Because the Palm Pre review was getting so large, I broke it into parts.  If you missed part one or two, they’re available.  Part three is more about

Making noise…

Launching the music player.

You can see a tracklist.

But there's no Cover Flow here.

The Palm Pre isn’t an iPod, but it is a pretty capable media player for both audio and video.

As an MP3 player, the Pre delivers. It’s kept the music flowing without interruption and there’s no technical limitations to speak of. In fact, it has quite an impressive technical addition to most MP3 players by way of Stereo Bluetooth support. The Pre will kick out the beats (or other smooth sounds) to my in-car stereo through Bluetooth, and I’m pretty sure it would work flawlessly with any A2Dp headphones.

The A2DP feature is actually most impressive when watching a movie in the car (while not driving, or from the passenger seat). I fired up Serenity on the Pre and started listening through the car stereo. I was astounded. The audio was crisp and clear (even on the compressed video file I had encoded to test things out. Granted I did use a nice codec). It’s a fantastic setup.

That takes me to the video aspect, which was also superb. You can zoom in or watch the full aspect ratio of the file. The player is easy to use. You can play and pause, and drag the timeline to fast forward or reverse.

There’s the TV, There’s the Radio…

There's TV on your phone.

Complete w/ full BSG episodes.

Or listen to Pandora Radio.

Sprint TV is also included with most plans (though not some premium and live channels). It’s a pretty impressive offering, complete with full episodes from some of the best shows on television (like Battlestar Galactica! Even though, it’s not “on” television anymore). You can check out ABC, CBS, FOX and NBC Mobile. There’s SciFi, Speed, Bravo and other channels. I’ve entertained my young daughter with cartoons from the Disney channel (complete episodes of Phineas and Ferb, Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, Handy Manny). There’s just a lot to be had.

If you’re looking for the NFL Network, look no further than the Palm Pre, bring a good connection with you though, or you’re in for some pixelation.

If you’re more in the mood for music and nothing on your Pre will do, you can turn to Pandora. Pandora is a very popular Internet radio application. For those who haven’t heard of it, here’s how it works. Listeners give Pandora an artist or a song. In return, Pandora starts playing a stream of music that ’sounds like’ that artist or song. So if you’re wanting to hear music that sounds like Dave Matthews Band, you punch that in and it delivers. A lot of fans of the service say it’s a great way to discover new bands in a legal way.

When you’ve found that band or song you can go shopping right from the Pre.

Go shopping…

Amazon's MP3 Store

Download Top Albums...

or pick from Top Songs.

The Amazon MP3 store is pretty much what the name implies. For those among you who would like to legally download your music in a DRM free fashion, often times Amazon provides a way. The Amazon MP3 storefront on the Pre is similar to what you’d find online. You can check out new releases, the top 100 Albums, Artists and Songs. It’s pretty straightforward if you’ve ever used iTunes. As you can see in the screenshots Michael Jackson is dominating the charts.

YouTube, Nascar and Fandango…

Watch YouTube videos while bored.

Get the latest updates from the track.

Check out a movie trailer at Fandango.

Or be boring and read stuff from work.

There’s plenty more to be had on the Pre. YouTube sends along an application for your amusement.

Meanwhile, NASCAR fans (which I am not) can check out the latest updates from the track. Sprint is pretty proud of this feature. I didn’t play around with the app too much, but there’s plenty there. Press conferences, race recaps/results and points standings. I was forced to pick a favorite driver, so I picked Jimmie Johnson, he won last year right?

Aaron Lafferty, would love the Fandango application on the Pre. Similar to what’s found in many variations on the iPhone, Fandango lets you check out movie trailers, showtimes and theaters around you using the GPS. Quality is pretty decent and sometimes more than one trailer is offered depending on the movie.

If you’re in the mood for reading documents, (and really who’s not?) Doc View opens up almost anything you’d need to read. PDFs, DOCs, Spreadsheets are no match for it. I’ve used this, as the screenshot indicates, to checkout the log from work for what’s happening at the station.

Generally, if it’s on the Pre, it’s a pretty good thing.

The AppStore It’s Not….

That's right, total apps = 30.

It's either Connect 4 or Sudoku.

But there's a little surprise...

There’s a gap between the Pre and iPhone in apps. The gap isn’t measure in the tens, hundreds or thousands, but in the tens of thousands. The Pre’s AppCatalog has a paltry 30 apps in it as of this writing. That’s about the same number it was launched with. Compare that to the more than 50,000 apps in Apple’s AppStore and it’s not even an argument.

Palm needs to get things going on that front. There’s word that the official SDK will be coming out soon (it’s already been leaked). There’s also some word out there about homebrewing on the Pre. With the homebrew would come the kind of applications not welcome on a legitimate storefront.

I just need something, anything to fill my Pre with. I’ve got about 1GB sitting, waiting for apps to be installed on, but that wait continues. As for filling the Pre, that gets a little easier with some creative software writing done for it.

My Palm Pre convinced iTunes it's an old iPod.

I didn’t buy an iPod…

When I plug the Pre into the computer, it comes with a little bit of a surprise. It offers three options (shown in the screenshot above), Media Sync, USB Drive or Just Charge. If you select the Media Sync option, the Pre tricks iTunes into thinking it’s an iPod. This is wonderful. I love iTunes. Millions of other people are just like me. Managing my music and videos is easier done in iTunes than any other application. Transferring videos and music to the Pre is made amazingly easy, because of the syncing feature it offers.

My hope is that Apple would open up the architecture to make any phone capable of doing this, but according to a recent release, they’re not to keen on it. Wired.com quotes an Apple release, “Apple is aware that some third-parties claim that their digial media players are able to sync with Apple software. However, Apple does not provide support for, or test for compatibility with, non-Apple digital media players and, because software changes over time, newer versions of Apple’s iTunes software may no longer provide syncing functionality with non-Apple digital media players.”

Essentially, it sounds like Apple’s playing hardball, but the syncing still works as of now and I probably won’t update iTunes when new versions come out until I know that it doesn’t break my Pre. I’m not too worried that I’ll be losing the feature.

For Better and Worse…

There are aspects where I think the Pre is truly better than the iPhone, but at the same time it’s trailing mightily as well. I know that apps will be coming down the line, so that assuages some of my fears. I also would have loved to have had an option for more memory on the Pre because I would have bought a 16GB or 32GB version in a heartbeat.

After nearly a month of owning the Pre, I have no plans of taking it back. It’s the best phone on Sprint and it will eventually be available on Verizon (according to rumors). If the Pre’s on more networks, that means it will get into more hands, and that means only good things for Pre users. WebOS is one of the best experiences I’ve had on a mobile device.

Did I miss anything? Is there anything you’d like to know, just leave me a note in the comments or send me a tweet.

If you missed part one or two, check them out.

Oh, and I almost forgot to mention. Every Pre comes with a mirror. Super Exciting.

There's a mirror. For real. Almost actual size.