If you’re a regular listener to TDL Mobile on TheDigitalLifestyle.com, you’ll know that I’ve been pretty keen to get my hands on a WebOS device for  while.  Happy as I am with my current FroYo Nexus One, and as bigger fan as I am of the iPhone (unbeatable in terms of user experience and stability in my experience), I’ve heard some great things about the Palm Operating System.  With all the signs pointing to a 2011 release of new WebOS hardware from HP, and given that an unlocked Pre is now available for under £250 I figured it a good time to bite the bullet. 

I ordered from Expansys in the UK, great price but terrible customer service.  After receiving an email to confirm my order, I regularly logged in to the “track your order” page on their site to witness the expected stock due date fluctuate wildly over a 2 week period.  After receiving no further correspondence I emailed Expansys asking them to cancel my order as I figured I’d source elsewhere; it miraculously shipped 3 hours later…! Pleased on one hand but confused on the other.  In part the speed was explained when I received my order and the touchstone I had also asked for was clearly not new (no box, and the sticky pad on the base already used).  Too tired to complain given the device was in good working order, I put it down to experience but will think twice before using Expansys again.

I’ve been using the Pre for a week exclusively and 2 things stand out.  Firstly, the community is unbelievably tight and very friendly.  A simple mention of my purchase on twitter brought floods of replies offering support and assistance if I required (none in a commercial way).  So immediately a tick for the community.  Secondly, whilst the hardware isn’t up to the standards I’m used to in the Nexus One and the iPhone 3GS / 4, it kinda fits well with the OS.  The whole pre experience for me can be described in 2 words: Laid back. If the iPhone is the polished recordings of Coldplay, and Android is the loud, in your face Paramore or Rage Against the Machine, the Pre is definitely the chilled out recordings of Jack Johnson.  Everything about the Pre screams Karma and, for that reason, waiting a few more seconds for an app to load doesn’t make it feel slow – it just backs up the feeling of a chilled out approach where getting there late is way better than never getting there at all.  For me, it works really well and overall my experience with the Pre in the past week has definitely been a positive one.

There are a number of things I use my phone for, and for the most part I’m able to do all of them to some degree on all of the 3 devices I’ve used in the past year or so.  But some do these things better than others and so I figured I would use this as the basis for my comparison.  So I’ve listed my main mobile activities in the following table.

Task

iPhone 3GS

Nexus One

Palm Pre

Voice Calls (remember those!) 1 1 1
Alarm Clock 1 1 1
Note Taking 1 1 1
YouTube 1 1 1
Web Browsing 2 1 (W) 2
Taking impromptu Photo’s 2 1 (W) 2
Video Playback 3 (L) 1 1
email 2 1 (W) 2
Calendar Access 3 (L) 1 1
Contact retrieval 3 (L) 1 1
SMS 1 1 1
twitter 1 1 1
Facebook 1 1 1
Kindle (Reading) 1 1 X
LBS (Foursquare) 1 3 (L) 1
RSS Reader 1 1 1
Podcast Listening 3 (L) 2 1 (W)
Sat Nav 2 1 (W) X
Picture Viewing, Flickr Access and uploads 1 1 1
Remote TV recording schedules 1 (W) 2 3 (L)
Access to cloud based files (Dropbox, Amazon S3, Skydrive, etc) 1 (W) 2 3 (L)
Blog Post Writing 1 2 1
eBay Acce
ss
1 1 3 (L)
Document Viewing and basic editing 1 1 1
Gaming 1 (W) 3 (L) 2
Wikipedia Access 1 1 1
MP3 downloads 1 1 3 (L)
Internet Radio 1 1 1
Remote Control 1 1 1
Reliability 1 (W) 2 2
GUI Experience 1 (W) 3 (L) 2

 

Phew!  Before I put this list together for this post, I had no idea I used my mobile for so many things.  Can’t wait for NFC technology, then we can add a few more items to the list but until then this pretty much covers it.  In terms of my scoring system, this is how I did it:

  • Scoring: 3points for 1s place, 2 points for 2nd place, 1 pt for 3rd place

  • Bonus of 1 point for an individual win

  • Deduction of 1 point for an individual loss

  • Deduction of 2 points for not having a feature

On this basis the results are as follows (drum roll please….)

1st Place: Nexus One on 87 points

2nd Place: iPhone on 86 points

3rd place: Palm Pre on 66 points

I knew the iPhone and Nexus One would be close.  I think the fact I’m a big user of Google services and the support for Flash in the browsing experience is why, for me, the Nexus One just shaded it. What surprised me a little was how far back the Palm Pre is on this basis, as my experience over the past week has been really positive.  When I analyse it, the lack of app support is where the problem lies.  Lack of Sat Nav (in the UK) and a Kindle app are the 2 main things I cannot do on the Pre that I have come to expect from a mobile device.  Neither is vital, as it is only occasionally that I use these features on my other devices.  But in the instances I would have used these functions but can’t (on the Pre), it’s annoying and makes me wish I had another device to hand.  I could have added tethering to the list, but as the Pre Plus supports tethering that wouldn’t be totally fair.

The sole individual victory for the Pre comes with listening to podcasts – DrPodder is a fantastic app the Pre community told me about (although it did initially lose all my feed settings!). Doggcatcher on the N1 is very very close, but the GUI in DrPodder just seems to slightly edge it. In both cases, having automatic OTA updates of episodes straight to the device beats the synchronising with iTunes approach or manual downloads on the iPhone hands down.

In terms of hardware having a physical keyboard is novel, but really no more than that.  I’m equally as comfortable on the virtual keyboard as a hardware one so far as mobile devices go.  I fact, if I were to add that into the table above, I would have the iPhone in first place with the Nexus One and Pre joint second.  That would mean the iPhone and Nexus One would tie for first place on 87 points, but I’m not sure the keyboard is so much better on the iPhone that it warrants such a result.  But for me the iPhone keyboard is the best keyboard I have ever used on a mobile device.  And I already down scored the Nexus One on blog post writing as a direct result of a poor keyboard, plus I’m sure if I searched and loaded a new virtual keyboard I could improve things.

I think the results above are pretty accurate.  I’m still in the honeymoon phase with the Pre, but as a permanent device over an extended period with no alternative, I think I would struggle purely as a result of the lack of app support.  I’m hoping the acquisition of Palm by HP may give it the platform to grow that would resolve this, as I love the WebOS experience (it’s incredible) and it could easily come out top for me with better apps. 

I’m also a huge fan of iOS and the iPhone experience. It’s just so slick and, for me, the most reliable platform I’ve ever used. But certain elements such as no flash and having to sync via iTunes remind me of the trade off.  I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t tempted by iPhone 4, especially as reliability counts for a lot to me and the Nexus One has fallen down on this a number of times recently. 

But on balance I think Android at this point just about offers me the best platform given my use and lifestyle.  But as we know, nothing is certain in the mobile space and that’s why I love it.  And for now I’m happy trying them all out.

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