The HTC Touch Pro2

When I took the HTC Touch Pro2 out of the box that Verizon had sent me, the first thing that struck me was its amazingly large screen. Then, while still holding it in hand, I noticed its weight. It was heavy enough to do some damage if thrown. The 3.6-inch screen, with its stunning 480×800 resolution is made possible by the ginormous size, it measures 4.57″ (H) x 2.33″ (W) x 0.68″ (D) and weighs 6.4 ounces.

Comparing the weight to the iPhone’s 4.8 ounces and the Palm Pre’s 4.76 ounces, it’s a lot heavier. You may say 1.6 ounces isn’t all that much, but when it’s a full 33 percent heavier, I say that’s a lot. The Touch Pro2 isn’t as wide as Apple’s iPhone, but it’s extra thickness and height add to its bulk. When walking around with the phone in my pocket, it felt noticeable and not every phone is. Compared to the Palm Pre, the Touch Pro2 is wider, taller, thicker and heavier.

Physical features aside, the Touch Pro2 makes a great phone. The technology is present that you can use the phone all over the world. Sound quality is great. Check your coverage map to make sure that there’s adequate Verizon coverage in your area, and make sure you test the phone out during the grace period in the places you plan to use it most, otherwise you might have a problem breaking the contract later down the road.

The Touch Pro2 feels great in the hand. It’s rounded edges and smooth sides fit well in my hand (which is neither large nor small). Talking is clear and crisp through the handset. Similarly, there are no audio issues when talking over BlueTooth. It paired easily with my in-car system and had no connection issues.

When you’re texting, you have two options at your disposal. There’s the on-screen keyboard that’s okay, but I much prefered the slide out keyboard. One feature that isn’t immediately noticeable, is that when you slide the phone’s keyboard out, you can tilt the LCD screen up. It gives a pretty good viewing angle for texting.

The slider keyboard is soft to the touch, and the extra size gives you a full 5 rows of buttons. That means you have a dedicated row for numbers, the standard qwerty layout and a row beneath for the spacebar, function, symbol, mail and favorite buttons. The keyboard is actually one of my favorite aspects of the unit. It was a little wide for me, coming from the Palm Pre, which slides vertically. Once I got used to it though, I actually prefered the extra space and added buttons. The mail and favorite button come in handy for easy quick launching of the most used applications.

While the keyboard is great, browsing the web leaves a lot to be desired on the Touch Pro2. It uses the Opera Web Browser which is in a firm 4th place behind the WebOS, Mobile Safari and the Android browser. It’s better than the non-touchscreen BlackBerry browsers, but not by much. When zooming in with the browser, the text didn’t wrap properly on all websites, which meant you had to zoom in and then scroll horizontally on the screen.

The 3.2MP camera actually snaps nice pictures and sports an LED flash that’s missing on some competing phones. It also takes some decent video.

With the Touch Pro2, HTC puts its impressive TouchFLO shell on top of the Windows Mobile interface. The effort does a lot to polish the otherwise rough edges found in Windows Mobile 6.1. Even with that polishing, in my use, Windows Mobile just doesn’t provide as seamless of a user experience as its competitors. If you’re the kind of person that would put the iPhone on top of the world of Smartphones, with Android, WebOS, and BlackBerry following, then you’re probably not going to be swayed by a device like the Touch Pro2.

In terms of Windows Mobile phones alone, HTC puts together a fantastic unit. But looking realistically at the offerings of other available phones, it just doesn’t make sense to drop $200 after rebate on it unless you have to have a Windows Mobile phone.

Overall, the HTC Touch Pro2 is a good phone, but not great and is limited by its software and weighed down by its hardware.  It’s available right now for $199.99 after rebate from Verizon Wireless.

Have any questions or comments? Shoot me an email at matt(dot)schuler(at)woodtv(dot)com or send me a message on twitter, twitter.com/mattschuler .

Moray+ earphones, a "Swiss Army knife" for gamers on the go. (Courtesy: Razer)

Razer calls the Moray+ the “Swiss Army knife for mobile audio and voice communications.” I have to say, I agree and you don’t have to worry about it cutting you, as there aren’t actually any blades.

Razer actually sent me a pair of both the Moray and the Moray+ for testing. There are some differences between the two sets of earphones, the Moray+ sports an inline microphone and the Moray does not. The Moray+ includes adapters for portable gaming, while the Moray only includes a airplane adapter. For this review, I’ll be writing about the Moray+’s mainly, but in terms of the listening experience the earbuds are identical.

The “Swiss Army knife” aspect of the Moray+ comes into view because included in the packaging is an adapter for your mainline mobile devices, including the Nintendo DS and the Sony PSP. The standard 3.5mm headset jack plugs into the adapter and the adapter into your device. Both adapters are small enough to not feel cumbersome but large enough that you won’t lose them (unless you lose a lot of things). The Moray+ works without an adapter when plugging into a compatible device, like the iPhone or Palm Pre and other smartphones. When plugging in the earphones to a PC though, you’ll want to make sure you use the included splitter. Plugging in directly did not enable the microphone on the headset.

The Moray+ earphones and carry case. (Courtesy: Razer)

The Moray+ is an “intraaural” set of earphones. You can see in the pictures, they basically go inside your ear, unlike standard earbuds which are supposed to rest on the outside. Because I’m not a professional audiophile, I review sound products like the everyman through normal use. I didn’t measure the accuracy of the frequency response, sound pressure level, impedance or max rated imput, which Razer lists on their site as:

• Frequency response: 20 to 11000 Hz
• Sound pressure level: 110 dB
• Impedance: 17 ohms
• Max rated input: 20 mW

My main criteria are based on two primary factors: “Is the sound loud?” and “Is the sound clear?” I’m happy to report the answer to both questions is yes.

For my testing, I used it on my personal phone (the Palm Pre) and for gaming on my PC. On the Pre, I used it for calls, videos and music. I prefer them in every aspect immensely more than the included headphones that came with the phone, which is to be expected. Everything just sounded better.

Watching a movie (Serenity for the curious) and listening to music were immersive. This is in part to the “passive noise isolation” employed by the headphones. Essentially, they’re little rubber stoppers that prevent other noise from getting to you. The effectiveness was exhibited when I didn’t respond to someone yelling at me in the same room. There are three different sizes included with the Moray+ so that if your ears are larger or smaller you can find an appropriate thickness. I found the medium size most comfortable for me.

Plug in to the device you own. (Courtesy: Razer)

When gaming on the PC, the results were equally impressive. Even though the Moray+ is an earphone, I still felt in competed with larger headsets. It won’t replace them, but if you’re a laptop gamer it might be nicer to have a set of earphones instead of a gaming headset.

I never had any complaints for the microphone. It seemed to work without issue while talking on the phone and while in game for team communication.

Overall, I have to say the Moray+ is a solid set of earphones that would be a great compliment to any gamers lineup. They run $59.99 at the official Razer Store. You can find the Moray for much cheaper online, but again, they lack the adapters and don’t have an inline microphone. Both sets are available in white and blue and come with carrying pouch. There are special PAX-colored editions available for the Moray+.

Have any questions or comments? Shoot me an email at matt(dot)schuler(at)woodtv(dot)com or send me a message on twitter, twitter.com/mattschuler .

The BlackBerry Tour 9630 (Courtesy: Verizon Wireless)

If you’re a Verizon user and were in the market for a new smartphone, there’s a good chance you had your eye on the BlackBerry Tour 9630.  Verizon sent a review unit over and gave me unlimited use with it.  The Tour fits the BlackBerry mold quite well, pairing with the other devices in RIM’s portfolio nicely.  There are some features missing, but for those not looking for a device with everything, the Tour could be a good fit.

When comparing a BlackBerry to all of the other BlackBerry’s, it’s important to note that for the most part, they’re in the same ballpark sizewise.  The Tour measures 4.4″ x 2.4″ by 0.6″ and weighs 4.58 ounces.  Compared to the Bold (the BlackBerry with the best keyboard experience in my opinion) it’s a touch smaller and lighter (The Bold measures 4.48″ x 2.6″  x 0.59″, 4.8 ounces).  For those looking to go even smaller there’s Curve (4.29″ x 2.36″ x 0.53″, 3.87 ounces) and the Pearl (4.2″ x 1.97″ x 0.55″, 3.4 ounces).

The Tour was not uncomfortably large or small, it fit in my pocket without being uncomfortable.  More importantly, it fits in my hand (which is pretty medium).  I didn’t have any problem with the keyboard, which is in my estimation the most important aspect of a smartphone and something each person has to try out for themselves.  It’s important that your thumbs can press the keys and that you can type on the device you own.The Tour was not uncomfortably large or small, it fit in my pocket without being uncomfortable.  More importantly, it fits in my hand (which is pretty medium).  I didn’t have any problem with the keyboard, which is in my estimation the most important aspect of a smartphone and something each person has to try out for themselves.  It’s important that your thumbs can press the keys and that you can type on the device you own.

I own a Palm Pre, which suits me well, but as I’ve said in other reviews for woodtv.com, BlackBerry makes the best QWERTY keyboards.  Like other BlackBerrys, the keys on the Tour have a hard plastic touch to them. Compared to the rubbery feel of the Palm Pre, the hard plastic makes typing easier.  One part where the BlackBerry could take a hint from the Pre keyboard is with the dedicated “.” and “@” buttons the Pre has.  You’ll have to hit the alternate button to type in a “@” on the BlackBerry, which for most people isn’t that difficult, but if you are a heavy Twitter user and you’re constantly having @ conversations, it’s a nice feature to have.  The lack of a dedicated period key is made up for in the software.  While typing on a BlackBerry if you double tap the spacebar, it will automatically insert a period.  It’s nice for typing sentences on a text message or in an email, but for typing out websites it’d be nice to have a dedicated “.” key. Even without those two keys, the Tour keyboard is phenomenal. It proves, yet again, that BlackBerry makes the best cell phone keyboards.

That keyboard makes for a fantastic experience for email and text messaging. Really, that’s the strong suit for any BlackBerry device. Syncing email addresses, even ones with Exchange encryption needs, is no problem.  On the Pre,  there were a certain number of hoops I had to jump through to set up the security protocols for my work email, but on the Tour, and any other BlackBerry for that matter, there are no hoops.  Punch in the address and the password and the software takes care of everything.

I had no problems with audio quality on voice calls.  I’m in a pretty good coverage area for Verizon and pretty much exclusively was on the 3G network.  You’re always going to want to check it out for yourself though.  I’m covered at work, home and most everywhere I would want to go on my personal cell phone and it’s important when buying one that you do the same.  Definitely use that grace period providers give to go to the places you think you’ll use the phone.  Otherwise, when you get up to your favorite vacation spot for the summer, you’ll be disconnected (which some people say would be the point of a vacation).

RIM has consistently delivered quality cameras on the BlackBerry line.  The Tour is no exception.  It sports a 3.2MP sensor with a flash.  While 3.2 is becoming more common for cell phones, there are still plenty that sport a smaller, 2.0MP sensor and lack a proper flash.  The Tour’s camera has an auto focus, image stabilization, 2x digital zoom (which I would advise against using, because its not optical) and geo-tagging functionality.  The Tour is also capable of video recording, which is a nice added feature.

You’re not going to run out of storage space on the Tour, unless you take copious amounts of pictures, have an immensely large music collection that you have to take on your cell phone, or if you have a lot of compatible video.  This is because the Tour sports an upgradeable MicroSD slot.  The Tour ships with a 2GB card included, which is decent enough, but it can be upgraded (neither Verizon or BlackBerry’s websites list a maximum size, but I’d imagine it to be 8 or 16GB).

Storage may not be an issue for most, but it must be said, the Tour is not an iPod.  Its media player, like most BlackBerry offerings, is decent but not groundbreaking.  The media sync manager is a great way to integrate your device with your iTunes library and you shouldn’t have to worry about access getting cut off by an iTunes update because RIM programmed things above board, versus the Pre which gets access in iTunes currently by pretending it’s an iPod.  The Tour has a 3.5mm headphone jack, which while becomming more common is still a big plus.

The Tour is not a touchscreen device, navigation is accomplished through the trackball.  While the trackball is certainly capable, I’d like to see the screen respond to touch.  Multitouch gestures make navigation more user-friendly.  Still, if you’re used to it, the trackball is good enough, and for BlackBerry users, it’s probably even preferred.  While not being a touchscreen, the LCD is packed with pixels. It measures 2.4″ and has a 480×360 resolution.

The Lithium Ion battery powering the Tour is clocked at 1400 mAh and claims 5 hours of talk time and 14 days of standby time.  While testing out the phone, I didn’t run into battery life problems and the phone made it through the day without a hitch.

One big issue I had with the Tour was its lack of WiFi.  Now, if you’re not concerned about connecting to your home or office network, this won’t be an issue for me.  Personally, I’d much rather use a WiFi connection for data than a 3G network.  But I would say that it would only be a deal-breaker if the coverage in your area isn’t up to par.

The lack of WiFi isn’t a huge deal though, because the browser is awful.  Consistently, the BlackBerry browser under performs.  It loads pages with some quickness and there aren’t hanging problems or loading issues.  That being said, in a world where there is the Safari Mobile and WebOS browsers available for other devices, the BlackBerry Browser comes up painfully short.  But the Tour isn’t alone in that sense, if the gold standard is on the iPhone and Pre, then no one else even competes.  Essentially, this is because Mobile Safari and the WebOS browser take advantage of WebKit. Without getting too technical, WebKit allows both browsers to do things that other cell phone browsers cannot.  It renders pages faster, and is really what’s behind the advertising shtick of “the real internet” that Apple used.  The lack of a touchscreen also hurts the browser.  In testing the Tour, I found myself wanting to flick to scroll on the page, but had to use the trackball, which was not intuitive.  The browser itself, I don’t have too many issues with, but it’s just not as broad of an experience that is offered by the competition.

When it comes to apps, RIM has the App World. Its growing catalog of apps range in prices from free to expensive. It joins the ranks of the Android Marketplace and Palm Pre App Catalog but none of those approach the breadth of the Apple App Store.  The important thing to me though, is that the companies are trying.  Apps are getting from developers to users.  There may not be as many apps as are available in other marketplaces, but its at least functional.  There’s a Facebook app and a Twitter app, for those who have to stay constantly connected to their social networks.  There are games that are available for the people who have to be entertained while on a work break.  Apps are available, and there are getting to be more of them.  That’s a good thing.

As I said at the outset, the Tour isn’t the most fully-featured phone that RIM has ever released. It still has shortcomings because of the browser, but there are bright spots to point to.  The App World gets bigger with every successive BlackBerry I test.  The Tour ends up being a great smartphone, but that’s where the line is drawn.  You’re good to get your email, text and picture/video messages, and make phone calls. But It’s not going to challenge the iPhone or the Pre in terms of entertainment.

The BlackBerry Tour is available right now for $149.99 with a 2-year contract from Verizon.  It’s also included in the buy one, get one free promotion they’ve been running recently, if that suits you.

Have any questions or comments? Shoot me an email at matt(dot)schuler(at)woodtv(dot)com or send me a message on twitter, twitter.com/mattschuler.

This is what sound is supposed to sound like

When you ask a company to review a pair of $130 dollar headphones, you’re expecting a lot.   The Logitech G35’s carry a price tag that my cause some people to shudder at first glance.

Would you really think about doling out more than $100 on some headgear? (It’s actually less than that right now, because of a sale at Amazon.com)  Logitech is definitely pricing the G35 headset in to the premium product segment when it comes to gaming peripherals.  But when you survey the landscape you’ll find the G35 headset is actually quite a bit cheaper than its 7.1 competition from Razer (The Megalodon headset logs in at $150).  It’s also one of the cheapest 7.1 options available when compared to speaker setups.

I’m absolutely enamored with the G35, the features and functionality are so complete I want a pair to keep forever.

It's rather large, but don't be intimidated

When I first unboxed the G35, I was impressed.  The headset is large, no, it’s mammoth.  The cans cover your ears completely and make sure that you’re not going to hear much of anything besides what’s coming through the headset.  Even when there’s nothing coming out, it’s hard to hear if someone is yelling to you from another room (a fact that I can attest to because the person who was yelling for me ended up coming into the same room and tapping me on the shoulder).  I have to say, for a headset this is definitely a good thing.  If I put it on, I want to hear only what’s coming through them, and in that regard the G35 delivers.  One of the complaints I’ve read about online is that they’re not “loud enough.”  Here, I disagree.  There’s plenty of volume coming through the headset.  At max volume, there’s no complaint.

There is a difference between listening to music, and listening for a spy to come and stab you in the back while playing Team Fortress 2.  The G35 is capable of 7.1 surround sound because it’s powered by some fancy Dolby technology.  There’s a switch on the side of the headset which enables it, and the status tray icon changes to red to indicate that it’s on.  It’s truly fantastic to have a complete surround sound experience in a set of headphones.  It’s especially nice for me, because I didn’t have to worry about earth-shattering explosions or weapons-fire disturbing anyone.  In game, you hear everything.  Every. Thing.  From every direction, there’s nothing that goes unnoticed.  For gaming there’s absolutely no reason you shouldn’t be using these.

This is the best headset that I've ever put on.

On that note, while gaming, the headset has a number of quality features that add to their value.  If you turn the mic up, it will automatically mute itself.  On top of that, there are macro buttons on teh side of the headset, that allow you to assign a number of different options.  I chose simple things like launch iTunes, but the variation of options is pretty impressive.  On the side of the headset, there’s also a mute button for an easy mic kill.  Additionally, you have volume adjustment right on the headset. With the volume adjustment, it’s tied directly to the Windows volume sound, meaning if you have a volume control on the keyboard or elsewhere, they’ll all have the same affect.  I prefer to turn the knob on my Sidewinder keyboard to the volume control on the G35, but it’s good to know it’s there if I wanted it.

The gaming quality is fantastic, and I can say there’s no disappointment to be found in the music department either.  Logitech would say that the “40 mm laser-tuned speaker drivers with neodymium magnets” deliver crisp highs, lows, and everything in between.” I’d say… they’re right.  They’re one-hundred percent right.  From rap to rock, light tunes and more, the Logitech G35 makes music sound good.  You can enable the 7.1 surround sound and the G35 will do its best to make the music sound more “full.” But I found it sounded a little bit better to just listen to it in stereo mode.  Now, I don’t have anything that would actually be 7.1 music-wise, so maybe it would sound better if I did.

The options menu is pretty straightforward.

The options menu for the G35 headset is pretty  straight forward.  You can set volume,  bass, treble and microphone levels.  You can change the setting on the microphone light.  There are options for the three G buttons.  You can also set different profiles to make for quick switching.  Say you want different settings on the desktop than in a game, you can set that up.

Now, I’m not particularly impressed by the Voice Morphing feature, because there’s no reason I would ever use it and the prospect of going online and using it are non-existent.  But for those interested in making themselves sound like a robot, have at it.

There are three different pads included for the G35.  You can take out the top head pad and swap in the one most suited to your comfort.  To be honest, they didn’t feel that different, but they looked different when placed next to each other, so I have to imagine there are different amounts of padding in the headset.  The earpads are perfectly comfortable, I played for long periods of time and didn’t walk away with any discomfort.

The G35 is big, and it’s sturdy.  Logitech’s side says the headset has a “spring steel-core headband” that makes it “lightweight and flexible, yet incredibly durable.”  It’s an imposing headset.  I can actually see the steal core when I expand the headset to fit my head.  I wear a size 8 ball cap, but it still fits perfectly, so people with large noggin’s shouldn’t fear.

Now hear this: I just don’t want to unplug these.  I’ve got to send them back to Logitech, and the next thing I do after boxing them up might just be buying another pair online.  I’ve had them for almost a month now and they’ve been great the whole time. (Only reason I’ve had them so long is because I was hoping to do a hardcore 7.1 showdown between the Logitech G35 and the Razer Megalodon, but so far I’ve only gotten the G35. But I am in talks with Razer to ship out a Megalodon when they get a review unit.)

If you’re looking for the premium sound for your gaming rig, you should pick up a pair of Logitech G35 headphones.  Have any questions? Shoot me an email, or post in the comments below.  And as always, you can see my shorter and more frequent updates at twitter.com.

The HP Mini it can do a lot (service provided byVerizon Wireless). Will someone hit that popup bubble? It's ruining the picture.

In my home, I have a desktop computer, a laptop computer, a home theater PC.  Each is connected to the internet.  At work, it’s a similar situation, with the exception of the editing computers, every computer I sit at is connected.  On the road, I have my Palm Pre, which provides excellent mobile functionality, but there are some limitations to having just a cell phone while on the go.

Enter, the netbook.  I’m convinced there’s a place for the netbook in my repertoire, even though I’m surrounded by computing devices.  The HP Mini Verizon sent me is small, compact, light and has a bevy of connection options.  There’s something about the netbook that just fits.  Having to soon send it back, I’m going to be disappointed I won’t have that “always on” option available.  I recently switched high-speed internet providers, and in the interim downtime, the only connection I had (not including neighbor’s open WiFi) was through the Verizon mobile service.

A quick size comparison explains things pretty well

The HP Mini available from Verizon runs Windows XP (Home Edition), has an Intel Atom 1.6 Ghz processor, a 10.1″ screen, 80GB hard drive and 1GB of ram.  It also has a built-in webcam and microphone.  It’s pretty small too, measuring 10.3″ (H) x 6.56″ (W) x 0.99″ (D), so it’ll fit most anywhere you want to put it.  It’s also pretty lightweight, weighing 2.45 lbs.

The HP Mini netbook has a lot of inherent advantages in that it’s light, small and can connect anywhere.  To me, it seems to be the perfect travel companion, something I can toss in a backpack (once it’s inside its own padded case, of course) when going on a trip.  It just seems easier to carry the netbook around than the 17″ MacBook Pro.  The netbook is also just as easy to offload pictures to, and is great for reading emails, updating Facebook/Twitter, or doing the rounds on your websites.

In terms of pictures, you can slide the SD card from your digital camera right into the HP Mini, because it has a reader right on the side of it.  A fantastic feature, and one that even adds to the available storage space on the unit (if you have a spare SD card hanging around).

Playing Plants vs. Zombies, definitely possible to do on the HP Mini netbook.

So, it’s small, but is it cramped? I’d say no.  The HP Mini has an 82-key keyboard (92% full size), and while it did take some getting used to, it is suitable for being on the go, or sitting on the couch.  In a sense, when I already have a large laptop, it was actually quite handy to have a smaller machine on hand.  You’re not going to want to do any heavy lifting on the HP Mini though.

Its processor, while capable, is not going to be calculating the next largest prime number.  It is, however, fully-capable of playing some Plants vs. Zombies, if you can handle a little wait off the start for it to load.  Once you’re in the game though, there is no lag. While playing, it could handle switching applications to check email without a noticeable slowdown.  I don’t know how much more you’d want to push it than playing flash games or older titles.  It runs Windows XP, so you’ll be able to install pretty much anything on it you want (if you’ve got CDs/DVDs for the install though, you’ll need to bring a USB drive to the table).

I was also extremely pleased with video playback on the device.  I installed VLC (one of the best media players out there) and transferred over some clips from my HTPC.  There was nary a hiccup when watching episodes, and you don’t need the HD clips, because you’d be wasting pixels on the screen.

Verizon's connection manager (click to enlarge)

The connectivity options are pretty complete, the HP Mini sports 802.11 b/g wireless, but not n.  This doesn’t bother me either, because even though you would have extended range and faster speed with n, you don’t really need it.  Plus, not everyone has an 802.11 n router (myself included).   For the times when you’re on the go, the HP mini sports a mobile broadband capable modem.  Verizon’s Connection manager takes care of most of the work, allowing you to switch between connections with ease.  In addition to the wireless connections, you can even plug in a wired ethernet connection if you’re somewhere without wireless (do those places even exist anymore?) Now, these speeds are not going to wow you.  In fact, it’s meant for some pretty light browsing and therein, as the bard would tell us, lies the rub (I love the movie Inside Man).

Faster than your dial-up connection, but tortoise and the hare compared to a high-speed broadband connection.

The image to the right are the download speeds I received when going to Speakeasy.net and using the speed test there. The top numbers are from using the mobile broadband connection offered from Verizon.  The bottom numbers are from using the Wi-Fi connection and my home’s regular broadband service.  As you can see, the discrepancy is large.  The speed of the mobile broadband is serviceable, but really can not compete with home broadband service in any meaningful way (unless you have some painfully slow service).

Verizon’s mobile broadband service is fairly pricey on its own.  There’s a $40 and a $60 dollar version and the $40 one isn’t even a real option because it offers a paltry 250MB data limit per month (with $.10 for every MG after).  The $60 dollar option at least offers 5GB data limit, which you’re probably not going to hit in mobile use. (Data over wi-fi does not count towards your limit)  The month-to-month plan price is $569.99.  Comparatively, you can get some honest to goodness laptops for that price (have you seen the Microsoft Laptop Hunters ads?), but Verizon does its best to subsidize this beast fairly well.  With a 1-year contract, they’ll knock it down to $299.99 and with 2-years of service, you’ll pay only $199.99.

This is where consumers have to make the choice.  There are absoultely TONS of netbooks out there.  Are you better off buying one at full price (if you can find a deal) and using it as a wi-fi only deal without the mobile broadband? Perhaps.  This is really where I think consumers could use some competition in the mobile realm.  Prices are still a little high for mobile broadband rates.  Verizon is not alone.  At AT&T you’ve got a similar $60/$40 deal, but their overage rates are a bit more steep. Sprint offers similarly exhorbitant rates for their mobile broadband.

Price is really the only limitation I see though, because as a device, the HP Mini was great.  It plays games, it watches movies (that you’ve downloaded). If you can work out a discount with your carrier, getting reduced rates for having both mobile phone and mobile broadband, it may well be worth jumping in.  That jump is certainly a way that you can ensure you’ll always stay connected, and for some no cost is too much.

What do you think, could you see yourself switching to a netbook?  Leave a note in the comments or shoot me a message on twitter.

It's a world of adventure, where you get deal damage with the words that you spell.

I have a kind of love/hate relationship with the game company Popcap.  I say this because I absolutely love the games they make, but I hate the amount of time that said games steal from my life.  The most recent offering from Popcap, Bookworm Adventures 2 continues this trend.  Plants vs. Zombies set a very high bar for “casual” games. So can a bookworm hope to leap it? In some ways yes.

When I was first explaining the concept of Bookworm Adventures Volume 2 to a coworker, they got a little confused.  Like any adversarial game, there are adversaries to conquer, in Bookworm you do damage with words.  My coworker thought that meant you were supposed to use hurtful words to vanquish the enemy.  While that may be an excellent idea, it’s not exactly on target.  In Bookworm, you deal damage in the same way you score points in Scrabble (sans the double and triple word scores).  Just like in Scrabble, you have a tile set to spell your words from.  In Bookworm, you get 16 letters and the longer the word you spell, the more damage you will do.  For instance, a word like pretentiously, is going to do a lot of damage.  Some letters deal more damage than others, just like some letters score more points in Scrabble.

What's the best word you can spell using those tiles?

So, can spelling be fun? Absolutely.  Some of the fun is from the verbal taunting you take from the opponents you face.  Take Too Hot Porridge to the left there.  He’s like cold porridge, but hot.  When you’re playing in adventure mode, all of the villains have a theme. You’ll run through Cold Porridge, Too Hot Porridge, Baby Bear, Mama Bear and Papa bear in Chapter 5’s GoldieLex and 3 bears.

The opponents that you go up against get progressively harder.  They’ll have more hit points than you and they’ll don armor.  The attacks that they send your way will also get more brutal.  They can change your tiles, set them on fire, lock them down and all sorts of other attacks.  Maybe you thought you had the tiles to spell visualize, but if your v-tile gets changed to a qu-tile then you’re not going to be able to spell what you thought you were.

When you spell using gem letters you deal bonus damage. If you use 3 gems, you get a wild card gem.

While your enemies attacks and defenses get upgraded, yours can too.  For instance, when you spell longer words you get rewarded with tile gem upgrades.  Those gem upgrades may just be a damage increase, but some gems deal lasting damage or even knock out your opponent for a turn.  Additionally, if you spell a word using three different colored gems, then you’ll be rewarded with a special wild card.  It’s essentially the equivalent of your empty tile in Scrabble, giving you the ability to use it as any letter to complete the word you want to spell.  In the example on the right, I used it as the S in “whereabouts.”  In Bookworm you can only have one wild card gem at a time, so there’s no hoarding of them to make a 16-letter killer like semiprofessional.

Now, when you’re playing the adventure mode, it might be tough to not use a solver to help you decimate the competition.  The fascination with using 10 and 12-letter words to obliterate your enemies.  But I urge you to take heart, and resist the temptation.  Oh who am I kidding, go wild, spell words like tonsillectomy and vanquish your foes in a wild display of amazingness (Bookworm does not accept my spelling of amazingness as a valid word).  Throughout the course of the game you’ll also get powerups, in the form of healing potions, damage increases, and purification potions.  The purification potions come in handy because they take care of all of the things your enemy may throw at you.  For instance, if you have a tile that’s being warped every turn, or if it’s locked down and you can’t use it, the purification potion will take care of that.  Health Potions are pretty straight forward, if you’re low on health and don’t want to die, use one.  You can also add some power to your attacks with the damage increase power up.

Destroyed! He didn't see the word coming that killed him.

Now, if a word that you spell is particularly damaging, you can kill your opponent in one-shot.  Later in the game, your words have to become even more deadly than you’d have ever imagined at the start.  Words like Squash will not send your foes packing when they’re armored to the teeth, that’s when you’ve got to break out hyperkinesis (provided you’ve got the proper tiles).

Maybe this wasn’t intended by the developers, but one of my favorite parts of the game, once I gave in to the dark side of using a solver, was to see how large the word I could spell was. Sadly, I never was able to use all 16 tiles, I guess I’ll have to call myself a word apprentice, instead of a wordsmith.

There’s a lot to be done in Bookworm Adventures, outside of the adventure mode.  Once you complete it, you’ll gain access to Arena Modes and Mini-Games.  The Mini-Games consist of Mutant Words, Golden Coins, Word Up!, Link-N-Spell, Letter Rip! and Word Master.

They make it harder to cheat during the minigames by blacking out your tiles.

You get your first taste of the Mini-Games during the campaign from the helpful Moxie. During Adventure Mode, the better you fare in the mini-game, the better your reward.  Outside of the Adventure, you’re just playing to best your previous high score.

In the Arena Mode, every boss that you’ve fought through the campaign comes back to roost in a way that’s much more intense. There are no turns, but rather each boss attacks after a cooldown.  You get bonuses for attacking first, but it’s an intense affair the entire time.

One of the important aspects of the games Popcap makes is the replayability.  I find myself consistently coming back to Plants vs. Zombies because it has that unique quality of destroying zombies with an army of plants.  Only part of that magic is found in Bookworm Adventures.  I thoroughly enjoy the adventure mode, and playing through it to get to see the next boss and the next level ate up time like playing Civilization.  But when the missions were over, and I was sitting on the menu screen, it wasn’t the same going into the arena or playing the minigames.  They’re still fun, and I will certainly play the campaign again, but what it really leaves me wanting is Volume 3.  But maybe that’s the point.  I really have nothing bad to say about the game… except that it ends.  It’s a fantastic adventure, one I certainly enjoyed playing.  You can pick it up directly from Popcap, and it’s also available on Steam and other places.  You can also pick up a demo of the game to get your linguistic feet wet.

(Oh, and yes, that headline is intentionally spelled untie, instead of unite, I thought it’d be funny.)

Any questions about the game or about the blog?  Leave a comment below or shoot me an email at matt(dot)schuler(at)woodtv(dot)com.  For shorter, quicker updates follow me on Twitter.

Quitter.

The boss battles are fearsome.

The level layouts are pretty nice.

I would not listen to that horse.

The easiest is to go here: My Posts (http://blogs.woodtv.com/author/mattschuler). You can also go to the entertainment section of the woodtv.com blogs (http://blogs.woodtv.com/category/entertainment/).  There you’ll find a chronological list of the postings, which you’ll notice Aaron Lafferty frequents more than I.  You can also find the five most recent posts on the homepage, but my posts reside there for only a short time usually.

My most recent reviews were for the BlackBerry Curve 8900 and the Palm Pre (which actually came in one, two, three parts).

I also do peripheral reviews for gaming companies, I really liked the Razer Sphex (a very economical gaming-grade mousing surface that has an adhesive on the bottom of it to stick to your desk), and I found the Logitech G19 gaming keyboard stunning, if impractical. My favorite mouse right now is the Razer Mamba, though I use a Razer Lachesis myself.

I’ve built a PC for the blog and listed out components. I saw the future of the home phone.  My ears have been blasted by a nice set of cans, and I’m working on getting another pair of headphones for review.  I’ve also met an android, even though it was encapsulated within a phone (the T-Mobile G1).  I’ve also been caught in a storm (which would have been a better name for my BlackBerry Storm review in hindsight).  I also told people not to buy a Blu-Ray player, though I am wavering on that declaration (I still need cheaper movies).  I’m in love with DVR’s.

When it comes to games, I’ve been Left 4 Dead, Soiled My Plants and gotten stuck in a World of Goo.  I’ve done battle with Demigod, seen the Fallout and witnessed the Dawn of War, but never delivered the multiplayer review on it (which could change seeing as they just released a rather massive patch for the game adding much depth).

You can also follow me on Twitter, where I post immensely more than I do here (probably because it’s limited to 140 characters).

I’m working on a review right now for Bookworm Adventures Volume 2 (a great game for wordsmiths or their apprentices), and just today opened up a HP Mini (a netbook provided for review by Verizon).  I also recently was able to sign up for a Google Voice account and will be posting my thoughts (so far I love it).

As for my original introduction post, you can find it here. I hope this was helpful.

Overall, I’m still impressed by what BlackBerry does with its phones.  The Curve is another great example of a process that BlackBerry has refined.  If you want a great QWERTY keyboard, the place you’re going to find it is on the blackberry.

So let’s get to the review.

The BlackBerry Curve 8900 (image courtesy BlackBerry)

The Curve measures 4.29″ x 2.36″ x 0.53″ and weighs 3.87 ounces.  Compared with the Bold (4.48″ x 2.6″  x 0.59″, 4.8 ounces), it’s smaller in every way. But its certainly larger than the Pearl (4.2″ x 1.97″ x 0.55″, 3.4 oz).  To me, the Curve was a great fit.  I liked the way it felt in my hands.  The keys are hard plastic and have a good amount of punch to them.  I’d rank the keyboard right behind the Bold, which is still my favorite keyboard and slightly ahead of the Pre, the device I own.

On a device like this, text input is the most important part.  I can report that the Curve delivers.  I actually referred a co-worker to pick one up who was looking for a new phone (he declined, instead going with a normal, non-QWERTY phone, the jump to a full keyboard and trackball was too much for him).  I think this is a great phone to make the jump to though, if you’ve never had one before.  Its keys are pretty spacious, there’s definitely more room on the Curve than there is on my Pre.  It’s a fantastic setup, though now that I have dedicated @ and . keys on my Pre, I kind of wish that they were on the BlackBerry keyboards as well.

Texting and emailing is helped by the massive dictionary of words on the Curve.  It basically knows what I was trying to type, and will make sure to alert me (complete with red squiggly lines underneath).  This is something that’s just not there on the Pre, and a clear advantage for BlackBerry.  It was disappointing to return to my own device and not have the great dictionary on the Curve.

Now if  there’s one place I’d want the Curve to improve, it’s the browser. In a world of (now) two top-tier mobile browsing experiences (Mobile Safari and WebOS), BlackBerry needs to improve the experience.  Now don’t get me wrong, it’s more capable than some, and uses the scroll whell effectively, but the bar is so high now with the multitouch interfaces that it’s tough to compete.  The Curve does command the powers of WiFi though, so when you are browsing on a home or work network, it’ll be blazing fast compared to the cell speeds.

That being said, email is one thing that BlackBerry does better than anyone else.

The camera on the curve is superb.  It’s a 3.2MP with a flash.  This is nearly becoming the standard out there for cell phones, but there are some that still come equipped without a flash (iPhone 3GS!) or with a paltry 2.0MP sensor (many others).  It’s also capable of video recording (another one-up over my Pre), and the camera has auto focus and image stabilization.   All of those features would be useless without MMS, but thankfully the Curve is MMS-capable.

Battery life was pretty impressive.  It’s rated as 5.5 hours of talk time and 356(!) hours of standby time.  The battery is rated 1400 mAHr.  It’s also removable, which means if you’re carrying a backup battery you won’t have to worry about it.

One thing that I’ve come to really like about BlackBerry devices is their incredible load times.  “Another high point for the Bold is its incredible boot times.  I noticed this while reviewing the Storm.  Both phones go from off to on faster than any other I’ve used.” I wrote that a couple months ago after reviewing the Storm and Bold, and the trend continues.  From off to on, there’s no faster boot that I’ve had on a smartphone than a BlackBerry.  It was made even more noticeable when I had to wait almost a minute for the Pre to turn on one day.  There are no such wait times for the Curve.

Gaming on the Curve will not be like gaming on the iPhone.  There is no store that’s as big as the App Store, but that won’t stop you from downloading some cellphone classics.  Games like Tetris aren’t meant to be played on a touchscreen, they’re better with some tactile feedback.

As far as media options go, it’s capable, but not wonderful. The Curve has a microSD slot, which means you can toss in a cheap card and have as much memory as you want.

AT&T offers the Curve 8900 for $399.99 but with a 2-year contract the price drops to $149.99.  As far as BlackBerry’s go, I like it a lot.  It’s a good phone with a great keyboard.  If you’re looking to text and email a lot on the go, then this could be the phone for you.  Make sure to check features and contract prices though, if you’re going with AT&T, I’ve heard and seen a lot of good things about the iPhone 3GS.

Have questions about something? Post a comment or email me at matt(dot)schuler(at)woodtv(dot)com. And for more, shorter updates, check out my Twitter by clicking on twitter.com/mattschuler.

The Palm Pre, yes it can get smudge-tastic. (click to enlarge)

“This is a day I’ve been looking forward to for two and a half years,” said Steve Jobs back in 2007 when the original iPhone. “Today we’re introducing three revolutionary products… a widescreen iPod with touch controls… a revolutionary mobile phone… and a breakthrough internet communications device… and we’re calling it the iPhone.”

Ever since, the rest of the mobile phone industry has been playing catchup.

The Palm Pre is not the iPhone. It’s not the iPhone 3G. It’s not the iPhone 3GS. The Palm Pre wasn’t made in Cupertino. It doesn’t shoot magical fairy dust that heals the sick.

I’m glad we got that out of the way, because while the Pre may not do any of those things, it’s still the best phone I’ve ever reviewed. (Note: I have never been given an opportunity to review any iPhone model).

For Better and worse, the Pre does a lot of things fantasically, but there is some improvement to be had. Sprint and Palm are married to the Pre’s success. Both have a lot riding on the Pre’s success. I would say that things look a bit more rosy for Palm, because WebOS (a Palm property) has tremendous potential, while the exclusivity window for Sprint and the Pre is closing (it’s rumored to only last until January).

The Pre is not without its flaws and but it excels in almost every aspect and where its faults are glaring there is hope on the horizon. This review is coming from me as actual consumer. I’ve owned the Pre since launch day, more than three weeks now. I wasn’t given any special access or service. I’ve experienced exactly what you would if you were to go pick one up right now. I think after reading this review, you might be more inclined to do just that.

To get some of the basics out of the way, the Palm Pre is a slider phone with a touchscreen. Its screen measures 3.1″ (smaller than the iPhones 3.5″) but sports the identical pixel count of 320×480 (which means it has a greater pixel density). Some people have attributed that density to a sharper image, which is fine because the screen looks great but I’d rather have the extra real estate (okay, yes, I just asked for an extra 0.4″ of screen size and I’m good with that). Where the iPhone’s home button would sit, there’s a nub on the Pre which accomplishes a similar function with some added features that I’ll get to in a moment. The only thing on the left hand side of the phone are volume buttoms. On top, there’s a 3.5mm headphone jack (woo!) and ringer switch (which I guess is standard on Palm phones) and a hold/power button on the top-right corner. On the right side is the cover for the micro USB cable.

It's thick, but not too thick. The Instinct is on the bottom, a Blackberry Curve 8900 in the middle and the Pre on the top, it likes to be on top. (click to enlarge)

The Pre has what no current iPhone on the market has. Slide the screen up and you’ll find a hardware QWERTY keyboard, with dedicated @ and . buttons. Now, some people have lamented the omission of double-space entering a period (on most other smartphones if you tap the spacebar twice it automatically inserts your period for you). But after getting used to the period being there, it didn’t bother me all that much. The @ key is a Twitter-lover’s Godsend. Even in normal email situations, the @ key is pretty great.

I wasn’t a fan of the touchscreen keyboard on my Sprint Instinct after a while. At first, it was okay, but I soon began to dread it. I’m fairly proficient however with the iPod Touch’s keyboard, but still was looking forward to seeing how much I’d like the setup on the Pre. The buttons are rubbery, not the hard-plastic found on Blackberry devices. The keyboard is not quite as wide as the Blackberry keyboards.

That being said, I’ve taken a liking to the keyboard. After three weeks, I’m quite proficient using it and am able to tap out messages with blazing speed. It’s not the best QWERTY keyboard I’ve ever used, I still like the Blackberry Bold keyboard a lot, but I’m not going to send it back by any means. It’s better than my old Instinct by a mile, and I prefer it to the virtual keyboard offering from Apple.

As for the construction of the unit, I have a couple of reservations with the Pre in my possession. As other reviewers have noted, the slider gear feels a bit loose. I’m not scared that the Pre is going to break (even if it did, I have insurance), but there is a bit of give to the system. This may have been an isolated problem though, as I read in the Ars Technica review that of the three Pre’s he’s gotten his hands on, only one was loose. Which led John Stokes to say “Clearly, Palm had some quality control issues with the first batch of phones, but I hope that these are behind them now.” As do I.

A side view (click to enlarge)

Then there’s the matter of the Palm Pre cutting cheese. No, not like that. I mean ACTUALLY cutting cheese. When I first got the Pre, I was a bit taken back by the edge on the bottom of the phone when the slider was open. Did I cut myself? No. Do I think I could have cut myself if I tried? Doubtful. Maybe I got a dull unit comparatively.

When the Pre is closed, it’s a smooth phone. The original design goal from Palm was to make it like a pebble you’d skip on a lake. In general, it’s a nice size, fitting nicely in my pocket without a case. I actually don’t know how you’d put a hard case on it with the slider mechanism, but I’m sure there are solutions out there. I don’t plan on using one myself though. The Palm Pre’s outer casing is a smooth black plastic and is smudgetastic. It picks up my fingerprints with frequency, but I’m kind of used to it because it was a similar situation with the iPod Touch.

Battery life on the Pre has been about what I’d expect out of the device. I’d love to have a larger battery than the 1150 mAh that ships with it. But, it’s replaceable, which means I can carry another battery around with me for when I know that I’m going to be using my phone a lot. I wish Palm would have included a backup battery and charger (which was one of my favorite parts about the Instinct), but alas these thing get cut when trying to chop the price down. Most days, the battery life gets me through everything I want to do, browsing, email, music and video included. I haven’t had a day where I’ve been mad with the Pre’s battery life, but I have run out of charge on a couple of occassions where I had12+ hour days. This was only with heavy use though, and since I’ve gotten all of the settings plugged in for Wi-Fi where I travel, the battery drain is lower. If Palm offers a higher capacity battery though, I’ll probably investigate to see if it’s for me.

Speaking of batteries, there’s a pretty cool charging solution for the Pre, called the Touchstone. The marvel of innovation (in the cellphone world) is actually pretty similar to how I’ve been charging my toothbrush for years. I love the Touchstone. One of my least favorite parts of a cellphone was having to take off the nub covering the charger. Now, I don’t have to do that anymore. I just throw my phone on the charger, literally. The Touchstone requires a different back for your Pre that has a soft finish, instead of the smooth plastic back and magnets inside so that it attaches in the right spot. The convenience of charging the Pre on the Touchstone comes with a fairly exorbitant pricetag though. For the kit with the dock and back cover, you’ll have to shell out $70 (purchased seperately, they’re the same price). I actually managed to find a deal on the dock though and picked it up for $30 last week at Amazon.com. (Currently, it’s $37.99 instead of the normal $50.)

A couple other things before we jump into the plethora of screenshots of the the wonderful WebOS. The Pre’s Bluetooth is pretty phenomenal. When playing a movie (Serenity, for the enquiring mind), it sounds fantastic coming through the 8 speakers on my Milan. I can also use the USB cable to charge the phone and output over the Bluetooth, so I don’t have to worry about killing the battery. I have run into a couple of connection problems though. The Pre says its connected to my SYNC, but the SYNC isn’t reciprocating. A quick disable/re-enable of the Bluetooth solves the issue, and it’s only sporadic, so it’s not infuriating. I would like to see a fix though, and they’ve already released a couple of fixes, so I’m sure there will be refining.

For what really makes the Pre standout check out part two.  This is a three-part review though, so if you’ve already read parts one and two, you can skip to part three which is more about making noise.

What really sets the Pre apart isn’t the construction of the phone, the QWERTY keyboard, the Touchstone or anything like that. It’s WebOS. A marvel of an operating system that allows for multitasking and provides the most computer-like experience I’ve ever seen on a phone.

It’s in the cards…

The Palm Pre's card system...

slide to the one you want...

or just throw them away.

Navigating through WebOS is done through cards. Apps are all launched into cards. When you launch the email app, it launches into a card. It’s the same thing with any other App, from the calendar, to messaging, Internet, contacts and more.

With the cards, Palm allows true multitasking that just isn’t found on the iPhone (or any other phone for that matter). You can have plenty of cards open at the same time, and system performance is still crisp. The multitasking is accomplished by either swiping up to zoom out from the currently selected card, or by hitting the home button. From there, you slide back and forth to the application you want. This even works while you’re talking on the phone, so if you need to check the weather, reference an email, shoot someone an text message or IM, or do any other thing on the phone you can. Most often, I find myself on the web when I get a text message or an email. On my old phone, that would have been disastrous. I’d have to quit the app, go check to see if it’s important and then come back. Now, I don’t have to worry about that because the Pre is limited to doing one thing at a time.

I can’t say enough about the card system, it’s fantastic.

Here are your menus…

The menu's familiar...

to former Apple users.

Find stuff fast...

Lost? Ask for help.

You’ve got to launch some apps, if you’re planning on using the cards. The menu system on the Pre will be familiar to anyone who’s ever seen an iPod Touch or iPhone menu. You’ve got your programs with big icon, tap to launch. It’s pretty simple.

One nice thing about the Pre’s menu is that it’s scrollable. I could have five rows on one page (perhaps more, I haven’t tried to push it) and that’s not including the home launch bar. For me, this just allows more cramming of my favorite apps onto one page.

To get from page to page, all you need to do is swipe. If you look at the screenshots, the | right above the bottom set of icons lets you know how many pages there are. If I have 3 pages of apps and I’m on the middle page, there will be one | on each side, as shown. There will be two ||’s on a side if I’m on the furthest page over.

You can move the icons around on the phone by holding on to it and then sliding it to where you want. This even applies to the dock icons, which I have replaced with my four most used. I chose email because it’s a must for me; contacts because I found it preferable to look at contacts than the phone that was there; internet because it’s my most launched app on the phone and messaging because I if I have a QWERTY keyboard, I’m going to want to use it.

When you hit the menu button, it only shows you the quick launch bar, which you can then punch the full menu, or just launch one of those.

The fastest way to actually launch an app that’s not on your main page is to actually to use the keyboard. WebOS is actually pretty impressive in that respect. If I hit “C” it will bring up every application that has a C in it’s name, but it also recognizes that “C” is also 8 on the dialer. Global search is a huge feature for the Pre, with it you can find almost anything that’s on your phone. Global Search also brings up an option for Google, Google Maps, Wikipedia and Twitter if there’s nothing on your phone that fits the search parameter. You can also just punch in a URL from the Global Search and it will launch the browser and go to it. It’s a fantastic feature for the phone.

If you run into problems, or are wondering about how to do something there’s a help menu. It actually comes with videos that give you the step by step process of how to do something on the phone.

Feel free to browse…

The browser's launch screen...

WebOS renders the "real" 'net.

The normal browser options.

Move over Mobile Safari. I have a new favorite web browser. The WebOS browser is amazing. Just like Mobile Safari, it delivers the real internet, not some mobile version that’s watered down and crappy. It also does so with some impressive rendering speed. It’s a multitouch interface just like on the iPhone. Pinch to zoom in, spread your fingers to zoom out. Double tap on a column of text and that column will fill the width of the screen. Want a wider view? Just rotate your phone, the switch is a snap, in fact I’d say it’s actually more snappy than the Mobile Safari browser I’ve used on my iPod Touch (I can’t say whether it’s faster than the iPhone 3GS, as I haven’t tested one).

The bookmark menu...

is easily movable.

And you can edit them!

The bookmarking system is pretty nice on the Pre too. Every bookmark has a title, URL and picture associated with it. This picture is actually a snapshot of the webpage that you can change yourself. So if you don’t like what you’re seeing as the preview, just change it. You can rearrange the bookmarks with simple dragging and dropping.

The order of bookmarks on the list is also the order they’ll appear in for the splash start page when you launch the browser. You can’t actually drag and drop from that original splash screen, so you’ll have to do it from the bookmark list to rearrange them.

The browser rotates with the accelerometer

in the card system.

The WebOS browser actually rotates while you’re in card mode if you rotate the phone, the accelerometer kicks in and rotates the browser.

WebOS lacks one key feature in the world of browsers (Mobile Safari lacks it as well), there’s no Flash support right now. This means, even though you’re browsing “the real Internet” some websites just won’t work or features will be disabled. It’s a work in progress, but it’s not out yet which is a bummer. Still, the browser is fantastic and I get way more use out of it than I ever thought I’d use on my cell phone.

You’ve got mail…

Setup multiple accounts and manage favorites

You can see sender, subject and a preview.

Email on the Pre is fantastic. It’s safe to say the WebOS email and browser are easily two of the greatest aspects of the phone. I’ve added both my personal Gmail account and the Microsoft Exchange Server work account that I have without a hitch. There’s actually push Gmail on the Pre, which means the second I get an email on the server, I will have it on my phone as well.

Setup was a breeze. I thought I was going to have some trouble trying to set up the security settings for the work email, but the process was really painless. Seeing as I have push email enabled, I’ve actually started setting up rules and filters for my Gmail account so that every message I get doesn’t sound the alarm on my phone. This used to be a problem on my old phone because I couldn’t see my labels but on the Pre, they’re all there. In fact, I can actually assign specific labels as favorites, which give them primary real estate in the favorites tab. You can setup favorites for each account you have connected. Each Inbox defaults to a favorite, but you can remove that and only assign the ones you one.

Attachments also show up in the emails, and thanks to the Document and PDF viewers, most everything is readable. I’ve opened Word documents, Excel Spreadsheets and PDFs all without a problem.

There are memos and there are tasks…

There are notes...

I should check those off.

There are more options.

The Palm Pre has a nice Task and Memo system as well. Memos are pretty straight forward. You tap to start a new one, and then you can just start typing. There are four different note colors, and they look like sticky notes when they’re sitting on the menu. It’s a nice little feature that I’ve actually used quite a bit to log my workout and eating regimens. Using the notes a lot also helped speed up my typing skills on the Pre.

The Task app is also pretty nice. It syncs with Exchange (for those that are interested). You can list off things to do, and when you’re done just check them off. Tasks can be grouped into categories (for instance, the screenshot above is for “Write Pre Review.” Each task can be expanded upon by changing its priority, assigning a due date and giving it some notes.

These are the people in your neighborhood…

Here's your list

Edit contacts

Plenty of information.

Select a picture.

The contact list is made to be easy for finding things in massive amounts of data. This would be particularly useful if you wanted to import all of your Facebook friends (which I didn’t) and Google contacts on top of your normal contacts. Palm calls it “Synergy.” I call it daring. If you’re importing the hundreds of contacts from your Facebook account, you’re going to need the features of the Palm Pre’s contact system.

Just like Global Search, all you have to do is start typing, and it narrows the search for your contact. Now before I pruned my Google contacts (which hadn’t been touched since I opened my Gmail back in 2005) it imported literally hundreds of contacts from every email I had ever sent. Now, that wasn’t going to be how I operated, thankfully you can just delete the account attached and try again. I pruned my contact list, updated info with phone numbers and email accounts and re-imported. When the Pre imports contacts, it actually merges the multiple lists you have in your phone into one account. It will recognize that Gene Schuler in my phone is the same Gene Schuler in my contact list, and make them one. For the people that have a picture in the Google contacts, it even imports that.

It’s a pretty sweet feature. Now, I didn’t want to prune my Facebook friends, so I didn’t import the list. There’s room for improvement there. I should be able to import a specific group from Facebook (now that Facebook has made grouping much easier), but there isn’t for now. It’s not terribly disappointing though, because if there’s a contact I wanted from Facebook, it’s probably already in my phone.

Get in touch with someone…

The dialer is normal

Calling my voicemail

Messaging is fantastic.

Notification needs help.

Once you import contacts, communication on the Pre is fantastic. The Pre combines instant messages, SMS and MMS messages into one dialog. This makes it fantastic for the Pre user, because I can send a message in GoogleTalk or AIM, then shoot over a text message and all of it ends up in the same spot.

The phone is pretty standard fare. (Do you find it as funny as I do that the “phone” part of the cell phone review is THIS FAR IN?) You will not find visual voicemail on the Pre, but it’s an omission that doesn’t really affect me all that much. I generally answer my phone, and thus there’s no real voicemail glut I have to worry about. While it’s a great feature when you have it, as I did on the Instinct, the fact that it’s missing hasn’t bothered me all that much.

The iPhone may have been a “revolutionary” Internet communications device when Steve Jobs originally announced it, but Palm has shown just how much ground can be made up in a short amount of time. With the hardware keyboard, the fluid messaging system and even the Twitter aspects I’ll get to in a moment, the Pre is a step above.

Make an appointment… then check the weather…

I have some openings.

Pick your calendar.

It was hot, now it's not

Pick your location.

I’ve never been good with remembering things. Really. I was told as a child that I would forget my head if it wasn’t attached to my body, and as an adult, I’m pretty sure I agree with the statement. The Pre’s calendar kind of helps me with that. In the same way that the contact list can take in information from many different sources, the calendar does the same thing. Right now, I have 4 different calendar’s synced with the Pre (My Google calendar, the Google calendar with shared events for the family, my WoodTV exchange calendar and the Palm Profile Calendar). Each has a different color on the Pre. In the screen shots, you can see the differentiation and how it shows up on the weekly view. You can set a start time and end time for your day (it defaults to 9-5).

Because the Pre syncs with Google, you can get reminders on your phone, or reminders sent to you via email (which in turn would alert you on your phone. Is the Pre’s calendar going to change the world? Probably not, but it certainly helps make my days a bit more organized. I don’t have a screen shot of this, but it actually scrunches your day view if you have an open time period between events. This is done so that you can see everything and then in between events it says how much time you have free.

There are several ways to get there…

A fantastic Navigator

I blocked the street locations.

Plenty to do along your route.

Because the Pre is required to come on a variation of a nice data plan for Sprint, that also means it comes with the fantastic Sprint Navigation. I loved it on the Samsung Instinct, and it’s much improved on the Pre. It actually pops up a psuedo 3-d map when you’re traveling to your destination.

I must admit though, at first I couldn’t figure out how to find the Trip & Traffic Summary. After having found it, by merely tapping the screen, I now feel like an idiot. I was trying to hit the menu button and all sorts of other things, but a simple tap brings up the options. Trip & Traffic Summary is there, as well as the search along route function which is especially useful for finding restaurants, hotels, (redacted), and other things. The GPS gets you to where you need to go. In my testing so far, the GPS ha’s only lost my signal once but was re-acquired almost instantly.

If your partial to Google Maps… well, there’s an app for that on the Pre too.

There's also Google Maps

Complete with Satellite view.

And plenty of options!

The Pre’s version of Google Maps comes with everything you’d expect. A GPS dot signals your location. You can get directions, check satellite view, show traffic and the other usual things associated with Google Maps. In that regard it’s just another great option, though my use of it is rare because I prefer the Sprint Navigation app.

Take a picture while you’re there.

The Pre's 3.2MP camera in sun. (click to enlarge)

The Pre's 3.2MP camera in shade.(click to enlarge)

On the Pre, your pictures are seperated into categories.

From there, you can assign it to contacts, or set a wallpaper.

When you buy a digital camera at a store, I’ll throw down a guarantee that it has a flash. So why do so many cell phones today not have flashes for their cameras? My old Instinct lacked a flash. Even though new iPhone 3GS lacks a flash. Why? Is it so hard, costly or big to include a tiny LED to light up my world? A flash should be standard. Luckily, the Pre’s camera has a flash. It also has a 3.2MP sensor which is pretty fantastic to look at.

Above, there are a pair of pictures of the flowers outside my townhouse. Both are taken on the Pre, one in direct sunlight, the other in the shade. As a beginner photographer at best, the Pre takes fine pictures to me. Of the pictures I’ve seen linked on Twitter, users seem to be pretty happy with the quality they’re getting out of their cell phone. I know the pictures I’ve taken have been good enough. The Pre is not going to replace my Canon camera, but it’s certainly good enough to snap a picture and send it back for woodtv.com.

Managing your photos is quite easy on the Pre too. It breaks up the pictures into a couple of different sections automatically. All images, Photo roll (pictures you’ve taken), Messaging (pictures received in MMS or email), screencaptures (screenshots I’ve taken while using the phone), and Wallpapers are the default options. Each is simply a directory on the phone when you plug it into a PC. It makes for easy management of the content on the phone.

As for browsing pictures, it’s pretty quick to pop up a list of thumbnails. You select one and it displays full screen, rotate the phone and it rotates with you. The multitouch works here too, allowing you to zoom in or out and switch between pictures with a flick of the finger.

Let the world know what you are doing…

Tweed is one of the two available Twitter apps.

It's pretty functional, with many options.

Twitter is all the rage these days. It’s become essential for the newsroom and I’ve found it’s actually a pretty easy way to pickup on news. I’ve found following my favorite websites and writers is actually easier than going to the actual site. Because I’m so fond of Twitter, I’ve got to have an app on my phone. Enter Tweed and Spaz. (I’ll get to the lack of applications a bit later). Tweed has a higher rating and more downloads, so I tried it out first and wasn’t disappointed. It gives me everything I want. Twitter is searchable. I can sort by Trending Topics, Favorite, Direct Messages, Mentions, my Tweets and bookmarks. Sending out a tweet is easy and I can even let it access my GPS and attach a location in a TinyURL for my coords on Google Maps. I haven’t used many mobile Twitter applications, but I find Tweed does everything I want it to do. It may not be TweetDeck (my new favorite desktop app that just spawned an iPhone app) but it’s definitely reliable for the Pre.

Also, because I don’t have to shut it down (but even when I do) it notifies me when I have new direct messages, mentions or tweets. Tweed is another fantastic way that the Pre connects me with the rest of the Web.

Entertain Me…

The Palm Pre has a lot more to share… and so do I, read on in part 3.  Or you can go back, to part 1.