The big Palm Pre launch is Saturday and, as expected, the big boys of the mobile tech world have started publishing their reviews of the new smartphone. There are so many reviews, it’s hard to catch all of them, but we were up late in the night cruising the web to find as many as we could. The big news is that for the most part, they are all positive, something that is rare for a new smartphone like the Pre. Here are the major reviews of the Pre and a brief takeaway from each:
Walt Mossberg (WSJ): “All in all, I believe the Pre is a smart, sophisticated product that will have particular appeal for those who want a physical keyboard.”
David Pogue (NYT): “All right, then: the Pre is a spectacular achievement. Zero to 60 in one version.”
Engadget: “To put it simply, the Pre is a great phone, and we don’t feel any hesitation saying that. Is it a perfect phone? Hell no. Does its OS need work? Definitely. But are any of the detracting factors here big enough to not recommend it? Absolutely not.”
USA Today: “The first Palm Pre will certainly give the iPhone and other rivals a run for their money. To be sure, there are areas where it could improve: Bring on the apps.”
PC Magazine: “Overall, though, webOS is the most exciting mobile platform I’ve used in quite a while, and the Pre is pretty impressive, so it nabs our Editors’ Choice for smartphones on Sprint.”
Gizmodo: “The Pre may have hardware that’s worse than the G1/G2, but the whole package — the software and the hardware — isn’t bad. It’s good. It’s different. That’s something we can get behind. I can’t wait to see what Palm gets dealt in their next hand.”
preCentral: “So what’s our verdict on the Palm Pre? Simple: The Palm Pre is a stellar 1.0 product. Given Palm’s fractured and foible-filled history, the fact that they were able to pull all this off is nothing short of amazing.”
There are sure to be many reviews of the Pre to come, our own certainly, but the overall feeling is that Palm has done a very good job with the Pre 1.0. The most consistent negative in the reviews was the poor battery life, although a couple of the reviewers said it was on par with the iPhone 3G. Fortunately, the Pre has that user swappable battery, so that is not as big an issue with the Pre as it is on the iPhone. The keyboard was also complained about in some of the reviews, but we’ve said many times how personal a keyboard is, and this one is no different.
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