns off/doesn't ring during certain times (my husband's Blackberry does that).
• I don't have finger tips because I have long finger nails so when I squish my finger down to select something, it's such a big finger area jammed into the phone that I select the wrong thing.  This would be easier demonstrated because when I read that sentence, I'm not sure it makes sense!
• The battery life is a disappointment in comparison to the Treo.  The phone and battery inside it is so slim, it only lasts a few hours.  Even though it was fully charged and I only spoke on the phone for 3 short calls, my phone battery went to 20% in 6 hours from just being ON and me glancing to see if there was a new email message to read.  I constantly have to charge it.
• Not having my Outlook calendar or all of my contacts, memos, and tasks forces me to carry the old phone around with me like a PDA.  The Treo is WAY easier to use to enter in a calendar appointment.  I love how typing in a calendar entry instantly generates an alarm on the Treo, and it's really easy to tap and adjust the length of the appointment in a few seconds.  On the Pre, I can add an appointment but have to tap it to get in there and set an alarm and its duration, plus the appointment's duration. It takes too long to set up reminders/appointments in this phone. Not user-friendly for a heavy calendar user like myself!
• It's frustrating to not be able to use my fingernail tip or a stylus.  I miss using a stylus. 
• There is no Facebook application.  Why do they advertise this phone and show Facebook on it when there's no app!?  The phone comes with 6 bookmarks for the web, including Facebook, but I can't figure out how to delete bookmarks I will never use, like MySpace and ESPN.  The URLs for the bookmarks are x.facebook.com but the Facebook web page is dumbed down and I can't see anyone's comments below someone's status... so I went to m.facebook.com and www.facebook.com and the text it SO riDICulously tiny, a bug couldn't even read it, but I can read people's comments and change my status.  Turn the phone sideways and the web page moves sideways and gets a little bigger but it's too tiny to read or tap anything on the page with a big finger.  Ugh.
• Any web page I go to is just too tiny to read or use.  It's a JOKE and there are no settings to enlarge the web text - can you believe it!?  The phone seems too simplified. UPDATE: I figured out you can touch the screen and spread your fingers apart to enlarge the text but then you have to scroll left and right to read the screen because it doesn't fit-to-page.  It makes using the internet less fun, so I have barely used it on this phone and I used to go online alllll the time on my Treo.  
• There is no such thing as applications like HandyShopper or my other beloved Palm programs - this is not anything like a Palm!  I knew it would be like this - a totally different OS, but I still must voice my frustration incase others did not know about it.  From what I understand, Palm was sold and their image and OS were revamped.  "This is not your father's Palm."  The old Palm OS was PC and the new OS is like a Mac.  Similar but worlds apart and the programs are incompatible and not interchangeable.
• Google Maps takes forever to load and only sections of the map appear.  Yesterday I needed to know NOW if the 167/405 interchange was traffic-y or not.  It took SO long to load that I gave up and took another route.  It finally loaded, but the box that would show the interchange didn't load until I'd driven a few miles down Benson and when I saw that I could have taken the freeway because it was wide open, I was pretty irritated I didn't go that way.  Ugh.  Not useful.
• My husband's Blackberry allows him to share his location with friends via the GPS feature, but I cannot add friends nor share my location with friends.  There's no option for that.
• I have 7.92 of my 8 GB FREE and available - I am barely using any memory, but the phone is VERY SLOW to load apps or pictures in Facebook.  Tweed (the free Twitter app I downloaded) only works part of the time.
• POOR RECEPTION!!  I can't go online on the phone in my office and I have very poor reception in parts of my home and office - two places where I need excellent reception.  It's not alwaysbad: I can make phone calls in most parts of my home and when I am out and about... but it's not as good as my Treo.
• I can't figure out how to remove the apps that came with my phone for NASCAR, ESPN, etc.  I don't need these silly apps!
• Let's say I hit a comma and not an apostrophe and I want to fix it after I have finished my whole sentence.  I don't have a stylus so it's really difficult to go back and tap the comma.  I end up having to backspace and delete everything so I can get back there and add a '.
• Passwords are case-sensitive but the Pre tried to be helpful and will not allow me to begin anything with a lowercase.  I'm unable to log into certain websites because my password begins with a lower case and the Pre won't let me enter in my password the correct way.  It's really frustrating.
• There's no copy, paste, or selecting of text!!  In some programs it looks like I can Edit/Select/Copy but I have never been able to get this to work.  How can I quickly send someone a phone number when I am composing an email or text message if I can't copy and paste it?  What if I want to send the same text to two people?  I have to write down the phone # and go back to my message to type it in AND I have to retype the same entire text message when I need to send it to more than one person!  Argggh.
• Sprint imported my 900 contacts but oddly I am missing a huge chunk of them.  Couldn't find people in there that my Palm Treo had and would get calls from odd numbers only to recognize the person calling.  They should have been in this phone... but I can't sync it so I am stuck with what I have. 
• Also, none of the addresses of my contacts loaded.  I realized this when I was on my way to someone's house and checked my phone only to see their address wasn't there!  I had to wing it because I didn't have my REAL phone (Treo) with me.
• The keyboard is sticky and over time the self-healing buttons will get cracks in them from my nails cutting them... like my computer keyboards. I miss the firm, hardy keyboard my Treo has.  I find the Treo has a much easier keyboard to work with.  I have been avoiding sending emails and texts from the Pre because of the sticky keyboard.  To quote the horse from Ren & Stimpy, "No sir, I just don't like it."
• The mini USB cover on my phone is so flimsy I feel I am going to accidentally tear it off when I open the hatch to insert the mini USB charger.  I don't have a super mini USB for my computer to talk to my phone and I have Bluetooth on both devices but I can't get them to talk to one another because the phone does not sync with my computer.
• I miss the blinking light that indicates I have a new text, missed call, reminder, etc. My Treo had this.
• I miss my alarm program that allows me to set a different waking time for each day of the week.  Treo had this (a free app).
• It's a slippery phone, like a bar of soap.  Unless you carry a microfiber cloth with you to keep your phone clean, it will get slimy from the natural oils in your fingers and face.  I like how the Treo lets me use my fingernail or a stylus because that allows me to keep the screen and the phone cleaner.
• The things I use the most: contacts, calendar, memos, Facebook, internet, Twitter, and GoogleMaps (for traffic) do not work as quickly on the Pre or do not exist.  I feel handicapped with the Pre and I don't want to carry a PDA and a phone with me all the time.  Just 1 phone, please.

I'm sure that there are "easter eggs" hidden in the phone and some "underground" apps that can help make the Pre function better... but I don't have time to find and play with those things.  I'm a businesswoman and I just need my phone to work right now!  :)  I gave it a good two weeks because I know there is a learning curve, but once I had owned the phone for 1 hour and learned it didn't sync with Outlook, I was mentally done with the phone.

In summary, I think it's a fun phone for teenagers and twenty-somethings that don't use the phone for business. It's great for someone that is iPhone-curious but is committed to staying with Sprint to fulfill a contract.  This is a good phone for people that enjoy looking for un-authorized or underground apps that will make their phone work around the problems.  I know as time goes on, there will be hundreds or thousands of amazing apps for this phone like the iPhone has... I just don't think the phone works for professionals like us - we use our phones differently.  Maybe we should put our heads together and design a phone for real estate agents!!

This evening I returned the Pre after 2 weeks and went back to "Old Faithful," my trusty Palm Treo 755p because it suits my lifestyle and my way of doing business.  I would breathe a sigh of relief but my Treo has been misbehaving and just resetting itself randomly every hour or so.  I think it's throwing a fit because I neglected it for a couple of weeks.

Thank you for reading an email that turned out to be a blog post!