10 Days in My Palm Pre experience So far

I got the Pre On The 5th At The Los Angeles Launch Party. I have
Tinkered, I have Texted, i Have used every app Worth using, I have
Facebooked, i have Twittered, i have Wiki'd And i have made PHONE
CALLS! Here is my Opinion so far.

OS In general

Is Multi-tasking a true, meaningful advantage? ....hell...yeah.. Ive
been using it as much as i can to see if i can stress the system to
make it slow down and the fact is that its not an easy feat, Having
9-10 separate programs open is just pointless but possible (depending
on the program's you are using and their intensity, the system will
say "cant open new cards close cards to free memory" if you are
surpassing the systems capabilities, although there arent many (if
any) real-life situations that require that, So especially when you
keep it between 1-6 programs open There is no visible lag, And
internet cards will load up while your flicking and working in other
cards/programs (multiple internet cards dont seem to make as much of
an impact as multiple programs)

Multitasking = A+ , Turning on advanced gestures allows you to swipe
full motions to the left and right to change cards without going to
card view, its extremely smooth and is just one more part of the OS
that becomes second nature after a few days of general use.

Browsing

Everyone has said the Pre's Browsing is as good if not better than the
iPhones, its built on WebKit So its not surprising its got the same
type of browsing feel and rendering style. But the browser combined
with multitasking and the gesture bar (especially with advanced
gestures on) Makes it an All Around More Desktop-Like, Full, Real-Time
Experience.... That not only "gives you the internet" but makes you
feel like your getting something done, Not like your compromising so
much for mobility.

Apps

Launch day The Pre App Catalog Only had 18 apps, now its at 30, and
palm has Promised 1000 Within a month, A bold claim that only makes me
hope that 600/1000 at least will be well made functional apps.

So far here is What Has impressed me about which apps.

Evernote, An online syncable notebook that can sync Pic's text, Or
pics of text (handwritten notes even that will be turned into text),
its a really cool tool, I havent found alot of uses for it but it
makes it quite simple for pics, notes etc to show up right on your
home system after taking them from your phone, wirelessly.

Classic (Old Palm OS Emulator) Is hilarious, I dont know quite what
else i should say, Anyone who is too impatient to wait for a WebOS
version of the app's they once loved on Their old PDA, Clie` Or Treo
Will drop 30$ on a Fully functional Palm OS Emulator That reminds me
of the short-lived entertainment my old Clie NZ90 provided, and what
doors something unified like an app-catalog and a new SDK opens.

Express Stocks.... meh.. Stocks dont refresh in real time, i got used
to hitting the refresh button, But the Browser on the Pre Shows Google
Finance pages in real-time updating when the price changes etc... so..
for just watching stocks i prefer zooming in on price on a finance
page and watching it tick.

fandango
Great, just like it should be, Easy enough, another useful one to
multitask with (sms, Fandango, and aim, talking to people thinking
about going to a movie, i find showtimes, flick back to my messaging
card and tell them, they decide, i flick back and buy tickets without
having to re-search etc)

Connect 4- Is it Fun? yep? is It hard to play a game of something
similar to tic-tac-toe with a computer? yeah, is it worth paying for?
no... is the free trial fun? yeah! Does the fact that Electronic arts
had a Launch Game With the Pre get me more excited than anything
having to do with connect 4? You bet

Heres to hoping More amazing EA games come in the near future.

Sodoku- great for sodoku fans

Flightview, great for people who are tired of circling round at the
airport waiting for an hour and a half for someone whose flight was
actually delayed, Shows flights in real time on a map, delays etc.

Pandora, great App As always, Shows playing song in notification area,
has thumbs up and down in notification area, But completely ignores
the fact that people want to skip alot of the songs it spits out, and
doesnt provide a Next track button in the notification area (only
pause and thumbs up and down) So you have to flick to the pandora card
to next a song. (to palm: please fix)

Tweed: A more than mostly featured twitter Client, Insert a Tinyurl of
a GPS location of yourself into any Tweets! great for people who are
looking for stalkers, or Who are Obsessed with latitude and longitude!
(also kind of scary!)

Mcraig (craigslist search App) Uses your location to set the
craigslist site you want to search (nifty) , very simple, very usable.
Just like craigslist itself!

GoodFood- Uses GPS location to find highly rated Food in your area,
Lets you set by price bracket ($,$$,$$$,$$$$ options) Gives you a
massive list of Types of food to search for (America, Asian, bagels,
Bakeries, seafood, steakhouse, etc etc) Which i think is a bit of
overkill but maybe thats because im so picky and would only usually
choose 5 of those maximum ;-).

ShortCovers- nifty E-book-like Reader, Wraps font very nicely, very
readable, I could easily read a book using this system, the intuitive
swipe to flick to the next page is fun and quick.

AP News- great little app, text wrap's Nicely, Very Readable, Again i
think the Pre's Screen just makes everything fun to read, Just like
Blu-Ray makes Even meg movies fun to watch ;-).

Mobile Wikipedia Lookup- A Great Little app, but Universal Search has
Wikipedia built in (albeit not in such a nice, text wrapped, mobile
freindly way as it just redirects you to the web wikipedia) But This
is a great app none-the-less I just couldnt see myself going through
the extra taps to launch the program rather than just typing.

Sprint TV: Now i usually wouldnt even go near this one as i've always
hated Sprint TV, but I Dont know if its that im on Wifi, or The Rev A.
But the definition is much better then on older phones ive used with
Sprint TV and there is MUCH less pixelation. That is if you can find
something you actually want to watch on sprint TV's lineup

AccuWeather- Nifty App, Also uses GPS to Find Your Location to get
weather conditions for your area, Has forecast mode, radar imaging,
And Alot Of Extrememly stange indicators on the last tab, The
Strangest being conditions for (all indicated by being green, yellow,
or RED) Barbeque Conditions, lawn mowing conditions, outdoor concert
conditions, and The most useful being, stargazing conditions, sailing,
arthritis, and asthma condtions.

MESSAGING

I love messaging on the Pre, Its what i loved about the treos
(threaded messaging 6 years ago!) and its my favorite part about the
Pre.
Nay for the Aim Bug (if your actualy signed in to aim the battery
drains at a faster rate and usually dies by the end of the day in my
experience, but i fixed it by having AIm forward offline messages to
my phone Via SMS and signing in when i want to have an active
conversation, or replying to the SMS for a quick repsonse.) the
messaging is amazing.

Pros: Great threading system, Aim integration, gchat integration, SMS
integration.
Auto correct ONLY CORRECT WHAT I WANT IT TO CORRECT... i have a
physical keyboard, It knows that if i want to correct major mistakes i
can do so easily, so it leaves some things alone, while helping me out
with by turning every u into a You and every im into an I'm etc, but
never have a once yelled at my phone (a'la iphone) to tell it to stop
auto-correcting the wrong word.

unobtrustive notifications, When in apps, i was always pissed when my
phone started ringing and dancing, an the screen started freaking out,
when i got a message, If im actively doing something in an App the
phone should know ill see a message and not act like im so far away,
while the pre does this well, its a little overkill, as i have missed
a few text messages due to its weak vibrate (it only vibrates once,
and shortly when you get a text) and soft sound, but im sure an update
or even an app will make this much more customizable ( i have
reccomended to developers that they make a vibrate customizer that
lets you "tap out" the vibrate pattern you want it to use)

Bluetooh, conacts, Obex Etc.

So Far i havent been able to get the Pre to do jack Over bluetooth
except for working perfectly with bluetooth headphones and headsets,
Old sprint phones had a system called Web Sync that kept their
contacts on sprints servers to restore and sync them, The pre isnt
compatable with this (WebOS wont work with Web Sync ;-) And nor does
it like it when you try to send it contacts over bluetooth (at least
from the two phones (m610, and instinct) i tried). So using the sprint
store or datapilot to transfer contacts is the only way.

I didnt do either of those, i have a ritual now, im used to getting a
new phone and them telling me they cant transfer my numbers, So i
break it in by manually entering 120~ contacts. Then i signed in to
Facebook and Gmail And watched the magic happen, My contacts merged
with facebook entries and google emails (if labeled with full names )
and after 10 minutes of tinkering i had a perfectly awesome unified
directory of people i know.. Although palm really needs to make it
easier for me to distinguish between people i just know (hidden full
contacts list includes Email only, name only, etc contacts) and People
i know and contact often, maybe let people set facebook lists or
create a new system in the palm profile page to customize your list,
but alot of my very long contact list is people who id only contact
once a year or less... i mean facebook is not only a way to keep in
touch with freinds, Its a way to pretend your keeping in touch with
the people you'd rather not talk to in real life... so compensate for
that.

Camera, great definition, great Colors, The album view only lets you
zoom up to native resolution so pics always look nice, but when you
zoom further in on a computer its noticeable that its a camera phone
picture.

Sensors, Ahh The all important sensors, back in the days of the HTC
6700 people started judging phones speed by how long it took for the
screens to rotate, (Anyone remember the samsung omina demo? Where he
hides the screen from the cameras for over 10 seconds, then shows it
again and its STILL rotating slowly but surely?)

Well fear not My friends the accelerometer on the Pre is great, And
the rotation speed is very fast, Especially on photos and websites.
Showing someone a picutre who is in front of you in as easy as a
flicky forward and angling the device down towards them, and the
picture flips upside-down for them to see, now not EVERY app rotates
on demand, But its not as much of a big deal as with the iPhone
because the keyboard stays the same width for us ;-)

Proximity sensor, very responisive, Shuts screen off when up to your
face (when your on the phone) palm should also expand the use of this
so that it locks the screen (especially or just the Phone or dialer
screen) when its in your pocket.

Used to holding your cell phone up against your shoulder with no
Hands? The pre's microphone is on the bottom of the front, making it
so if you try this in alot of positions you will cover the mic, making
you sound like your gurgling sand, there is a way to finagle it
without blocking the mic, but this could be an issue for some.

Its a PHONE?!

Call Quality is pretty good, Dialer is very responsive, you have to
turn on seaching contacts in dialer (only by keyboard not by keypad,
and it searches the contacts names, you cant start typing a number and
have it show matching numbers) But it works very well and i havent
found anything to complain about... yet ;-)

No visual voicemail, This surprises many people, it wouldnt surprise
me to see it in an update, but im also used to Sprints Voicemail, and
text messaging is taking over anyway.

One wierd thing is it Still Shows it as me Calling Myself when i call
Voicemail, showing my facebook picture etc, I would think the phone
would be able to figure out that its voicemail,

Also Some numbers on facebook i dont want to show up, and theres no
option to erase, delete, or edit numbers syncd from facebook, IE My
younger Brother Lives at Home and has his facebook Home Number as My
old home in chicago, Mainly used by my parents, This causes me to pick
up the phone seeing my younger brothers picture and say "yo" only to
hear the voice of my 50 year old father on the line ;-).

Email:
Push Gmail is great, Its All great, getting use to swiping things off
the screen to dismiss them, the whole cards interface and email, it
all just works.

Keyboard: I love it, at first i thought it might be too small, but as
people said the keyboard loses some of its initial gloss and slip
after alot of use and it gets easier to touch-type on, regardless its
about 4x better than any touchscreen keyboard ive ever used.

Screen: Same resolution as iPhone, but .3" smaller, And brighter,
Making it just that much more impressive to me, its a really crisp,
clean, nice screen, i couldnt see a better way to show off an OS That
begs for something of this quality.

Speakerphone, So far so Good Nice and loud

Three Way calling, Merging calls is easy and intuitive but hanging up
just one call is more difficult/not possible unless the other person
hangs up.

iTunes Syncing- Works great, videos Look clean, playlists transfer
effortlessly, Dear Palm... Flac/Ogg Support Please! You have satisfied
the masses with itunes now satisfy the developers and techies/
audiophiles with Flac and Ogg! Wav is just too large etc.

TouchStone, Nifty, Cool, Nice little desk-peice, Much Easier then
opening the plug-door and plugging it in, but is it worth 70$ (i
mean.. i paid it)? id pay 30$ just for the matte backing (i like the
feel alot more) but 70$...? I might still get it... if they included
another USB cable! .. Right now you have to switch between syncing and
charging, and seeming is it apparently only costs them 5$ to make the
touchstone... maybe they should include 2 more usb cables!

Clock, Calender, notes, Calculator, Tasks apps, All quite simple,
functional Apps, That do as their supposed to.

PDF Support, Flawless, great, Easy, XML/Excel Support, Same here, No
problems here.

In The end, This is the best, Most functional, usable phone, ive ever
used, And i expect it only to grow from here. Kudos Palm.... kudos.

Questions?

The Palm pre, Worth The Hype? or Just another sprint Failure?

I have been following the Pre for a while now, And there have been more and more wild accusations of failure and success from less and less knowledgeable people every day.

Im really quite tired of hearing opinion stated as fact lately in the Pre-world, For instance
Today William Hurley Wrote a story for Business Week that everyone is calling a Hatchet job, (stock dropped over 70 cents after it came online).

The comments of the story (found here) have already been filled with people saying they will NEVER read Business Week again, And many saying that "if William hurley wasnt a has-been before this, he sure is now"

The problem with the story is that he tells it from a completely biased perspective, hurley was involed in the well documented "PreDevCamp" Fiasco, in which he became extremely frustrated with Palm's Community team. Apparently Palm Kept promising support but then kept playing the waiting game because they were so concerned about information leaking out.

It ended in hurley throwing a "nerd fit" and leaving PreDevCamp Altogethor (leaving the more sensible, less insane developers to continue in his path) And ultimately caused him to let out his nerdish anger in an Article from business week This morning,

All in all the Peice comes off as a smear campaign against palm, he takes Small quips and turns them into potential problems, takes alot of things out of context and puts his own spin on what they mean, its obvious he is trying to make fun on something he respects, he is fishing to find something really bad about the pre because there really isnt anything there.

he goes on about how RIM's MarketShare is growing, and How Apples Code weeds out Unseasoned developers,

All in all, There isnt a single more disgusting peice of reading ive done in my life, This guy is a stuck up programmer who thinks he is the most important guy in the world and that the pre couldnt possibly succeed without his help, "One week after the Pre's release, the press will be dominated by Apple CEO Steve Jobs. If, as expected, Jobs returns, that will steal Palm's thunder. If he doesn't, that will only steal Palm's thunder more." ...? What? Seems like your grabbing at straws to me, Sorry to say that if this guy was EVER a RESPECTED FIGURE in ANY industry, and credibility he had is now GONE.

Early Thoughts on The Palm Pre

I Really see the Pre As the return of Palm,

its sad to say it but blackberry dropped the ball here so far, Apple made a phone that revolutionizes the industry and they made the storm which angered their customers that were so used to instant response times and zero lag contacts searching.

The Pre has a great user interface, great concepts (touch area outside of screen on body, program "cards", multitasking, java/CSS/Html apps), And i have a feeling their going to do a great job with it, yet im curious to see what other competition comes out of the woodwork.

a Few things,

Unobtrusive alerts= Amazing, Give me a vibrate and a mini banner, thats all i want, if i want more, ill tap it , great, amazing keep it.

Accelerometer: Great yes, but you have to keep in mind, Sometimes when im reading news in my bed, and im lying on my side (my head being sideways) my phone is also sideways so i can read it, yet this is impossible with the pre or iphone, as the phone automatically rotates, The accelerometer should be able to be either turned off or overridden very simply and intuitively on-the-fly if you ask me.

Light sensor= Amazing, phones have had it for 5 years yet only now people think its a revolution... great... ive heard of solar batteries too, yet if they came out with an OEM phone with a solar panel in it i would be surprised.

Proximity sensor=Again, amazing

facebook integration, Yes amazing, Most facebook users would love to have little pictures of their contacts from facebook next to their name in their phonebook, But there are a few problems here
A. Some peoples pictures are quite scary
B. Some peoples pictures are not of them, nor anything in relation to them.
C. I really dont want everyone on my facebooks phone number... especially not automatically like that, a whole new layer of customizability as to who could see my information would have to be added to facebook for me to be comfortable with that.

I really like the G-Mail like threading of conversations, even if the reply is something other than an SMS or whatever the original message was, thats great.

Touchstone charger....A few things, I like it yes, nifty yes, but more convienient? only by a little... If i were a phone company making a revolutionary accessory (albeit, one that is already available 3rd party in a more "placemat of power" like structure) I would do it in a revolutionary way, 3rd party solutions like power mats etc are much more luxurious, and more likely to be actually purchased as an after device accessory.
I have used docking stations for phones that are very easy to use and came with the phones, i just think if your going to use inductive charging, dont make it so stable, magnets holding the phone to a podioum isnt really magical, its just tricky.

the keyboard, I actually kind of like the centros keyboard, im just not entriely convinced that making the keyboard slide out horizontally rather than vertically would've been all that difficult. bigger keys are always better in the same form factor.

apps,
Dear palm, Thats great and all, CSS and all that jazz, but those should be one ( one BIG) part of your app store with the other, being Device specific powerful core applications and games that arent restricted by web-like code.
PS. Please bring back the Clie....Pretty please? Clie Phone? Pre Flip'N'Fold? ;-)


All in all i think the pre will be the answer to the question every sprint customer has been asking that isnt alright with having just a phone thats a phone. The question "why the hell am i still with sprint?" Please Mr. Dan Hesse, Dont make me regret saying that.

Boostaroo revolution HD "audiophile" Portable Headphone Amp

My Boostaroo Revolution arrived a few days ago in the mail and i figured i would share my experience with the world.

I have been dealing with beyerdynamic DT-770 Pro's (80 ohm) For a while now and i havent been able to get anywhere near the volume i wanted from them because i was sourcing from an iPod or PC sound card, So i finally decided to try a cheaper headphone amp and see if i liked it, I looked at custom made ones, and maybe i should have tried that route, But here is what i thought.

Upon opening the package a little slip came out telling me (basically) that the battery compartment was extremely hard to open and they knew this, and gave all sorts of funny instructions to get it open the first time and then said something like "it will open easier after a few times opening it" Which made me think, Why didnt they have a line of people opening them a few times, which made me laugh as it was partially ridiculous...back to the review, I finally got the compartment open and popped in the batteries.

This was of course i had already taken a second to realize it took AAAA Batteries, Which was one more A than i was used to, But all the same i popped them in and plugged in the boostaroo to my iPod and..... nothing... not a sound... not a light... nothing.. I wiggled the source cable and nothing... then i wiggled the headphone cable and Voila, a single channel.... then BOTH channels in full blasting stereo.

I found that the channels were easily knocked out by slight movements of the cord, and am currently in contact with boostaroo for a replacement, All the same it seemed when the cord was aligned correctly the performance was good enough for me to think the unit functions but only intermittenly, so i will continue on with the review, igoring this problem from this point on.

The audio is ALWAYS processed through and onboard 3d sound processor so self proclaimed "true" audiophiles wont like the fact that the sound isnt 100% true to the recording, But the amp definitely impressed me, i heard many details i hadnt before, i could definitely notice the 3d sound effect but it wasnt overbearing and is definitely bearable for a portable solution to needing louder headphones (60-300ohm headphones).

I will update the review with boostaroos response and how they handle the exchange and let you know if there are any improvements with the new unit.

All in all so far if the unit werent defective i would give it a 7/10 as a functional product, The 3d sound kind of works against the audiophile crowd, The AAAA batteries are a bit difficult to find, although their website cites walgreens etc as having them available, The battery cover is a bit strange, and the lack of an integrated ANYTHING (no power button, no volume knob or wheel, it turns on when you plug it in and off when you unplug it, a bit annoying)

For high impedience headphones on the go for 31$ keeping this thing in your pocket is worth it if you love being completely immersed in your music on the go, rechargable AAAA batteries might be a good idea though.

28" Hanns-G Monitor (27.5" viewable) 1920 x 1200 Monitor w/HDMI

I Have been using the HANNS G 28" Monitor for a while now, I got it for only $380.

A few Pros:

Its giant, in comparison to a 22" or 24" its just huge, you wouldn't think so but every Inch matters more as you get bigger in size, no innuendos intended. Its Easier to multitask, to move files, to do pretty much everything.

On Full brightness in a dark room you will want to sheild your eyes, its VERY bright on full brightness

Its quite sharp when playing 1080p Content

A few Cons

Gets fairly hot when left on for long periods of time, but nowhere near a hot laptop etc, just more than most LCD monitors

Speakers integrated in the frame are TERRIBLE use HDMI for video only please, use some other speakers for audio, These are not even close to LCD TV quality speakers.

Color accuracy is a bit off, but it may be the brightness.

All in all for 380 bucks, in comparison to 1200$ minimum for a 30" 2560 x 1600 monitor, I got bigger pixels in a slightly smaller package for about a third the price, So id say ESPECIALLY for a dual monitor setup, these are worth it, as that savings is double/tripled.

Creative T40 Speaker Review

Hello friendly readers, Today I bring to you an unbiased review on my latest purchase/exchange The Creative T40 Speaker/Monitor Set.

I originally had a set of Philips mms-322 Speakers which were... to say the least Terrible, There was a very prominent issue that the speakers were too light and too powerful so they would every once in a while "dance" off of my table and fall to the floor (not to mention anything past 50% volume and it sounded like rice was in the speakers), Techforless.com was very kind in letting me exchange those speakers for the Creative T40's Which were a bit more expensive so Props to them for doing what any customer oriented company should do, Satisfy the customer.

To say the least, The T40's Blow the MMS-322's Out of the water, Not only are they definitely heavy enough to stay in place, But the bass is much more prominent and room filling, and the highs are much more clear. I can actually turn these up to an overly loud volume without hearing any distortion which is definitely good, These are definitely riding the line between monitors and PC Speakers.

The front headphone port and Bass/Treble levels are great, BUT they don't apply to the headphone port on the front which made me quite dissapointed when i cranked the bass all the way up with my Beyerdynamic DT-770 Pro's on to no avail.

The blue light on the front is quite bright, but tape and construction paper fixes that right up if it bothers you, as it does me.

All in all the Bass is amazing for a sub-less setup, highs and mids are as clear as i could ever want for the price, bass/treble levels are a plus, yellow speakers look pro, cant find a thing wrong with them ;-).

I reccomend them with a 8.5/10 Rating, Only because they sound great but dont immediately trigger a smile like some higher end stereo speakers do, and because the front speaker headphone port is Silver not gold, and the docking station port is a propreitary modified s-video cable-like setup, when it could be USB, or just 1/8" headphone in.