Palm Pre Plus for AT&T Review

Introduction:

Almost close to its one year official launch anniversary, the US market is now witnessing its very first official GSM webOS smartphone with AT&T's Palm Pre Plus. And now that Palm's world has solidified ever so much since HP's buyout, it seems like a good time for a webOS-powered handset, as we can expect a significantly better support for the platform. However, the Palm Pre Plus for AT&T is almost identical to the one Verizon's been offering, while the long wait may look to sour webOS's arrival on the lineup of the second largest carrier in the country. It'll also be interesting to see how AT&T and Palm will market the device in the wake of their rush of upcoming Android devices and eventual unveiling of the fourth generation iPhone. The biggest concern right now seems to be the initial $149.99 on-contract cost, which may be viewed as over-bloated in the wake of Verizon's hasty drop, but AT&T is thankfully packing for free the Touchstone charging dock for a limited time.

The package contains:
•    Palm Pre Plus
•    Wall Charger
•    microUSB cable
•    3.5mm stereo headset
•    Carrying Pouch
•    User Guide

Design:

Aside from the re-branded AT&T logo found on the mirror surface behind the display, the smartphone is an exact facsimile to the Verizon variant. We still adore the clean look of the device that radiates like a polished stone as it clearly doesn't seem too bulky when compared to other high-end touchscreen devices out there. Construction remains to be the same as there is no wiggle to the touchscreen when it's opened up versus some of the reports witnessed with Sprint's version. Of course the glossy piano black finish of the device accentuates its appeal, but it is extremely prone to finger prints and smudges. Finally, the same soft touch matte rear cover is found with this one as it works ingeniously with the Touchstone for some wireless induction charging.



You can compare the Palm Pre Plus with many other phones using our Size Visualization Tool.

Continuing with the same trend as before, the 3.1” touchscreen with 320 x 480 pixels resolution is absolutely gorgeous thanks to its support for 16.7 millions colors that gracefully captures the essence of vivid colors. Thankfully, the display is bright, crisp, and detailed enough to work well outdoors in even direct sunlight. Accompanying your touches with a ripple-like water effect, the touchscreen is quite responsive as we had no issues with it recognizing our presses. The clean look of the surface stands out even more thanks to the inconspicuous gesture area that perfectly glows and moves for certain notifications.

The feel and placement of the other buttons on the phone and microUSB port are exactly where we found them with the Verizon Palm Pre Plus while the 3-megapixel camera with flash and speaker phone are found on the rear. You can remove the back cover by simply pressing the latch on the bottom of the phone to give you access to the battery. Finally, the Palm Pre Plus is loaded with the same 16GB of internal storage as we've seen previously.




Typing away on the 4-row QWERTY keyboard can still prove to be difficult for individuals with larger fingers, but the better tactile response is an improvement over the original one on Sprint. There really isn't anything different with this one and Verizon's as the layout and color of the keys are identical.

Software and Features:

Packing on the latest build of the platform, webOS version 1.4.2, the experience still proves to be refreshing thanks to its stellar visual implementation and functionality of having to juggle multiple apps at once. Although it may still not be accompanied with the mind bending peppy speeds witnessed on some of the high-end Android offerings out there, the decent speed of navigating on the platform is still a pleasure without much required wait. As we mentioned earlier, this version lacks the Mobile HotSpot feature, which might be missed by some, but it's definitely not a deal breaker.


When it first rolled onto the scenes, the Palm Pre proved to be a hit in the web browsing department where it clearly catapulted itself into the spotlight – challenging the iPhone's Safari. The experience is still up there thanks to its ability to load pages swiftly, perfectly render images & text, utilize zoom gestures, and smooth scrolling. However, it's still missing a long press feature that could make opening links in another card easier – which can be accomplished by holding down the function button on the QWERTY while pressing a link. By no means does it ruin the overall experience, but over time we'd like to see some additional new implementations to complete it.


Both the music and video apps are still more than adequate for general use. Music playback was decent to say the least as it'll be more than enough when you're trying to listen to some tunes through the built-in speaker, but it's still accompanied with some high pitched tones when set to the loudest volume which can seem too straining. The Palm Pre Plus fared well in playing videos without any lag associated with it.


Nothing too out of the ordinary with the camera application as you're greeted to a bare bones interface, but you'll be able to take both photos and videos quickly. You can clearly get a vibe on how far webOS has evolved since its first arrival as you're now given the option to upload content directly to popular sites like YouTube and Facebook. The rapid nature of the Palm Pre Plus continues as you can continually take images in succession with little pause in between. Image quality from the 3-megapixel camera is acceptable as there are good details in the shots with realistic colors. Capturing images in low lit conditions results plenty of grain and noise, as the camera's flash did very little in doing anything to the shots.




With a set video capturing resolution of 640x480 pixels, recorded videos on the Palm Pre Plus were more than joyful with a constant 29fps rate. There is enough detail in the video to make it stand out while recorded sounds re also on-par with its performance. Additionally, you can edit videos directly on the handset before shuttering them away to one of the supported services it offers.

Performance:

When conversing on the phone, callers stated that our voices sounded normal without much distortion. However, the same cannot be said about our side as we found a lot of static sound that was clearly audible while voices sounding a bit robotic at the same time. The experience was even worse when we switched to the speaker phone due to the fact that voices coming from it sounded extremely squeaky and made it difficult in hearing our callers.

The Palm Pre Plus was able to retain a solid connection to AT&T's network without any dropped calls during our testing. When compared to the iPhone 3GS, the amount of bars remained the same on both devices.

Heavy users will obviously require recharging the Palm Pre Plus whenever they get a chance, but light users can expect to last an entire working day before requiring a connection. After setting the display to its middle brightness setting, we were able to go approximately 15 hours on normal usage before we started to get a notification to connect it to a power source – more than enough for the average user. Palm has the phone rated for 5 hours of talk and 350 hours of standby time.

Conclusion:

The obvious things come to mind as we know that this is almost the same device that was unveiled well over a year ago – which is undoubtedly in the later stages of its product cycle. Sure we've seen some improvements with webOS that showcase the commitment in balancing the platform, and it's evident that all the steps have been gradual – but consumers are surely expecting to see a major overhaul some time soon. You really can't help comparing it to Verizon's version, which trumps AT&T's one, because it offers free Mobile HotSpot on-board and has a better price. Unfortunately, AT&T's product doesn't provide anything refreshingly new for its webOS starved customers. And with the steep $149.99 price tag associated with it, there are  few reasonably strong points in going with this device – even with the inclusion of the Touchstone charging dock for free. When that limited promotion ends, consumers will easily see the value with Verizon's version and gravitate towards it – that's unless AT&T decides to match it in every way.