Palm Pre
 

I just upgraded from my Blackberry 8703 to a Palm Pre for my work phone.

Here's what I have to say:

1. Exchange 2007 Integration. If you have Exchange 2007 set up with Exchange Web Services/Outlook Anywhere (which is what Outlook Web Access turned into), the Pre can use your Global Address List from Active Directory as an address source. Since my company has a front-end application we use in front of Active Directory to make updating our phone, mobile phone, and pager entries easy, this makes finding people in our 6,400+ person organization really easy. I type in the last name and they come up in the Phone. Windows Mobile, to the best of my knowledge, doesn't pull this off nearly as slick as Palm does, and Blackberry definitely doesn't. The iPhone comes close, but not as good as this.

2. The browser. The browser is WebKit. It will do Flash 10 later in the year when Adobe finishes it. Apple won't let Flash on the iPhone as it will cut off a big revenue stream. Why allow apps that you can't sell on the phone?

3. The GPS. It isn't TomTom, but it works incredibly well and provides very good turn by turn instructions.

4. The size. It's smaller than my iPod Touch, but a little deeper. That's all I need to say.

5. Facebook integration. This device integrates my Facebook calendar and contacts and allows me to view them alongside my Gmail and Exchange contacts and calendars. Sweet.

6. Unified views of contacts, calendars, and mail from GMail and Exchange. That's very name. I can't get that with Windows Mobile or the iPhone.

7. Multiple Exchange Account Support. The iPhone and Windows Mobile do not have it, and Blackberry makes it really hard.

After the travesty that was the Treo and their Windows Mobile devices, they've managed to put every feature I needed into a device.

I've own Palm handhelds since they were still PalmPilots (including a Treo 700p that I use now). So I've had a front row seat to their long, slow decline into utter irrelevance. I've been very skeptical that they could pull themselves out of the death spiral, no matter how good their big savior phone was. But the Pre sounds like it might be up to the job.

I was very surprised they hooked up with Sprint, who also seem to be on the ropes, but then again they were in bad need of a lifeline too.

Having said that, I'll never have one of these kinds of phones till the data services come way down in price. I just can't justify what they're charging now.

Ive got the new iPhone 3gS and this thing totally rocks.

My phone and my car have replaced men and I dont seem to be lacking at this stage :)

Just read an article that TCO (over 2 years) of the top 6 smartphones is approx. $150/month (Jeebus!1) while the Palm Pre TCO is approx. $100/month. Consequently, I'm leaning towards the Palm Pre. Alas, it won't tag my emails with the cool "sent from a Blackberry" message.

Edit: link

No, it tags with something else
 

It tags with "Sent from my Palm Pre" instead.

However, I've been using this and my iPod Touch for our Exchange integration testing, and I've found the Pre to be a bit better than the iPod Touch due to the "Synergy" view, aka viewing all my inboxes at once. I can view GMail and Exchange at once, and that is good. One of my guys is viewing multiple Exchange accounts at once.

Oh yeah, Synergy would be great for me. I do have multiple Exchange and Gmail boxes that I use every day. Does it pull shared calendars?

Universal Search looks cool, too. If it doesn't find it something in my contacts, etc. it will offer a variety of search options, like Google Maps.