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Any Former Palm Pre Owners? Comparing Features

I got my evo yesterday. I was on my third pre (thank god for the device insurance). I am hoping that the build quality of the evo is better. I think it will be.

Miss:
gestures
keyboard - i could type very fast on it...sure i'll get used to the virtual one though
cards

I think webos is great. However, it is designed to mimic the usability of iphone (basically designed so that moms can use). I am looking forward to a more open environment with android.

So far, my battery life has been great with the evo compared to the pre. The screen is just amazing.
 
Miss:


  1. Physical keyboard.
  2. The tweaks / hacks. i.e. Battery life as a Percent as opposed to sifting through 50 different widgets that still don't modify the stock battery symbol. Also miss other tweaks like roam control and other OS additions/subtractions that don't require rooting/extra apps/widgets. Just Preware and/or WebOS Quick Install...The WebOS hacks/apps developed for two devices, as opposed to many, so you know they'll work.
  3. WebOS Pandora was very smooth. Audio fade in/out with alerts, light up screen when song changes, ability to go back and thumb up/down songs, no glitches, etc.
  4. Native SMS interface. Smoother, lit up screen when you got a text. No weird MMS compression or slideshows.
  5. Notifications. Could just tap, swipe away on Pre instead of sliding the bar down, and clearing on Android.
  6. Synergy. Combined email inboxes, etc...
  7. Card interface, gestures, app switching, no resource "mysteries," just swipe it away...

I'm still new to Android, and I'm finding ways to tweak it to my liking, like Handcent for SMS. I really did like WebOS, but I can't see myself going back after using the EVO.
 
Only day-to-day things I really miss are

- The card interface (not too bad to get over but I still liked it)

- Threaded conversations between the same people across multiple channels (one messaging app for SMS, GChat, etc. and combined in one thread)

- Single email client got push email from both Gmail and Exchange. Now I seem to have to use two apps to get push for both.
 
i miss the to many cards errors, they were awesome.... really though, multi tasking was first class on it, notifications were great and a touchstone in my truck is sorely missed.... palm shoulda rolled alot of those guys and got the webos internals fellas over there, oh well, my evo rocks
 
I miss Synergy, the threaded conversations across gtalk, facebook, e-mail, sms, etc. I miss the notification system (just heard today the guy that did webOS' notification system is now a part of the iPhone team). I miss the touchstone, the gesture area (not only the back gesture, but being able to pull the dock up from the area to launch whatever was there. I miss cards as the multi-tasking system. I miss the general look and feel of webOS. I liked the color scheme in messaging, the fonts used, etc.

There was a lot I liked about my pre, but there were a lot of downfalls too. I don't miss abysmal battery life, lack of real developer support, cheap flimsy hardware, no camera or microphone API, lack of an on screen keyboard (there was a homebrew for this but it was awful), lots of other things too.

I think webOS has a lot on Android (my personal opinion) but it's still too immature a platform to compete right now. The Evo is amazing, and Android is constantly getting better. I've said it in other threads, I can't wait to see how webOS devices are in a year. With HP behind them, they could really become great. For now I like my Evo a lot.
 
i am thinking of making the switch except all the stores are sold out. i have enjoyed the pre, things are just moving too slow. Android has an Audible app i have been missing for a year, so it is on to android. I have enjoyed the wireless tethering and hope that it will be as easy on android.

I will miss treocentral, wonder if i will ever be back, thought i was done after treo650, but you never know

i will miss the awesome web os developers who made things palm should have like music players with bookmarking and preware and 100's of themes
 
cooper1010 said:
swipe, notifications, and the oreo effect. i like oreos.

oh, and how the pre would pause media playback when you pulled out the headphone/aux cable. i liked that. evo doesn't do it.
Click to expand...
It pauses for me on the Evo. I thought maybe I was just nuts, but I just plugged in some headphones, started an MP3, and then unplugged the headphones and playback paused.

Now this was using the HTC MP3 player widget ...
 
The only things I miss are notifications and the card feature. I liked having an individual card for each app and swiping it up to get rid of it.. but I've moved on. It's been a great year with the Pre but I could only take so much of the "too many cards" alert.

I <3 my Evo.
 
jrstinkfish said:
It pauses for me on the Evo. I thought maybe I was just nuts, but I just plugged in some headphones, started an MP3, and then unplugged the headphones and playback paused.

Now this was using the HTC MP3 player widget ...
Click to expand...

hmmmm...i think i was using the sirius app. maybe that's different.
 
Only feature of the Pre I miss is hitting the button and swiping up to close a program.. other than that what I DONT miss is:

How long it takes to charge the pre to get it to boot (10 minutes easy with that stupid red/white chord looking thing)

and how long it took for the dang thing to boot up...

Sometimes up to 25 - 30 minutes from plugging it in in my car...

On my Evo.. I plug it in and hit power and it turns on.. takes about 30 seconds MAX to boot up.. I love it!
 
Oh if we're bitching about the Pre ...

1. Dreadful battery life. You could never tell if you'd get 8 hours or 2, and what you did with it had no bearing on that number.
2. Finicky GPS. I don't know how many times I'd be in Sprint coverage, clear sky, no obstructions, *really* needing driving directions, and the damn thing could not get a GPS signal.
3. Poor build quality
4. Glacial boot time
5. Randomly powers down (mine did at least)
6. Basically let me down several times when I needed it the most, mainly when I'm in a new city and need directions. Whip it out of the pocket and ... it's shut down from a dead battery or from #5.

After a week with the Evo, and getting used to it, the only thing I seriously miss about the Pre now is the touchstone. The app switching took me a while to get used to, and it's not quite as slick as the WebOS interface, but it's not enough to make me miss that hunk of junk known as the Pre.
 
RIP PreCentral....


Its a shame whats happening to the WebOs team.....seems like the founding fathers of it are jumping ship. Could be due to whats ahead with HP, and not wanting to work with them....or maybe Palm really is dying for good.
 
evotitans said:
RIP PreCentral....


Its a shame whats happening to the WebOs team.....seems like the founding fathers of it are jumping ship. Could be due to whats ahead with HP, and not wanting to work with them....or maybe Palm really is dying for good.
Click to expand...

Yeah I feel a little bad too.. it coulda been so much better.. but they went skimpy on the hardware and it died.. the Evo came and knocked it out of the park...

RIP Palm ... It was a good effort but everything dies at some point...
 
that is too bad for webOS.. My bro loves his Pre.

Palm Pre: Great idea + bad implementation = fail
iphone: good idea; great implementation = win
EVO: Great idea; good implementation = win
 
The card interface was awesome. It's out of the box UI blows android sense away.

That said, the evo is awesome. I just wish multitasking was a few less finger taps.
 
evotitans said:
RIP PreCentral....


Its a shame whats happening to the WebOs team.....seems like the founding fathers of it are jumping ship. Could be due to whats ahead with HP, and not wanting to work with them....or maybe Palm really is dying for good.
Click to expand...

Yea it is a shame. I still have my launch day pre but I'm real close to getting the evo. Just waiting for some of the first run batches to clear the air so I can assure myself of no hardware issues. We all know what happened with the pre's first run. I was one of the lucky ones but we all heard the horror stories on precentral.
 
I just came from a Pre and when I first got it, I loved it. Then the horrible battery life, lack of apps and settings, and the cheap hardware just made me dislike it. I love my Evo its the best phone I ever had. One thing I will miss about the Pre is the multitasking of cards that was the best feature.
 
Pretty much agree with everything here. I thought I liked the Pre until I got this phone. I do miss the gestures and the multi-card views. Some other small things:
1) the button at the top to easily put on vibrate (yes, I found the app to do that on homescreen, but still)
2) I liked the calendar view (google cal strangely enough) better on the Pre.
3) Notifications

I'm sure there's some other things, but overall the Evo blows Pre away. And yeah, I never realized how tiny Pre was until I got Evo.
 
bandagraph said:
The card interface was awesome. It's out of the box UI blows android sense away.

That said, the evo is awesome. I just wish multitasking was a few less finger taps.
Click to expand...


Not that many taps, just hold down the home button anytime and it will pull up your 6 most recent apps, then pick the app you want.

Saying that, I do kind of miss the card system, though I never kept many, if any, open due to it bogging down the phone so much. The only thing I don't like about androids multi-tasking is how it will knock the 6th app off the list when you open another new one.

The window system on the web browser is sweet though.
 
I was flipping through my Pre recently to check a couple things, and it was almost laughable how small that screen is compared to the EVO. So tiny.
 
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