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Hands-On: Palm Pre 2

Palm Pre 2 Pre 2 Video Tour Comments  11  

Oct 28, 2010, 6:29 PM   by Eric M. Zeman

Palm let Phone Scoop spend a few moments with its forthcoming smartphone, the Pre 2. The new hardware makes modest improvements, but it's webOS 2.0 that really impresses.

The Palm Pre 2 is almost indistinguishable from its predecessor, the Palm Pre. The overall form factor is the same. It's a vertical slider with a touch screen. The most obvious changes to the Pre 2's appearance are the new bevel around the front glass surface, which, by the way, is now Gorilla Glass.

The overall fit and feel of the Pre 2 is solid. It is still skinned in black plastics, and its small, puckish size make it easy and comfortable to hold.

Palm has done away with the button that was on the original Pre, and the Pre 2 is similar to the Pre Plus, which has a gesture area below the display for additional touch actions.

The display looks identical to the original, and the volume toggle, power/lock key, and silencing switch are all identical.

Palm Pre 2  

The biggest and most welcome improvement to the hardware is the keyboard. Palm, changed the shape of the keys, and gave them much better travel and feedback. It still feels a bit cramped, but typing is much more satisfying on the revised hardware.

As disappointed as I am with the overall same-ness when comparing the Pre to the new Pre 2, the real changes were made under the hood.

The Pre 2 has a 1GHz processor, and the webOS 2.0 platform absolutely FLIES now. There is absolutely no delay when performance UI actions, such as multitasking, sorting through cards, and swiping around the menus. The speed improvements are real, and definitely appreciated.

Other webOS 2.0 updates are harder to define. The most obvious is the new Stacks feature. Stacks allows users to group cards based on activity or subject matter, and sort through tasks faster. It lets users tie-together actions and my first impression is that once users get over the learning curve, they'll come to rely on Stacks for multitasking.

The other big change up is the new search feature. Now, users have a lot more control over what and how webOS performs searches, and it appears to be fairly powerful.

The Pre 2 is going to be available soon from SFR in France. The model on hand was a prototype, and Palm asked that we note it is not a final, production model.

About the author, Eric M. Zeman:

Eric has been covering the mobile telecommunications industry for 17 years at various print and online publications. He studied at Rutgers Newark and University of Kentucky, and has a degree in writing. He likes playing guitar, attending concerts, listening to music, and driving sports cars.

Comments

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This forum is closed.

joaoeduardo

Oct 29, 2010, 11:17 AM

i don't see that much improvement

that screen is so small its hard too see. they should make bigger screen phones.
Dude, it's not all about the screen size. they do make bigger screen phones. Droid X ring a bell? this is just an improvement over the Palm Pre and Pre Plus. It is a vast improvement.
...
Milosh

Oct 31, 2010, 12:22 PM

Impressive

Now, while they definately improved the software and the processing speed, I would still think a better keyboard form would benefit the phone. When you text on it, it feels almost as if the phone will fall forward out of your hands. That being said, it is greatly improved over the previous Pre iterations. HP needs to just make improvements faster if they want to reclaim their throne in the phone market.
iDont Care

Oct 30, 2010, 12:37 AM

Sad

It's like HP wants it to fail. I mean $hit they could have at least put a front facing camera on the thing. Geez
iDont Care said:
It's like HP wants it to fail. I mean $hit they could have at least put a front facing camera on the thing. Geez


This phone really does escape you, doesn't it?
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reidme

Oct 29, 2010, 7:41 PM

Did Verizon cripple the GPS on your Pre 2?

I noticed that the Pre 2 you reviewed was on Verizon. One of the issues with the Verizon Pre Plus was that they crippled the GPS so that GPS-A only worked with their navigator app (which requires a paid subscription). That meant that other apps, like Google Maps, couldn't get an accurate lock on your position. Could you tell if the Pre 2 you tested had the same issue?
muchdrama

Oct 29, 2010, 7:02 PM

webOS 2.0--

--looks incredibly snappy & intuitive. I still contend it's far superior to anything Apple offers. I can't wait to get my hands on the new Pre.

Great coverage.
JestaMcMerv

Oct 29, 2010, 10:14 AM

Zippy

webOS on this device seems incredibly snappy. Did you notice if the contact list still has the loading issue that plagued the first Pre? I really like how smooth the interface seems and how responsive it seems when touched.
 
 
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