Somewhere between receiving the email, jerking around (its slang but the best description) with Gmail contact sync which is possibly the worst contact management system in the world, and then dealing with a new Palm Pre that died after 2 days, I lost the email from Palm that had the magic link that allows you to sync up your Palm Pre to Outlook, once.

There does not appear to be anyway to get that link back again, even though I never used it.  I feel like I have been ripped off a little bit frankly.  I paid $300 + for the Palm and I can’t even get my free ride through Outlook land with it.

There is a service that you can pay for outside of Palm from Chapura, but frankly, I want my freebie(expensive as that was).  Palm’s absolute disregard for customers on this particular area is frankly amazing.  The phone is excellent, can’t say enough good things about it, but with all of the amazing brain talent that went into perfecting this 3G phone, you’d think someone would have been able to call out the turkey that made the three biggest mistakes in the Palm Pre

1. Lack of Outlook sync capability
2. Flaky 1 time sync with outlook which seems to have self destructed (almost literally) in my case
3. Forcing people to use the crappy Gmail contact sync, seriously Google should pay people to be forced to use this!
1. Note the facebook integration kicks butt

There’s that old office joke, its hard to soar like an eagle when you are surrounded by turkeys.  In this case, it seems like the eagles on this project were all tied to a big fat turkey on the ground that was staked to some weird anti outlook dogma.

People often ask me which is better, and I don’t have a clue because I avoid at&t like a Republican politician avoids remaining faithful with a spouse. 

This review however, seemed to encapsulate all the things I do like and some of the dislikes I have for the Palm Pre.  In charting up these pros and cons a bit, you get a little cross section flavor of where the iPhone 3g is better or in some cases worse.

Here’s My Pros on the Palm Pre

• Its not on at&t nor Verizon – That’s a big one, would have been better if on T-mobile and tmobile were 3g
• At $200 after rebate, the price was right
• It has a keyboard – that’s a big one
• Its fast
• It does email very very well
• The camera is excellent – major point its fast and takes great pictures
• It is small and fits in my pocket very comfortably – another big point
• The MP3 Player sounds good (via earbuds)
• Surfs the net both real and mobile well
• Touch screen works great
• I can type easily on the phone with one hand, and after 2 weeks almost without looking most of the time
• Love the Facebook, LinkedIn, Pandora, Tweed(twitter client) apps, and the ability to easily use them at the same time pretty much

For me these particular Pros out weigh the following Cons, you might consider the merit of some of these items for yourself. and this is also one of the reasons why I liked that PC World article, it did a good job of putting this in context

Here’s my cons on the Palm Pre

• The plug for the charging cord/ usb connection is a pain in the ass to open
• There is no micro SD card slot – used to be very important when I had a treo, so far its a non-issue
• The phone can’t record video – that’s a big point for me, but counting on a firmware upgrade or future ap upgrade
• It really likes to sync with Gmail and Gmail Contacts – Gmail Contacts is a terribly clunky technology, to put it in my heritage midwest vernacular, Gmail Contacts is piss poor  – big thing, note the Android uses the same crap
• The battery drains kind of fast – medium issue
• Still looking for a good nerd holster – little thing
• The power button is flaky – small thing, rarely turn it off
• The re-awaken button is the power button and also flakey – a medium issue
• The rebate mail in was a bit of a pain – Almost missed the deadline and lost $100
• Doesn’t support Audible yet – for this one I blame both Palm and Audible.  Palm should have had this ready out of the box, but Audible’s format (drm stuff) is a pain too.  I’m now solving this problem by removing the DRM protection from my audio books, no chains for me please
  • Solution –> Convert Audible files to normal mp3 files using SoundTaxi Platinum cost $19.95 (they do offer a –> download link for exe file -> free trial download but it only converts the first 90 seconds, still it does prove that it works before you buy.
  • Note. I paid an additional $10 for the pro version to run more files at the same time.  After the fact, I’d just recommend the $20 version. 
• Palm Tech Support pretty much sucked when my first Palm Pre died
• If you want to transfer your files through a music player, then you are stuck with itunes, which is one of Apple’s worst interfaces and products – you can however just transfer files to your Pre like its a hard drive

I’ve had my Pre for a little over a week (actually my 2nd Pre for about 4-5 days, my 1st Pre before that was acquired over a week ago).  Anyway due to the failure of the first Pre, I was a little delayed in customizing my second Pre for fear it might die too.

So I have been putting up with quiet boring ringtones for a week now.  I no longer work in the corporate world and so I can use what ever ringtone I feel like these days without having to worry about making an embarrassing interruption during a marathon series of meetings.

So I did a quick search on how to make a Palm Ringtone and found this ever so useful video on YouTube

It is also supported by a written tutorial, which I did not need to use myself because the video was so damned good and I had some of the fundamental knowledge and experience already. 

It requires the download and installation of Audacity, which is a free audio editing program and a very good one at that.  I already have audacity and so the tutorial was very easy to follow and repeat with almost no difficulties. 

So if you can’t stand your boring standard issue Palm Ringtones and are confused by the lack of places to download Palm Pre ringtones through the Palm marketplace, save yourself some money and just convert one of your MP3 songs into a ringtone!

That’s just fantastic if you already use itunes, like itunes, want to keep using itunes etc.

If you manage your music in Windows Media Player, Real, Winamp or just play music from folders on your hard drive or something, well then you are kind of stuck with Model T coloring.

Personally, I use Windows Media Player.  Is it better than itunes, is it superior to Winamp?

No idea and I don’t care.  I use it, because that is what I use, have used, and what I have thousands and thousands and thousands of songs organized within.  So to have to switch to itunes, basically means that ALL of my songs are now lost and disorganized in itunes and I have to start from scratch.

Not cool, but as an early adopter of a new device, I realize that the customer is not always right.  Don’t get me wrong, I’d be just as un-right if I were trying to use an iphone, but that’s kind of expected from Apple, because they are the screwy fools that made itunes!  Palm’s been working with other music players for years and years and doing it pretty damn well from my past experiences with treos, handsprings, palms etc.

I guess, I’m currently hoping that some non-Apple fan boy at Palm stands up and says, “hey some of our customers don’t love Apple just because, maybe we should give them some music player options on the Pre, after all we are trying to save our company with this phone, no point in alienating Windows Media Player users.”

Oh, and while you’re at it, don’t forget to fast track that Audible project.

I still really like the Palm Pre, but after my first Palm Pre died the yesterday, and Palm sent me on a 150 minute wild goose chase through technical support, I guess you could say the honeymoon period is over.  Oh, and if you are wondering what all those crazy stupid ‘itunes’ hyperlinks are for, you can find the same links by doing a google search with the keywords ‘itunes sucks’. 

Note. I’m a blogger, not a journalist.  I’m purposefully subjective, and prefer to look at the applied uses of gadgets and software in specific unique circumstances, and at extreme tolerances.  If you are looking for a generic ‘review’ of something, you have mistakenly come to the wrong place.  We don’t sell black model t cars here, we offer chartreuse model t’s with glitter pain jobs, flames on the hood, and well, that analogy is a little tired, but we don’t do generic reviews here.  If you want generic and objective, go over to Cnet and read a paragraph with a lot of verbage that you probably could have found in a Palm press release.

After I have had some more hands on with the actual player on the Pre, I’ll cover that again soon.  At first glance, the sound (and the headphones that come with the Pre) are excellent.  I would like to see software improvements in the following:

• the ability to adjust volume on the touch screen
• the ability to delete a song from the device (haven’t found this yet, if it exists, then it needs to be added as an option in more spots
• the ability to convert part of a song into a ring tone.  The G1 (android) from T-Mobile has this capability and it was excellent, a little music editor that you could select part or all of a song and set it as a ringtone or notification.  The ringtones that come standard with the Pre are about as diverse as a gaggle of Canadian Geese
• the ability to drag and drop songs up and down within the play list as the songs are playing (mixing on the fly)
• The ability to rate songs with stars on a 1 to 5 rating level and then later play songs by rating level, and better yet, have it update my computer files
• push button notification to update my facebook letting people know what song I’m listening to & maybe it includes a YouTube link if it can find one, or an Amazon MP3 sales link on my Amazon Associates account so I can make a fortune of my friends. 

But like I said, haven’t had a chance to think about this much yet . . .

Haven’t heard of Evernote?

Basically its a tool that indexes text in images captured by camera or camera phone and sent into the service.  (it does some other cool things too, but that seems to be the main reason why I picked it up.)

You can get a general idea of some of the other functionality from this video.

From a Palm Pre perspective, I found this test to be very similar to my own results.  However, I think the lady using the Pre might have pushed a couple buttons wrong on the browser test, which might have slowed her down even more.

I am still stunned every time I use the camera.  The Palm Pre is actually faster than my crappy Kodak 10 mp camera with HD.

 

UPDATE TO THE UPDATE

It is now 7:50 PM about 7 hours after my first Palm Pre died.  After much hassle (see below) my original Sprint store was able to replace my first dead Palm Pre with a brand new Palm Pre, which I’m calling, Palm Pre #2.

I must say that once I turned on Palm Pre #2, my new Palm profile setup for Palm Pre #1, immediately kicked in & started updating Palm Pre #2 with all my email address configurations (cool!) & my Google GMAIL contact info (Gmail contacts suck, but this did pull them in).  My Facebook settings did not work quite so well, but after entering my password all was well with Facebook too.

My Palm Pre #2 came with firmware version Palm webOS 1.0.2.  I’m not going to update to 1.0.3 nor 1.0.4 anytime soon, because I have no idea what killed PP#1 and can’t afford to waste more time if PP#2 dies on me.

UPDATE

I started this article to chronicle a couple important issues with my Palm Pre.  The second was apparently a terminal condition for my phone, and as I write this update, I’m trying to find the fastest way to replace my 3 day old phone.  Palm phone support kept me on the phone for about 146 minutes through 4 dropped calls, and ultimately told me they would call me back, maybe by tomorrow morning. 

Below is the original article and below that is the stream of twitter comments I made while on the phone with Palm for far too long.

In general I am extremely unhappy happy with my new Palm Pre.  I upgraded from the G1 to the Palm Pre last week, and this is a much much better phone on more levels that I’ll tick off here.  In the last 2 days, day 2 & 3 of my ownership I have noticed 2 problems that are somewhat troubling.  They have not yet repeated themselves, but I wanted to mention them as I document my initial experiences with the Palm Pre.

The first happened when I attempted to go into camera mode.  I tapped the camera application and instead of the rapid fire transition to camera, a function that has been amazingly fast thus far, the application seemed to hang as it started up.  I was unable to take a picture as the viewer never showed up on the screen.  It took some effort to close the application as well, which kept going from full screen to a tab / page view.  Finally it ended and no more issues since (that happened yesterday).

The second was a death sentence apparentlymore problematic.  I missed a call that went to voice mail.  I tapped the notification at the bottom of the screen indicating the voice mail existed, it dialed my voice mail and then my screen went black.  Nothing I could do could awaken the screen.  The voice mail played, but I could not tap any buttons or work the voice menu.  The speaker worked but the screen and the qwerty keyboard were both dead.  I attempted to power down the phone, but that button was dead also, so was the volume button.

So mid stuck-call, I had to figure out how to remove the battery cover, something not mentioned in the users guide that I could see. 

It involves pushing a button at the bottom of the phone then plying the back cover off despite the fact that it bent in an odd way that made me fear the cover would break.  Fortunately it did not break and the slight bend did not alter the shape of the cover permanently.

Then I pulled on the plastic tab to remove the battery.  That also was an unintuitive experience with no guide. 

Tip pull away from phone, not down nor up, the plastic tab is NOT attached to the battery, just used to lever the battery out.

Super Troubling Palm Pre Failure

After I reset the device, I attempted to dial my voice mail again.  All the fuss with the phone made it impossible to get my message.  When I went to the keypad and hit the voice mail button again, my screen and keypad went dead AGAIN!

This time the voice mail system hung up on me after it timed out.  Even after it hung up, my phone was still dead, so I removed the battery again to reset the phone.

Question – Is there a reset button on the Palm Pre?  Haven’t found it yet, but I hope so! Partial Answer – apparently there is, but it deletes lots of information from the device, still do not know where it is.

In the comments section of this Engadget article you’ll find some other complaints from other users

http://www.engadgetmobile.com/2009/06/07/palm-pre-trouble-roundup/

Now, keep in mind the restarting of the Pre takes about 1 minute and 45 seconds.  This is normally not a big issue, because I usually only restart it once a day, if that, but having to restart it twice in a 10 minute period, well. it gave me the time to write this silly 550+ word article.

Here’s  a reverse order run down of my twitter accounting of what happened when my Palm Pre died a partial Death

• ended 147 minutes w @Palm support-my 3 day old dead Palm Pre, still does not work-Tier III may call me back by tomorrow @Sprint15 minutes ago from web

• @Palm Tier II guy came back told me Tier III might call me back by tomorrow (trying to stay calm) my dead Palm Pre fm @sprint25 minutes ago from web

• been on hold now 37 min to get to @Palm Tier III support after working with Tier I & II for 98 minutes for my dead Palm Pre31 minutes ago from web

• The static filled, broken nasty hold music that @Palm plays for Tier I, II, & III support is grating on me while staring @ my dead Palm Pre38 minutes ago from web

• on hold 10 minutes awaiting Tier II trsfr to Tier III fm @Palm after waiting 13 minutes for tier I to Tier II trsft for my dead Palm Pre42 minutes ago from web

• @gtowna not getting any work done here, fooling with a dead Palm Pre and @Palm support about time to get a beer or 4about 1 hour ago from web in reply to gtowna

• If this were SnowCrash Pizza delivery instead of Palm Pre smart phones, I’d own Uncle Enzo’s Ass by now @Palm @Sprint #idiocracyabout 1 hour ago from web

• @Palm tier II is now putting me on hold to connect me to @Palm Tier III at 17:13 of 4th call- on phone w @Palm 114 minutes so far todayabout 1 hour ago from web

• back on the line with the latest tier II service specialist, only a 13 minute wait to get to him from tier I @Palm in re: my Dead Palm Preabout 1 hour ago from web

• @learningSEO before my Palm Pre died, I would have DEFINITELY recommended it, having some doubts now that @Palm can’t seem to fix it . . . .3 minutes ago from web in reply to learningSEO

• @Palm Tier I is putting me on hold for Tier II so Tier II can put me on hold & refer me to Tier III for my Dead Palm Pre @sprint5 minutes ago from web

• @sprintcare thx for the offer, just sent you an email, calling @Palm tier II back now after firmware 1.0.4 install completed – Pre dead10 minutes ago from web in reply to sprintcare

• Installing firmware upgrade 1.0.4 for my dead Palm Pre fm @Palm @Sprint – 2 chk 4 updates type U P then click Updates on your Palm Pre19 minutes ago from web

• figures 30 sec after @Palm hangs up 1.0.4 dwnld finishes, hope this fixes my dead Palm Pre got calls to make, business to salvage @sprint21 minutes ago from web

• 3rd call to re-re-escalation rep, tier II, ended after 43 minutes-no resolution 4 @Palm Pre death-don’t call us we’ll call you ahmm @Sprint23 minutes ago from web

• @Palm escalated representative is now telling me to just wait an hour and see if it works later dead Palm Pre 28 minutes ago from web

• @JGoldsborough thx 4 quest, Yes, called them 1st, told me to return Palm Pre to store, but store has few/no replacements, trying to fix 1st33 minutes ago from web in reply to JGoldsborough

• Put my Pre into airplane mode to turn off @Sprint forcing wifi which is on, but download still seems to be stuck coming fm @Palm35 minutes ago from web

• @WarrenWhitlock Yes I have a Pre @Sprint is telling me to return it, on phone with @Palm escalated service rep -was great phone till it died38 minutes ago from web in reply to WarrenWhitlock

• download of Palm Pre firmware 1.0.4 fm @Palm failed while on phone with re-re-escalated tech support40 minutes ago from web

• after over an hour on phone w @Palm they now have me checking for firmware updates, per my mention I’m on old version @Sprint42 minutes ago from web

• while on hold for the last 20 minutes (3rd call w @Palm) Learned there is Palm Pre firmware upgrade 1.0.4-wonder if it can be pushed to me?about 1 hour ago from web

• Got to the re-re-escalated rep-kate, she didn’t read the case notes, wanted me to start fm begining -nonstarter- she’s now reading the notesabout 1 hour ago from web

• Apparently @Palm ’s Alex was also disconnected when talking to re-escalation team & so I’m getting re-re-escalated now-time for Idiocracyabout 1 hour ago from web

• apparently rebooting a Palm Pre really drains the battery, having to recharge while on hold for @Palm re-escalation of call – 15 Pre crashesabout 1 hour ago from web

• apparently tier 1 @Palm person-alex after putting me on hold has to re-escalate my call I can’t just call back & be escalated post drop callabout 1 hour ago from web

• just confirmed that my Palm Pre crashes when making calls whether wifi is turned off or on (crashes either way) @Palm @Sprintabout 1 hour ago from web

• back on hold with @Palm as they track down my last service repabout 1 hour ago from web

• @Palm Like yourself, I am recording these calls as well for quality improvement purposesabout 1 hour ago from web

• OK, refill of coke zero, choc chip cookie, time to call @Palm back after dropped call to get my Palm Pre fixed – maybe I s/become a Luditeabout 1 hour ago from web

• @Palm dropped my call on the other line while trying to call my
  mobile to see if it would kill my Palm Pre again- Deep Breath Aaaahhhhmm Ahmabout 1 hour ago from web

• @Palm is calling me now to figure out why my Palm Pre crashes (screen keyboard become unresponsive during calls) @Sprintabout 1 hour ago from web

• @Palm has me back on hold while Palm Pre boots up after crash – Speed tests show Palm Pre takes 1:45+ to turn on http://bit.ly/WnLlzabout 1 hour ago from web

my Palm Pre dies when i dial phone numbers from the qwerty keyboard too @Palm @Sprint Palm Support going 2 try calling me nextabout 1 hour ago from web

@Palm transferred me to a higher level specialist, who has me on hold while reading case notes from previous specialist #PalmPreDeadScreenabout 1 hour ago from web

@cartermason had great experiences w Treo on tmobile but Treo on Verizon was awful-> Verizon loaded too much crapware & killed the phoneabout 2 hours ago from web in reply to cartermason

Back on hold with @Palm re my Palm Pre that dies whenever it makes a call on @Sprint awaiting transfer to higher level of supportabout 2 hours ago from web

Palm just dropped my call while transferring me to higher level of support for my Palm Pre Crash, hope I don’t have to go through this againabout 2 hours ago from web

@ldbaldwin My Palm Pre was awesome up until today. I hope they can fix it, I do want to keep it.about 2 hours ago from web in reply to ldbaldwin

getting escalated to higher level of Palm support for my failing Palm Preabout 2 hours ago from web

Deleted all my downloaded aps on my Palm Pre per Palm but the phone still crashes when I call my voice mailabout 2 hours ago from web

My new Palm Pre crashed again while on phone w Palm support-recalling smug Palm Developer @CES He smirked at reset button question about 2 hours ago from web

on the phone with Palm about my dying Palm Pre, Sprint told me to returnabout 2 hours ago from web

@thepete lol I AM THE IPHONE KILLER!!!! Suspect if I bought an iPhone 3Gs it would go up like white phosphorousabout 2 hours ago from web in reply to thepete

Sprint doesn’t know how to fix my Palm Pre, suggested I return the phone to the store. Odds of store having replacement Pre VERY LOW.about 2 hours ago from web

I truly have the worst phone karma in the world 5 Treos on Verizon -> all dead, 1 G1 on tmobile -> won’t sync/slow, Palm Pre dying next?about 2 hours ago from web

calling sprint, I think my 3 day old Palm Pre might be half dead (screen and keyboard die when I make calls)

Mobile post sent by 001brettbum using Utterz.  Replies.  mp3

I’m not talking about a ponzi scheme, I’m referring to situations that can include vendor financing or a bank bail out or even a hostile take over.

Motorola lost its way in the 1990’s.  Some claim that it never earned its way in the first place and that its resulting fall in late 1999 and early 2000 was less the result of the Internet Bust and more the result of the rest of the world learning that they couldn’t deliver on their promises.

Some might argue that Motorola made so many promises that they fooled themselves out of business.  They forgot that they were good at manufacturing.  Motorola got caught up in the ‘information technology’ boom and thought the future was in inventing and engingeering new products.

But all those products need to be manufactured and sold by someone.  Motorola sold off their manufacturing capability and became reliant on outsourced partners.  They did this in 2000 and 2001 under file fire sale conditions.  They ended up giving up a great deal of intellectual property and knowledge along the way too.

Since that time they have underperformed the major stock indexes.  Underperform is still better than going out of business. 

The question becomes why have they been able to continue?

They have underperformed but they have kept up with the growth rates.  That is somewhat surprising and speaks to some ‘heroic’ efforts by a cadre of Motorola employees attempting to save the company.

A company can only underperform for so long before they go bust or get purchased.  If you have bet on Motorola over the last seven years, you should be ashamed of yourself, for betting.  Investors still holding Motorola are making a mistake.

This company has lost its way, they have lost their identity and they have lost the ability to be honest with themselves about the big picture. 

Who is propping up this company?

That begs the question who is funding this pending train wreck?  Is it their vendors, is it their investors, bankers, pension fund holders or hedge fund managers? 

I don’t have the answer for that but they are about to get tested.  The ITC has ruled that Qualcomm’s chips are to be banned.  Motorola was counting on those chips to run the Razr 2. 

No Razr 2 success and Motorola might miss the 3G run that every other mobile phone maker has been preparing for since Motorola first started running into problems in 2000.

Next week gamblers betting on Motorola may have their bet called and they may be forced to decide on going ‘All In’.  Would you bet the farm on Motorola after 7 years of poor performance?

The ruling next week could prove to be very difficult for Motorola’s future, but if gamblers fail to bet the farm next week a shake up in Motorola could happen much much faster.

Motorola may not survive long enough to see the ‘Grinch steal Christmas Phones‘.

Knocking Down iPhone

As a 3G phone this phone will see download speeds up to 7.2Mbps in networks where HSDPA is deployed. That means that a 4mb song could download in 4 seconds and that is much faster than the download speeds an iPhone will see over WiFi.

It has a 5 Megapixel Auto Focus camera. The iPhone only has a 2 megapixel camera.

It has a slide down qwerty keyboard. The iPhone has a touch screen.

It supports Bluetooth and is about twice as thick as a slivr. Oh and it has a 2.78 inch color display that runs a full html browser or Flash.

Taking a Lump or two in Return

Its not WiFi compatible. Its setup for a much more advanced network use, but is not backwards compatible to older WiFi systems essentially(backwards compatible isn’t exactly the right phrase, but I am taking artistic license as this device has leap frogged over the old technology).

The WiFi issue will see that this phone may not be uber popular on college campuses, but the other features could definitely make this popular with twenty somethings or older business executives.

Technorati tags: Samsung, Samsung f700, iPhone killer, 3G