Precelebration is the root of all failure - Ole

So it has now been one week since I switched back to the Palm Pre as my everyday cellphone, and I am ready to declare victory.  I really like the phone in all ways - the screen is beautiful, the form factor is excellent (small and curvy, fits perfectly in a pants pocket), it has a real keyboard, the WebOS is cool, easy to use, and multitasks effortlessly, the applications are great, WiFi works, Bluetooth works, GPS works, camera works, etc. 

You will remember my previous experiment with the Pre ended in failure.  I was hopeful that my particular unit was defective, and so it has proven; while I can't say the Pre has amazing battery life, it is certainly good enough, by which I mean I can get up early in the morning and use the phone all day long without having to charge it.  At this point there is no thought in my head about switching back.  I was also pleased to receive the WebOS 1.1 update yesterday, which not only brought some pleasant enhancements to the various apps but also indicates Palm are not resting on their laurels, but will continue to enhance the software.

I also like the Pre accessories, the fact that it can be charged right off USB (so my laptop is my phone charger), and the Touchstone magneto-inductive charging "cradle" is really cool (with the included Clock application, it makes a great desk ornament :)  I'm thrilled with my Plantronics Pro Bluetooth headset; I realize the credit for that goes to Plantronics, not Palm, but the Pre supports Bluetooth well, in fact it has a nice feature I didn't know I wanted: the ability to switch easily between my car's Parrot kit or my headset while driving.

The Achilles heel of the Pre is said to be the Palm App Catalog, which presently has only a small number of third-party applications.  But this is only by comparison with Apple's App Store for the iPhone, which is of course a roaring success; on the whole the fact that there is an open SDK available for the Pre is a big plus.  Heck, I could even create my own apps for my own phone, how cool is that?