Palm Pre

I purchased  Palm Pre (O2, UK) a few days ago, and I thought it would be interesting to post my impressions of it after having used most of the functions of WebOS, its operating system, and having played about with most of the built-in apps. I have been using the phone as my primary device during a few normal work/university days, which turned out to be an interesting test of the device’s hardware.

Let it be said at the outset that this is not a review: if you want that, have a look at the excellent Ars Technica pieces on the hardware and software aspects of the phone.

Read on for more…

Overall impressions

This is an extremely promising device, with a fundamentally modern architecture and interface metaphors appropriate for its multitasking, productivity-centric target audience. WebOS is not intended as an iPhone ‘killer’, and though it could fulfil some aspects of that role, I agree with Ars Technica’s assessment that WebOS and particularly the Pre are at heart messaging and presence-centric, rather than focusing on media and browsing.

Where WebOS really comes into its own is in efficiently managing streams of contact, whether they be through email, IM, SMS or other means, and making real-time updates a pleasure to keep up with. This is a true multi-tasking phone, but unlike my old phone (a Nokia E71 running Symbian S60 3.1), multitasking feels as natural and well-integrated as on any good desktop OS. But unlike a desktop OS, WebOS adopts new metaphors for multitasking and interaction – the ‘card’, which despite having a few teething issues, is much more appropriate for a mobile device than anything imported straight from Mac OS or Windows, and gestures, which grace almost every aspect of the operating system. Most importantly, the innovations in WebOS are not intimidating – they are something that people will actually use.

On the downside, the hardware lets the OS down slightly, due to poor battery life and possibly suspect build quality.

Hardware

The European version of the Pre reminds me of my old Nokia N95 8GB, in terms of its build quality and overall form factor. Palm got the following things right:

• Perfect shape and size, although the stock rear cover is a bit slippy so I recommend using the one shipped with the Touchstone (the wireless charging device).
• Amazing, beautiful screen, on which pixellation is almost a non-issue, and the rounded corners are absolutely appropriate for WebOS. It dims in dark environments by just the right amount, too.
• Excellent touch system, enhanced by a really good capacitative technology
• Notification light (built in to the ‘home’ button). A plus.
• Gesture area below the screen generally works very well.
• Good reception – I am able to make calls with no issues in an area where my E71 tends to switch aggressively between 3G and GSM, leading to momentary drop-outs
• Good phone call sound quality and volume
• Excellent music playback through the headphone jack – as good sound quality as an iPod Touch.
• What seems like very fast graphics hardware, which will surely come into its own as WebOS matures.
• MicroUSB port a very useful addition (see hardware drawbacks below)
• TouchStone wireless charging implemented beautifully
• Good camera with decent flash
• Takes standard headphones, and compatible with BlackBerry/iPhone headsets. Win.

But there are some compromises in the hardware:

• Battery life is not great, and could be a dealbreaker for some. WiFi eats the battery for breakfast. My initial tests show that a full charge, with moderate use and without using WiFi, lasts around ten to eleven hours before the Pre starts complaining. It takes a bit over twelve hours before it actually switches itself off due to low power. Note that this testing isn’t exhaustive, and I do live in a very poor area for coverage, which tends to increase power usage.
• The cover on the USB port is difficult to open, and is certainly going to get damaged and/or lost as a result.
• The back of the Pre sometimes gets warm under use. Though this seems to be partially related to use, sometimes it happens when the phone is idle. I expect this will be improved with firmware updates, and could improve the battery life too.
• The plastic that the Pre is made from feels hard-wearing but perhaps a little cheap.
• The stock back cover is not totally flush with the components underneath, leading to an occasional and slight plastic creaky noise when using the left side of the keyboard.
• The ‘home’ key, while very useful as a notification light, could have been replaced with a non-protruding software key and left more room for gestures (as is the case on the Palm Pixi, the next WebOS device)
• The keyboard is pretty good, but feels like a downgrade from the great one on my E71. I’m getting used to it quickly though.

Software

In general, I cannot say enough good things about WebOS. It’s clearly an early-revision product, but it already shows enough promise that with the right nurturing from Palm and the developer community, it could be a real knockout. Apart from the lack of 3rd-party apps, it’s already highly competitive with the iPhone OS, the latest revisions of BlackBerry OS and Android 1.5.

I should also say that my Pre is running 1.1.3 firmware, which is older than the current US revision (1.2.1). It’s a shame that Palm were not able to update the European Pres, but I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt that the issues fixed in 1.2.x are really fixed.

Notifications

• Beautifully done, simple as that. Every other phone should do notifications like this. Almost every app integrates with it seamlessly, and it’s easy to triage what you do and don’t need to look at. The music player swoops down into a simple set of controls complete with miniature cover art, the messaging app displays message previews.
• Most importantly, notifications are non-modal. You don’t have to stop what you’re doing and deal with them. Every non-critical notification disappears after a few seconds and shrinks into a tiny icon to let you get on with things.
• IMs and SMS messages can optionally be displayed as notifications even when the phone is locked. Very useful for at-a-glance message triage.

‘Cards’ – the task switcher

• Generally very good metaphor for interacting with different apps and screens. Gestures are well integrated and consistent.
• On the downside, sometimes it’s difficult to tell which activities are truly always-on, and which activities need a card kept open in order to work. For example, the IM client is always on even if you close Contacts, where it lives. But swipe away Tweed (the most popular Twitter client), and updates for it cease. Not unexpected behaviour given the integration of IM into the OS, but not very consistent from a UI point of view.
• Love the real-time updates of each card.

Browser

• Generally excellent, and well integrated into the system. A ‘real’ web browser, and about as fast as the iPhone 3G’s.
• Occasional issues with JavaScript-driven sites, such as Facebook’s x.facebook.com. Full Facebook is fine though.
• Integration of the browser into WebOS’ universal search system is very good. From a standing start, only one tap is required to look up a term in Google, Wikipedia or Twitter (not including typing the actual term of course).

Messaging app (IM and SMS)

• Generally superb. The threaded messaging is service-agnostic, meaning if you SMS someone, and they reply using IM, the messages will show up in one integrated conversation.
• Could do with supporting more IM networks. This is likely to happen soon as it’s based on libpurple, which supports more IM networks than… well, anything else.
• Can’t get it to connect to AIM. No idea why.
• Seems to support multiple accounts for the same IM network: nice.
• The ‘return’ key sends messages: the problem is, it’s really easy to hit accidentally. I’ve sent a few unfinished messages this way and had to revise them.

Email app

• Excellent. Fast, powerful and easy to use.
• The ‘all inboxes’ view, and the ‘favourite mailboxes’ system are really useful, and make browsing big IMAP accounts easy.
• Message composition is nicely done, and integrates with the notification system (the message being sent flows into the notification bar and is progress is visible while engaging in other tasks).
• Push IMAP works well but the Pre can occasionally drop mailbox connections without warning or notification, and not resume them for up to a couple of hours.
• Could do with a search mechanism (this is present in WebOS 1.2.x)
• I haven’t tested Exchange, so I can’t say anything about that.

Music player app

• Notwithstanding the fact that the Pre no longer works with iTunes, the music player is really quite good overall.
• The Cover Flow interface for skipping through playlists is great.
• Should have a podcast system whereby podcasts can be downloaded over the air, rather than relying on syncing with a computer.

Contacts/Synergy

• Great principle (integrating contacts across many cloud services into one address book).
• Problematic implementation: it’s difficult to sync straight from a desktop computer, and Synergy can present you with far too many contacts, many of whom may not want on your phone. With Synergy, it’s possible to sync all contacts from a service or none.
• Could do with supporting more services. LDAP directories and SyncML servers are high on this list.
• LinkedIn is also missing as a data source, but this is fixed in WebOS 1.2.1.
• I’ll say it again: SyncML should be implemented and integrated into Palm Profile.
• On the individual contact level, metadata support and the interface are excellent. WebOS supports names for phone numbers (like “office phone”, “US mobile”) which sync from the cloud.
• It’s very easy and clear how to do most tasks, like add a number from the call log to a new or existing contact.

Calendar

• Generally good, with a great interface. The separate day, week and month views show enough to be useful without clutter.
• But same issues as with contacts: ‘all or nothing’ syncing from the cloud. No direct syncing capabilities for desktop machines.
• No CalDAV support, presumably apart from with Google Calendar.

App Catalogue and 3rd-party apps

• Generally shows promise, though some of the apps present are just sophisticated re-workings of existing web apps.
• EverNote app shows the potential of the environment – it’s really very well done.
• Not really a shop yet in Europe – free apps only at this stage.
• 3rd-party apps often do not respect localisation preferences, for example erroneously showing dates in US formats, temperatures in Fahrenheit, and so on.
• The prospect of ‘homebrew’ apps graduating onto the main App Catalogue is very encouraging.

Miscellaneous

• The lock screen is really good – offers PIN security or a simple ‘swipe to unlock’ mechanism
• The quick launcher is nicely done – a swipe up from the gesture area accesses common favourites
• Speed generally good. The Pre only slows to a crawl in one circumstance: while installing an app. After that it returns to normal.
• Photos app should support more upload services, like Flickr. It presently only supports Facebook and Photobucket.
• Google Maps app does not have Street View, and sometimes craps out when no internet connection is available.
• Google Maps app shows distances in miles and feet, with no option to change it to Metric.
• No way of syncing memos and tasks to anything (apart from third-party solutions)
• No way to move the text ‘cursor’ apart from tapping at a particular place in a word. If part of the word has scrolled past the edge of the screen, you are forced to delete enough of the text so that you can see the bit you want to edit. Difficult to explain, but not so good. Fixed in WebOS 1.2.

Conclusions

So, in summary: “fix the niggly software issues, sort out the battery management, and you’re onto a serious winner”.

As for whether I’ll keep mine, I’ll see whether the battery life issue can be tolerated, and whether it looks like Palm will update the firmware to improve it. Extended batteries are beginning to become available, which will help. I have about ten days left in which to decide if the excellent software is worth this compromise, so we’ll see…

UPDATE (10th August 2006)- My antenna may no longer be needed soon!

UPDATE (3rd August 2006)- Better pics added – see bottom of post

(Or, to be more accurate, where 20ft of solid stone was blocking line-of-sight to the nearest transmitter.)

I just got a Nokia E61 on T-Mobile. When I signed up, I knew that the signal was really weak in the back of our house – the building forms a large square, and my bedroom faces into the centre of the square. I could get a signal in the living room (just), but wouldn’t it be great, I thought, not to have to go through there every time the phone rings. Although outside my house full-strength UMTS signals are readily available, the building’s construction prevents them diffracting into the internal ‘courtyard’.

All I needed was enough reception to receive and send SMS messages. I have home WiFi for data access, and I can potentially make calls over that too. I planned to aim for UMTS reception rather than GSM since: a) I didn’t know which GSM frequency to aim for and b) E series Nokia phones maintain their batteries better if they have UMTS signals (otherwise they constantly search for a UMTS signal).

I tried two car-type external antennas that I got via eBay – but unfortunately the gain on both of these was just too low (barely even compensating for the losses in the cable running to the phone). Also, neither were sufficiently directional to catch enough of the reflected signal to give me anything to work with.

The first step was the figure out what the extent of the problem was. I located my nearest T-Mobile base station using the government’s Sitefinder service. This also confirmed the frequency that the transmitter used – 2100Mhz. This is the standard frequency for UMTS (i.e. 3G) services in Europe.

By drawing a line between the transmitter’s location and my building in Google Earth, I was able to confirm the approximate distance and angle of the signal I needed to catch.

Buying a directional antenna wasn’t really an option – for a start, they are expensive – and anyway I couldn’t be sure that such an antenna would actually help. If it didn’t, I’d have wasted £60-£100.

However, in an incredibly geeky flash of inspiration, I realised that there really isn’t much difference in operating frequency between WiFi (around 2.4Ghz) and UMTS (2.1Ghz). And there are loads of different clandestine WiFi antenna ideas floating around the Internet. If I could find an easy-to-build directional WiFi antenna, perhaps I could reverse-engineer its dimensions and adapt it for 2100Mhz use.

So I set about the task. I decided on the biquad antenna type, as it’s fairly compact and easy to build, yet provides decent (10-14dB) gain and is quite directional. My primary sources of information were the many WiFi biquad and double bi-quad antenna tutorials and blog entries, such as: Engadget’s; Trevor Marshall’s tutorials. More can be found on my del.icio.us page for the tag ‘antenna’.

Both WiFi and UMTS operate in microwave frequencies – however, there’s a substantial difference between the middle WiFi channel (around 2.4Ghz – what people usually tune their WiFi antennas to in order to give a good amplification factor across the channel range) and UMTS’ 2.1Ghz. To my knowledge no-one has built a homebrew biquad UMTS antenna before, so there wasn’t much to go on. What also didn’t help was that most WiFi biquad tutorials just give you the measurements verbatim – not the calculations of formulae.

Having done no physics since school, my expertise in antenna building is poor to say the least. Still I did realise a few things about most of the designs floating around the Web: all of the dimensions were multiples of the wavelength at 2.44Ghz (122mm or 0.122m). So then, I just needed to figure out the multiplication factors in each case and I was sorted.

My list is as follows: (λ = wavelength)

• Emitter wire total length: 2λ
• Emitter ‘square’ side length: 0.25λ
• Emitter offset from reflector: 0.125λ
• Reflector width/height: 1λ
• Reflector ‘lips’ height: 0.25λ

So, at 2.1Ghz (2,100,000,000Hz – λ = 142.8mm),these dimensions are:

• Emitter wire total length: 285.6mm
• Emitter ‘square’ side length: 35.7mm
• Emitter offset from reflector: 17.85mm
• Reflector width/height: 142.8mm
• Reflector ‘lips’ height: 35.7mm

I made the reflector out of galvanised steel mesh and mounted an N-type connector to the centre. I made an N-type coaxial to FME coaxial cable to hook up the phone to the antenna. The emitter itself is made from the copper centre conductor taken from a length of high-quality satellite TV coaxial cable that I had left over. I used some scrap wires to connect the ends of the biquad ‘bow-tie’ back to the reflector, and placed some of the original dielectric insulation from the satellite cable back on the ends of the bow-tie’ shape to prevent the antenna from ‘shorting’ (in an RF sense). The emitter is then soldered into the N-type connector in a most slapdash style.

I didn’t have enough mesh to make the ‘lips’ of the antenna’s reflector match the measurements I’d planned, but made them the longest equal lengths that I could. In other respects, I managed to get the dimensions down to within a couple of millimeters of my target measurements.

High-quality cable is a must – I only used 50cm or so of RG-58 type cable to go between the phone and antenna, and unless you’re using something very high-grade (like LMR-400), I wouldn’t go too much further than that.

Presently the antenna is fixed and aimed in a pretty shoddy way – it’s fixed onto a set of ’3rd hands’ – and there’s a Post-It note there to provide (some) insulation between the stand and the reflector… I plan to investigate more permanent mounting options at some other date.

The biggest problem with the antenna is aiming it – but having said that once it does catch a signal, the phone holds on to it very well. I’m aiming it over the rootfops of the building, hoping to catch some of the signal’s diffraction.

I have no idea how much gain the antenna produces. When aimed correctly (which is very tricky), it gives me a consistent 1-bar UMTS connection, or a 2 bar GSM signal. It works better at night, holding on to a signal for many hours.

UPDATE (3rd August 2006): Here are some better pics. I’ve replaced the post-it note with some pieces of polycarbonate. The pics also show the cradle into which the phone sits, and the cable which links the antenna to the phone.

Also, admire my lovely lavender wall paint :S