Palm Pre

Last week I bought a Palm Pre. In Sweden they are not selling it yet. So I gambled and bought the unlocked one from Germany and hoped it would work with my Swedish operator. And sure it works. But not really out of the box, and not without pain.

But now when it is working it is a really nice telephone. OK, I do not have that much to compare with since this is my first touch screen smartphone. So the basic is great. And the phone has potential. And when you read the forums you will see that many people is working on getting most out of the fact that it is based on linux.

But the applications mostly look like they are early beta or alpha versions. Missing a lot of settings and functions for being really use full. OK, I only have version 1.1.3, since it is the latest supported for the GSM compared to 1.2.1 in ths US.

And also, the battery is not really strong enough for last the whole day, if you are staying connected with WiFi and 3G all day. I read somewhere that there was a new better battery available. But I have not checked that options more.

The real problem I have hade with the phone is the fact that the phone have a database over all operators in the world and there settings for 3G internet, MMS, etc. And of curse a database like that can never be complete. And that mean that the Swedish operators are not correct. So first thing that happened was that the phone think you roaming on 3G. And then it will not let you activate the phone. And since you can not activate the phone you can not choose any other settings. The way I got it working was to step out of 3G into where only have 2G coverage. There are other options to solve the problem. For instance use Meta-Doctor to write an updated/modified version of WebOS to the phone. Actually, for updating the operator database you only need to use WebOS Quick Install to change the database files after you update them outside the phone.

So if you need help or want to read more about the Palm Pre you can visit precentral.net or everythingpre. Another insight to WebOS and the internals is WebOS Internals.

I hope I soon have time to write some nice apps for the Palm Pre. I know one that I have not found yet, unless you run the emulator for palmos.

I recommend this phone, even with all the problems with it being a new OS/platform and all.

Note: WebOS 1.3.1 is soon out in US. Is it about speed. Or what else is new. I hope it will be released here in Europe directly too.