Overview
The Palm Pre 2 is a refresher of the Palm’s Pre range and it brings webOS 2.0 to the table but apart from that you won't be seeing a massive revolution – more a tiny evolution.
With the new version of webOS is 2.0 Palm promises that it’s much faster than ever and we have to agree, the upgraded processor does a great job of jumping between apps and pages in a flash.
Review
Functionality
The keyboard slides out with a firm press but it won’t be to everyone’s taste. Each of the 35 keys are neatly spaced but they’re tiny, and made of a sort of squishy plastic that feels a little strange under the thumbs.
The five-megapixel camera, which offers reasonable picture quality with its flash and geotagging, but adds absolutely nothing else in terms of features on the previous editions.
Pleasingly they've taken major steps to improve the search functionality, it's been re-named just type, and allows you start a search query and it will automagically search contacts, the web, phone data, texts and emails.
It’s a very handy way to move quickly around the phone’s features or find what you want, if you can get into the right headspace. To write an email, for example, you have to think of typing first, rather than finding and launching the email app.
Getting the cream of the crop of app developers on board has been a long struggle for Palm, and its app store has suffered as a result.
Apps
We had a good rummage and the big players were present — there’s a revamped Facebook app, for example. But there are still plenty of holes – no official Twitter app is a glaring omission.
We also missed having lots of great free apps to choose from, since the best selection were in the paid section.
The Pre 2’s Wi-Fi support and great Web browser makes for accurate and fast surfing. The phone had no trouble rendering sites correctly and quickly, and if you can’t find the apps you want, you won’t have any trouble getting your work done in the browser instead especially as the Palm Pre 2 is flash compatible.
The Pre 2 is more of the same from Palm, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Like previous Pre’s, this phone is fast and fun to use, with a finger-friendly and beautiful user interface that’s had plenty of little improvements.
We Say
The problem is that while Palm is polishing the Pre, other manufacturers are making massive steps with their new Android handsets, can Palm really compete with on handsets on Android? And will it ever offer a decent alternative to Apple’s ever burgeoning App store? It doesn’t appear so, so what next for Palm? There’s no doubt it’s a compelling alternative for business users, and in our opinion is more enjoyable phone to live with than a Blackberry, but as a phone that will offer you endless hours of entertainment – were yet to be convinced.
Gaj-it Rating 3/5
Check out a more detail review of the Palm Pre 2 at Recombu