Palm's newest WebOS phone arrives as Palm Centro owners are looking for their next device. Find out if this is the next logical step in our Palm Pixi hands-on look.
When the original Palm Centro was released, it was easy to see the appeal of the device. It basically packed all the features and power of the current Palm Treo into a tiny shell. Even better, Palm and the major carriers offered the phone for $100 at launch, which hit a sweet spot with new buyers looking to step into the smartphone world. It was a resounding success, and probably kept Palm afloat into the future, as the aging Palm Garnet OS was already way past its time. Now, with the Palm Pixi, the company is hoping lighting will strike twice.
The Good
The Palm Pixi runs Palm's WebOS, and it's a great operating system. It's a dramatic improvement from the original Palm OS, though it keeps some of the same basic philosophies. You don't need to click too much to get to the important features, and the basic necessities, like the phone, contacts, calendar and messaging, are all quickly accessible with a swipe of the finger. The interface looks gorgeous, and though you can't customize it much, you can add bookmarks and shortcuts to make things more convenient.
The hardware design is also very good. It's much more usable than it looks. We don't like the look of the Pixi, with it's broad, flat face, but once you hold it in your hand and start typing on the keys, you'll quickly forgive the huge, empty spaces around the screen and the awkward, cut off curves of the device. The keyboard is fantastic, far better than we could have predicted, and it blows away other small keyboards on phones like the original Centro and the BlackBerry Pearl or Pearl Flip. It might even be better than the larger Palm Pre, even though it comes in narrower by about a column's length.
If you're thinking about stepping up to a modern smartphone, you're probably interested in connecting with your social networks, and no devices do this better than Palm's WebOS phones. The Palm Pixi can synchronize its contacts and calendar with numerous online services, including Facebook, LinkedIn, Google and Microsoft Exchange. When you log onto these services, the Pixi gathers all your friends and contacts together into one massive address book, and it's smart enough not to duplicate entries and make a mess. You'll see all your friend's pictures added to the contact list, and upcoming events show up in the calendar. Unfortunately, if you want to dig deeper, the Pixi doesn't have a great Facbook app like the Apple iPhone or the integrated mailbox of a BlackBerry device. But the Web browser is top notch, easily one of the best in the smartphone market, and it's able to handle the mobile versions of all your favorite social sites.
The Bad
Unlike its predecessor, the Palm Pixi does not pack all the features and power of the larger Palm Pre. The phone lacks Wi-Fi, which is a significant loss. Wi-Fi is a smartphone feature that you don't know you want until you've had a chance to use it. With Wi-Fi supplementing the Sprint network connection, the Palm Pre is a real Web browsing powerhouse. Without Wi-Fi, the Palm Pixi chugs along, drawing pages slowly. E-mail and messaging were hardly affected, though the first time we synchronized our contacts from Facebook and LinkedIn on the Palm Pixi, it took quite a bit longer than we expected.
Even worse than the lack of Wi-Fi, the Palm Pixi is a very sluggish, underpowered phone. While the Palm Pre is as fast and capable as the best competitors on the market, the Pixi is hobbled by a slower processor. When you're using the phone, you'll definitely notice the lagging performance. Apps take a long time to open, sometimes up to 30 seconds or more. When you have multiple tasks running, the phone can grind to a halt and stop reacting to your touch input. Every single app seems slowed, from the Web browser to even less complicated tasks like the calendar and contacts list. When browsing contacts, for instance, we only saw one letter's worth of names at a time, then had to wait while the Pixi filled in the next section. This never happened on our Palm Pre. On a positive note, the Palm Pixi starts up faster than the Pre, coming to life in about 1.5 minutes, while the Pre can take much longer to wake.
One thing we've learned from using the Palm Pre for months is that it can be sluggish at the worst times, like when we're trying to answer a call. On the Pixi this was also a problem, and when we had multiple apps and a few notifications already on deck, the Pixi was not quick enough to respond to the sliding gesture you'll have to make to answer a call. We can get past waiting for the Web browser to open, but when we start missing calls, that's a less forgivable offense.
The Ugly
The Palm App Market is admittedly immature still, so it doesn't pack the numerous apps and games of a more mature store like the iPhone, BlackBerry or even Windows Mobile devices have. You can count apps in the dozens, not hundreds. But more apps aren't important if you pack a few great downloads, and in this area the Palm Pixi comes up short again. We're big fans of Tweed for Twitter, which is as good as most any dedicated Twitter app on other platforms. But the Facebook app is an embarrassment, as it lags far behind even the mobile Web version of the site. On the iPhone, there's an app for almost every feature under the sun, but on the Pixi, if it isn't available on the Web browser, you probably can't manage it.
While WebOS is a dazzling interface, even on the larger Palm Pre it isn't very forgiving if you're off target. Translated to the smaller, lower resolution screen on the Palm Pixi, this becomes more of a problem. Tapping Web links is difficult without zooming in, so it's nice that the Pixi has multi-touch gesture support for pinch and zoom motions. But it's difficult to access other features, especially the drop down menus in the upper corners of the device. Plus, that small screen makes reading small type on the Web tough, but if you zoom in too much, you can't fit enough text on screen at once to make the browser useful.
Palm is also offering some cool accessories for the Palm Pixi market, but they've priced these extras too far out of reach. We've seen stores selling the Pixi for as low as $25. We doubt someone who just paid $25 for a phone is going to drop another $70 on an induction charger like the Palm touchstone. It's cool to charge without wires, but not that cool. Even worse, Palm is celebrating their artistic replacement back covers for the Palm Pixi. We've seen them in person, and they are very refined and stylish, but again they cost $50, which is twice the price of the phone. If you love the Pixi form factor and have cash to burn, you'll like these cool and stylish accessories, but if you were drawn to the Pixi for the low price, you'll probably stay away, at least for a little while.
Who should consider it?
If you've been using a Palm Centro and you don't mind the lack of Wi-Fi or the low resolution camera on the Pixi, it's worth checking out. The design and hardware are even better than the Centro, and besides the wealth of apps available for the original Palm platform, it's as easy to use and just as convenient as your old Palm. It's also much, much slower. The original Palm OS was dated when the Centro came out, but that meant it was snappy, even if it was ugly. The new Palm WebOS is beautiful, but you'll be staring at that beauty for tens of seconds waiting for the next app to open, or you'll stall while trying to browse your long address book. That's not very Palm-like.
If you've been using a BlackBerry device and you're looking for something more slick, in some ways the Palm Pixi is the exact opposite of a BlackBerry. While BlackBerry relies on heavy, textual menus that can confuse and obscure important features, the Palm WebOS uses almost no menus at all, and the features are intuitive and easy to access quickly on the fly. You sacrifice the great messaging and e-mail handling of the BlackBerry, as well as the superlative battery life, but the Pixi makes up for it with a far better Web browser and better contacts management. Still, that sluggish performance might get you down.
If you've never owned a smartphone before, the Palm Pixi is worth a look. The gesture controls may seem difficult at first, but once you get the hang of it you'll be flicking and swiping all over the phone without a second thought. If you're coming from a Samsung Rant or similar full QWERTY phone, you'll appreciate the smarter e-mail handling, and the Palm Pixi's keyboard will delight most dedicated typists.
Would we buy one?
We've been harping on the performance problems that plague the Palm Pixi, and they are significant. It can be a frustrating experience using the phone, especially when you start to lose calls or you can't find the information you need in a hurry. The WebOS is a great interface design, but it's tough to recommend the Palm Pixi because the hardware just can't keep up with the flashiness. The Palm Pre, on the other hand, has no trouble handling multiple tasks and only rarely sees a performance hit in any tasks, though it does happen occasionally. With Pre prices dropping rapidly, it might be a better time to pick up Palm's flagship device instead. It's not much larger than the Pixi, and when it's closed it's even shorter and easier to grip. We also can't recommend the Pixi to anyone coming from a more powerful smartphone, like an original Apple iPhone, though if you're stepping up from an early tablet competitor like the Samsung Instinct, you'll love the Palm Pixi for its interface and thoroughly modern social integration.
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