The Zimmer Zoo

I’m in love. I’ve had my Palm Pre for a week now, and I can honestly say that I love it! I’m still getting used to it and I haven’t downloaded any new apps or ring tones or anything, but niiiiiiice. 🙂

The story of going to the Sprint store with all 3 kids is enough for its own blog post…so I won’t go into the details…but I will say that before the guy behind the counter could program things into the phone, Palm makes you go through a little tutorial – on the phone. Now imagine me trying to do this with 3 VERY hungry kids…who have already been waiting with me for about an hour. Yup. good times.

When I got the phone home, I read through the little tiny manual. (I’m a tech writer – it’s a professional courtesy!) I haven’t even looked at the in-phone help yet, though I plan to at some point in the future, and that may address some of the things I’ve come up against.

Again, I’m loving the phone. Love the slide-out keyboard. Love the big screen. Love the picture quality. Love the wireless charging dock that turns the phone into a bed-side clock (sold separately).

There are definitely things that I still need to get used to … and things that took me a little bit to figure out … and things that could work a bit differently. (Keep in mind that my previous phone was a Rumor, another phone that I really liked, so I’m probably comparing it to that…)

Here’s my list in no particular order:

• The apps load fairly slowly. Once they’re loaded, they go pretty fast, but the loading is a lot slower than I would expect given that it’s this brand new kick-butt phone. (The internet, on the other-hand, is SUPER fast!)
• Still don’t know how to download a new ringer. Spent some time on the internet this morning and found all sorts of ring tones, but no ringers. *I* want to hear the new ringer, I don’t care if the people calling me hear “ring ring, ring ring” or not. 😛
• There doesn’t seem to be a way to set a different tone for different things for the same person. It looks like I can set the same tone for all phone calls, another one for text messages, etc. Or I can set a tone for a specific person. But I can’t set one tone for  a call from a specific person and another tone for a text for the same person. (My old phone had that – very handy for knowing who was ringing me up and if I had to run to the phone to answer it, or let it sit cuz it was a text.)
• I use my phone as my alarm clock. When the alarm goes off in the morning, I have to unlock the phone to turn it off. It would seem to me that automatically unlocking the phone so I just have to push the “snooze” or the “off” button would make more sense. My brain isn’t awake enough to make that swish movement needed to unlock it.
• At first I was annoyed because I set up my email account and then thought that I had to open an email to delete it. (Very annoying when you receive lots of spam). THEN I realized that the sideways swish removes items from a list. Duh Nancy, the Inbox is a list. Swish! It’s gone.
• There are no arrow keys. With a tiny little keyboard, it’s easy to make mistakes (and not realize it until said mistake is half way up the page). You can touch the screen and move the pointer back up – but unless your fingers are elf-sized, you aren’t going to hit the right spot on the first – or second, or third – try. And who wants to use the backspace key to remove all of your hard work on that tiny little keyboard?
• The first time I made a support-type call, I panicked because I needed to enter my phone number, but there was no keypad! Okay, found that button and hit the first digit…and the screen went blank. GAH! It took me two more calls to figure out that if I tilt the phone slightly away from my body, the keypad stays lit. (There must be a sensor of some sort that makes it turn off when it thinks it’s up to your ear.)
• There is no video camera. The still pictures are FABULOUS. But no video. If you’ve come to depend on your cell phone for video, you’re going to be disappointed here. (Strange, right?)
• I wanted to put an icon I knew I’d be using a lot in the Quick Launch bar (the internet icon). Figured that I could just drag and drop it in…no such luck. Duh Nancy, you need to remove one to make room for it first.
• It’s not as easy to use this phone with one hand. It’s not even easy to open the keyboard with one hand. I’m still working on unlocking the phone with a thumb swish, but it’s a lot easier if you hold the phone in one hand and swish with the other.
• I wish there was a way to have my different email accounts as different “cards”. I’m getting used to them all in one, but it’d be more convenient if I could switch between work and home accounts quicker.

I admit – a fairly long list considering that over-all, I really like the phone.

(Did this help you? Lemme know!)

Filed under: reviews | Tagged: cell phone, Palm, Palm Pre, Pre, review, Sprint | 2 Comments »