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Palm Pre returned, Sprint coverage and Android main factors

As readers know I waited in line in Hawaii to pick up my Palm Pre and then followed up with my one week thoughts on using the device. I am a fan of Palm devices and even though the device has some issues and very few applications available I would have kept it to test out and explore Palm's WebOS if it was released on a GSM carrier. I would probably have even forked over the $75 monthly fee to keep it as a Sprint device if I was able to get decent Sprint coverage where I live, work, and play. I could have made due with the lack of coverage at my house with the use of WiFi, but I was not seeing good solid coverage in most every area where I commute and travel. Some of these coverage issues may also be related to the device as I was seeing it bounce between no coverage to full coverage in places that were close together.
Written by Matthew Miller, Contributing Writer

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As readers know I waited in line in Hawaii to pick up my Palm Pre and then followed up with my one week thoughts on using the device. I am a fan of Palm devices and even though the device has some issues and very few applications available I would have kept it to test out and explore Palm's WebOS if it was released on a GSM carrier. I would probably have even forked over the $75 monthly fee to keep it as a Sprint device if I was able to get decent Sprint coverage where I live, work, and play. I could have made due with the lack of coverage at my house with the use of WiFi, but I was not seeing good solid coverage in most every area where I commute and travel. Some of these coverage issues may also be related to the device as I was seeing it bounce between no coverage to full coverage in places that were close together.

The Pre was a fun device to use, but there were a few aspects that limited me compared to my other devices. For example, I was unable to enter text into my ZDNet blog fields because the capacitive display kept thinking I was trying to pan on the display rather than scroll within a text box. Even though the keyboard was quite tight, I was able to adapt pretty well to it. I was quite disappointed in the looseness of the display on the device I bought and would have traded it in for a new one if I had decided to keep it. I like the WebOS better than the iPhone OS due to the multitasking capability and think it can rival the iPhone with further developments and support by application developers.

I am still very happy with my T-Mobile G1 and find Android to be more mature and functional for me personally. Even though the G1 hardware is a bit clunky, I can fly on the keyboard and LOVE the capability to assign shortcuts to every key on the keyboard. Even if a non-keyboard model is announced next week by T-Mobile I am sticking with the G1 until another better one with a keyboard is released.

This was my first real experience as a Sprint customer and I have to say I was treated extremely well at the Palm Pre launch and found the store employees helpful. Today when I returned the Pre, the representative was also very helpful and had no questions or concerns about me returning it or cancelling my Sprint service. He actually asked if I even had a chance to use it because I repackaged it just like it came and took extremely good care of it over these last 11 days.

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