Thumbs Up:

Palm Pre Plus has double storage capacity, improved features and double RAM as compared to its predecessor Palm Pre. The smartphone comes with inductive back cover for touchstone charging. The features

Thumbs Down:

The speakerphone volume is too soft. Doesn’t support landscape mode for keyboard. There is no support for V Cast Video and Music.

Inside the Trunk:

Technology: CDMA2000 1X
Band: CDMA2000 1X 1900/800
Phone design: Slider
Caller ID: Yes
Other features:

The Whiz Kid Speaks:

Palm Pre Plus is using Palm WebOS 1.3.5.1 as operating system. Palm is providing 16GB Flash memory inside the Pre Plus. It has 3.1-inch LCD display of 320×480 pixels resolution to support 24-bit (16.7 million) colors. The display illumination color is white. It has a feature of ambient light sensor.

Palm Pre Plus has 3-megapixels camera with flash. Its light source is a LED light. The basic feature set of Palm Pre Plus includes polyphonic ring-tones, text and multimedia messaging, instant messengers, call timer, calculator, reminder, calendar, alarm clock, voice recorder, speakerphone and vibrating alert. The supported wireless interfaces are Bluetooth 2.1 EDR and IEEE 802.11 b/g.

The additional features are accelerometer, A-GPS, mobile email, EV-DO (Evolution-Data Optimized), Mobile-blog, XHTML based browser and support for Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint. The Pre Plus also supports POP3/IMAP4/SMTP email protocols.

The supported video formats are MPEG4, H.263 video with AMR audio and H.264. In addition, the supported audio formats include eAAC+, AAC+, AAC, WAV, MP3 and AMR.

Palm Pre Plus has a built-in lithium ion battery that has a life up to 330 minutes talk time and 350 hours of idle stand by time. The accessories supplied with Palm Pre Plus are reference material, soft protective pouch, back cover, battery, wired stereo headset, USB cable and travel charger.

Razzle Dazzle:

There is little difference between Palm Pre Plus and its predecessor Palm Pre. The Pre Plus is 3.9 inches tall, 2.4 inches wide and 0.7 inches deep and weighs around 4.9 ounces. It has same slider design and pebble-like shape.

Inside Dope:

Both Palm Pre Plus and Palm Pixi Plus were unveiled at CES 2010. Palm Pre Plus was not a complete surprise at that moment. The Pre Plus is the better one between these two Palm devices. It features revamped keyboard, more internal storage and RAM, improved feel and look and better speed. Palm Pre Plus is using Verizon as service provider unlike its predecessor Palm Pre for Sprint. The Pre Plus has to face tough competition with Verizon’s various smartphones. The WebOS has also added multitasking capabilities and very easy user-interface that makes Palm Pre Plus a perfect device other than Windows Mobile and Android smartphones. The Pre Plus costs $149.99 with two-year contract from Verizon. This price include $100 mail-in rebate.

The Palm has made some changes in the phone design to improve the overall feel and look of the Pre Plus. Palm has removed the center knob that takes to Deck of Cards view. Now, you can simply swipe the finger from right-to-left to bring the previous screen. It provides a better-streamlined look to Pre Plus like Palm’s Pixi Plus.

Palm Pre Plus has revamped keyboard, but still small in size and some persons with larger thumbs will face initial problems. Palm has increased the key travel space and buttons are tactile, instead of being gummy like original Pre. Palm has also added a virtual keyboard with this physical one. We typed the text and dialed the numbers more accurately and faster than on previous Palm Pre.

The slider mechanism is solid on Palm Pre Plus. The phone’s front part does not move around when slider is closed. You can feel spring-like action when you slide to open the phone. The Pre Plus comes with a back cover to use it as touchstone charging dock.

The camera and its flash sit on the back of Palm Pre Plus. You will find silent ringer switch, 3.5mm headphone jack and power button on the top. Micro-USB port is located on the right side.

Palm Pre Plus has Palm WebOS 1.3.5.1 as operating system and its features include Deck of Cards multitasking function, Palm notification system and Synergy. The Pre Plus has inbuilt 16GB Flash Memory and out of which around 15GB is available to users. This should be enough for the users, but you might the expandable memory.

Palm Pre Plus has some inbuilt games such as EA Need for Speed Undercover and Sims 3. The Pre Plus provides excellent graphics for all the games including these two. Palm had announced to that it will release Plug-in Development Kit (PDK) in March. It allows game developers to make advantage of Palm WebOS. Some 3D games are available through Application Catalog and we would expect that more games would be released after PDK. We played Need for Speed Undercover during test and found that it worked perfect with the integration of touch-screen and accelerometer.

You can use “Deck of Cards” function to switch to other application while playing games or working on an application. The game or application will be paused there and you can open it again to resume the work or game.

Palm Pre Plus has new application – Palm Mobile Hotspot utility that allows, which turns Pre Plus into the mobile Wi-Fi router to provide mobile broadband connections up to five devices using Verizon’s EV-DO Rev. The application is free, but you have to purchase Verizon 3G hot-spot plan.

Palm Pre Plus has a 3-megapixels camera with flash for capturing photos. The video recording is not available. We captured some photos through it for testing. The photo quality was impressive and images were sharp with deep colors even in dark room.

Palm WebOS 1.4 is scheduled to release in February that brings more functionality and better performance including 10.1 Flash Player Beta plug-in, video recording and editing. After this release, not only Palm Pre Plus will get an advantage but other WebOS mobiles also receive this update.

We made some calls through dual-band Palm Pre Plus via Verizon Service. The call quality was good on our end with little voice distortion or background inference. Only one call cut out a few times and except that we did not get any dropped calls. The callers also received good call quality and they did not have any idea that we were using cell phone. The speakerphone call quality was not so good.  The voices sounded little tinny and volume was low even in quiet environments. It was difficult to hold a speakerphone call for long time. We did not get any problems while pairing Motorola S9 Bluetooth Active Headphones and Logitech Mobile Traveller Bluetooth headset with Palm Pre Plus.

Palm Pre Plus has a battery life up to 5.5 hours of talk time and 14.5 days of idle stand by time. We made a continuous 5.5 hours long call. However, the usage of mobile hot spot application and games will discharge the battery quickly.

Nitty Gritty:

Palm Pre Plus is improved WebOS device with better performance, features and design. The Pre Plus will serve well to Verizon customers who are looking for versatile features.

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