Henry Balanon

I had a chance to play with the Palm Pre Plus and Palm Pixi Plus from Verizon Wireless.  I carried it around for a few weeks.  I integrated it into my lifestyle.

And I was really happy with them.

Here are a few thoughts:

I love the form factor for the Pixi.

I didn’t like the Palm Pre when Sprint released it because the build felt plasticy.  The Pre Plus from Verizon still feels plasticy.  Not the case with the Pixi.  It feels solid.  I like the Pixi better than the Pre because of this despite the speed factor.

The only solid-feeling slider phone to me has been the Motorola Droid. Sidenote: Yo Droid so heavy that when it bungee jumps, it brings down the bridge too.

The mobile hotspot aka the MiFi Killer.

The mobile hotspot is great but I think it costs a few bucks a month to have it.  If I used this phone, I wouldn’t need to carry my MiFi around.  I’d have to carry an extra battery around if I used it for MiFi AND a smartphone.

The user interface is pretty intuitive.

Hit a button to switch applications and swipe to change.  Toss it away to close it.  Swipe back and forward to navigate through each app.  It’s a better way of task switching compared to the iPhone and Android.  It reminds me of the Mac OSX’s Expose.

The web browsing is better than the iPhone’s web browsing (according to my wife).

I disagree with my wife but it’s worth mentioning.  She liked web browsing on the Palm a lot better than the iPhone.  She’s used both the iPhone and Palm extensively.  I might just be biased here since I’m an iPhone app developer.

The apps are meh.

I’ve tested a handful of apps that feed my social media needs for Twitter, Facebook, and Foursquare.  They’re usable on the Palm platform and the get the job done.  BUT all of them have superior counter-part apps on the iPhone.

Most people won’t be able to draw this conclusion since they either have an iPhone OR an Android OR a Palm.  I happen to have all three.  I’m like the Asian kid from the Goonies with all the gadgets I carry around.

The iPhone is the best mobile device but it’s attached to ATT.  For Verizon, I’d probably pick the Palm over the Android.