Palm: I want to believe

Maybe I'm slow to accept new technology. Maybe I'm a contrarian. Maybe I have philosophical and technical issues with its design and engineering. Whatever it is, I don't want an iPhone. Sure, there's the "that's cool" factor, but I consider myself a poweruser and thus I need a little more than that in something that's such an integral part of my life like a mobile device (I hesitate to call it a "phone").

As a Treo user for several years, I was excited to hear about Palm's revolutionary new smartphone the Pre. I eagerly anticipated its release, and sat on my hands for a month afterwards while my Verizon Wireless contract ended, the whole time spending hours per day reading about the Pre. Excited, in retrospect, is an understatement. I was in awe of what the Pre could do. And that potential, I'm sad to say, is pretty much the only reason I haven't moved on to something else already.

The Pre runs on an operating system developed by Palm called WebOS. It's a fundamental change in the way users interact with the device and in how applications are run. Easy gestures let you minimize apps, switch apps, move forward, move back, zoom in, zoom out, and do pretty much everything. The slide-out keyboard is a little small, but in general is very easy to type on. The screen, while smaller than the iPhone, has the same pixel resolution so it doesn't end up mattering all that much. It fits comfortably in my (admittedly) girl-sized hand or in my pocket. Setting it up to  sync email, contacts, and calendar events from my GMail account was so effortless I thought I was being punk'd. It also syncs with Facebook, so if one of my FB Friends calls me, their picture automatically shows up on the screen. I could go on and on and on about how much I love this phone, but I won't. I think you get the point.

My disillusionment began when I used my sister's new iPhone 3GS over the summer because she needed help setting up her GMail account. After I fumbled for a few minutes in all the settings, I finally got it set up. Compared to the Pre, it was like a maze of settings to do so. However, switching from screen-to-screen within that maze? Incredibly, ridiculously fast. No lag in scrolling. You hit a menu option, and BAM! you got it. Want to go back? BAM! You're back. Truly impressive. Thus began my struggle to justify staying with the Pre.

I could talk about the other things that bugged me about the Pre (really? I *still* can't change the alert for new emails? Nor can I have it make that sound *and* vibrate?), but I'm not going to. If Palm could fix the UI latency, I could live with the other things because it has so many other good features. My feeling is that the next generation Pre will be dramatically improved in that regard, and I'll have to shell out cash for a new one. That said, I think I'd rather pay Sprint an ETF and switch back to Verizon Wireless for the Droid or even *gasp* the iPhone.