after THREE frigging months of waiting and follow ups, Globe Telecoms finally delivered my loyalty reward! Had I not threatened them to terminate my account, they would seem to be in a habit of telling clients that their accounts are on the process of assessment and that there are no  handyphones available yet, and will keep on suggesting to avail their rebates instead of a Handyphone unit.

Two to three days after, I got another call inquiring for my reason/reasons for terminating my account and after hearing my complaints, A NOKIA E63 was suddenly brought out to be their available unit! Upon hearing that, My tone suddenly..well..somewhat became more relaxed and started to get anxious to get my hands on the new phone though a Samsung Jet or a Nokia E72 was exactly on my dream list.  That night, I kept on checking reviews of the E63 and found it a very interesting business phone.

The only dilemma that I have right now is that I’m already using a PALM CENTRO which is also a QWERTY phone like the E63 I would prefer to keep only one QWERTY phone since I need a much simpler phone for texting while I’m driving, but both phone’s a KEEPER! The nice user interface of the E63 plus the wifi is a thumbs up!and I must admit, I started to fall in love with the sleek appearance of the E63. But the  SMARTPHONE abilities of the PALM CENTRO with regard to Calendar Schedules where you can create several categories whether it’s business,personal..etc., and create a post on each particular schedule and its touchscreen feature is something the E63 couldn’t beat as a Business Phone.

After Sony quits making Clie, there’s no Palm device with first party Japanese capability. That country is quite a closed market anyway, so it seems that companies just assume no need to cater the need of minority using it abroad.

There are several solution in Japanizing your Centro. Most of this are paid solution, such as JapOn and J-OS.

Both cost a hefty price tag, so I look for cheaper solution. If you have Hong Kong device, or those marketed for Asia Pacific, the Centro is shipped with preference panel application called CJK-OS.

The application is made for the large population of Chinese though, so Japanese is not so well supported. It supports Shift-JIS and EUC encoding. But sadly, Unicode is not one of the encodings supported so website in Unicode will still looks like a mess.

To input Japanese text, it’s better to use other programs. The one I use is called POBox FEP. It’s a preference panel application that creates pop-up box while typing to select the Japanese text to be entered.

The problem I encounter here though. I forgot which version I got (download from office and delete the file) and when I re-download it to install after doing device reset, I can’t send Japanese text in SMS anymore.

Typing in other applications such as Mail or Memo still works.

Probably version, or other problem I didn’t realize yet. Anyone know the solution for this

Arguably, the best thing about the Centro is its price. In the states, with subsidized by operator it would cost USD99 only. In other countries like Indonesia, the device is sold in unlocked version.

But Palm OS is not updated for long time, contributing to its retro UI. Windows Mobile become more popular, and then Blackberry and then the whole touch screen device hype. As something that doesn’t sell well, common sense ruled it’s a bad idea to keep stock. Getting Palm device such as the Centro is difficult.

In Indonesia, the price of a new unit could went close to USD 300. But if you’re not having any problem with second hand unit, you could find it in online forum for example. The price floats around 1.7~1.9 million Indonesian Rupiah, just haggle with the others. I got mine with Rp. 1.75 million, which is still a bit expensive for the condition.

A thing to be remembered though. As second hand device, the outer appearance might be smooth (there’s many peoples keeping their device smooth as new to get better resell value), but the battery is used. I’m a light user, but the battery drains quite quickly. If you’re a heavy user, it’s a good idea to start looking for replacement battery also.

Pick out the battery, press the call disconnect button until the device finished loading (Palm logo without progress bar). Release the button and confirm by pressing up.

Decided to do the reinstall today. Just like when reinstalling PC, spent last night gathering and organizing the setup for applications I would need. After that, everything goes like a breeze. The applications installed back smoothly.

Before doing the first Hot Sync, I make sure to move away the old back up folder in my computer, but copying back the PIM folders (Contact, Calendar, Tasks, Memo). I want to start out with clean preference and applications again. Of course application settings would be gone, but I had no critical information there.

After reinstalling, free space in the device is 20/68.8 Mb, before moving Docs 2 Go files to the storage card. I’ve downloaded PowerRUN too, so perhaps, after this I should try moving files to the storage card to save space.

First day and already fatal complaint?

Not exactly the Centro’s fault. When trying TealScan application, it seems like I accidentally erased several files that saved the system preference. Thanks to this, every time I reset the device, preference returned to it to the default values.

I hasn’t got a new Bluetooth driver for serial connection to my 64 bit Windows desktop, so until then I guess I should make inventory list of the apps in my unit and get ready for a hard reset.

This site is… my exploration of my phone, the Palm Centro. Originally I thought I’ll just keep it for a while because of the rumour about Palm Pre GSM release on September, which now seems like a misguided rumour.

And that means I’ll be playing with her longer. Consider this as a self-justification for my choice. I want to try a lot of thing using it, so having a place to write it down sounds like a good reason.

More thoughts later on.

So I’m all ready to upgrade my little mini from Tiger to Snow Leopard and then I get wind of this. Yes, I’m still very happy with my Centro, thank you. Truth is, I should have been running Missing Link all the time but I never got around to it. While Missing Link is reporting some problems with Snow Leopard compatibility, I’m sure they’ll fix that stuff. Even if they don’t, I don’t use the compromised features.

AppleInsider | Apple drops Palm OS HotSync conduit from Snow Leopard.

Felicidades a mi

WordPress me tiene como blog #1 en mi entrada de la Palm centro. yei!!!

I’ve updated my review again.  In case anyone cares. I figured I’d give up and repost the bulk of it here, rather than linking to the previous posts.

• Calendar – My previous experiences with a smartphone begin and end with the Palm Centro.  The thing I like (and need) most about it is the calendar.  I work, I have 3 kids in all kinds of activities, and I have an active social schedule.  So the calendar feature is a necessity. And this is one of the biggest problems I have with this phone.  My Centro calendar data did not transfer properly.  After much fooling around, I have started entering all my calendar info (and geez, it’s  ton of stuff, I’ve been working on it for two days and am only about a quarter of the way through) into Google calendar because the Pre will sync it’s calendar with the Google calendar.  I shouldn’t have to do this but fine, I’ll do it (the biggest problem is the recurring events, they all showed up on the wrong dates.  But there are other problems, such as the very limited selection of reminder times for an appointment. The forced selection of a preset reminder time is a step backwards from the totally customizable reminders on the Centro). Also, I’d really like someone to incorporate the sweet customizable snooze setting for calendar reminders that Outlook uses.  Maybe I need a reminder in an hour, I don’t want the phone reminding me every 5 minutes.
• Communication – I love the combined MMS (thank you Palm for finally added MMS capabilities, it took you long enough), SMS, and IM communication card.  Everything’s right there together.  And I like how Palm makes text messages into “conversations” and keeps everything together just like a IM chat (the Centro did this too) because sometimes a text message reply is so far after my text message that I’ve forgotten what I wrote and the fact that I can click on the reply and scroll up to see the previously exchanged messages is very handy.  It’s insane that you cannot forward a text message.  And where did my happy yellow emoticons go?  And I miss the character counts in the text message mode.  That’s very handy for those of us who like to twitter.  But I love that the Pre automatically splits messages longer than 160 characters into multiple messages and then numbers them 1 of _.  That’s handy, especially since my text service with Sprint is such that messages are often received out of order.  I’ll be texting back and forth with someone and the responses I get don’t go with the texts I’ve sent.  Then I realize that they are out of order.  I like that texts are time stamped, this sometimes helps with the out of order issue as it appears that the stamp is applied when the text was sent and not when received.  The Centro did this also.  I’m not sure if this is a function of the phone or of Sprint, but I appreciate it either way. Also, the quicktext is gone (I think that’s what it was called, where you can set quick messages and insert them as texts.  I had set a few inside jokes as quicktext and would occassionally shoot them off to my husband).  It was useful, especially the “where are you”, I sent that to my kids a lot.
• Picture Mail – I was always under the impression that sending picture texts to a web site was a function of Sprint and had nothing to do with the capabilities of the particular phone.  Most people I know have other cell phone providers and even the cheap phones had MMS capabilities.  I just recently found out what MMS and SMS meant and now know that it’s the phone and not Sprint (although Sprint could be helpful and CARRY PHONES THAT ARE MMS CAPABILE!).  So prior to June 6th, I had to use Sprint’s ridiculous Picture Mail service to send/receive pictures.  I can’t access any of the pictures I uploaded from my Centro.  This normally wouldn’t be a problem because the pics should still be on my Centro, and I can transfer those to my pc.  However I did something stupid and removed some pictures that I now want.  They still exist somewhere in the depths of cyberspace.  However, Sprint’s customer service told me that my Pre is not capable of useing Sprint picture mail and therefore I cannot retrieve them.  I know those bastards have all the pictures that I uploaded.  They should be able to give me access to them.  It should be as simple as giving me a website address.  Plus, until a few weeks ago, I thought that my uploaded pictures were only stored for 60 days.  Any pictures sent to a Sprint customer are only kept on the picture mail server for 60 days,  why would they keep customer’s pics longer than that?  And if they are keeping them longer, why can’t I go and manage those pictures?  I am tempted to take my Centro up to the Sprint store, have them activated long enough to retrieve the pictures I want from the picture mail server and then to reactivate my Pre.
• Resetting the phone.  I hate that you can’t turn a Palm device off.  There’s no off button.  You have to take the back off and remove the battery.  The Centro was like that too.  At least with the Centro, you could turn the phone off, not the device itself, but the phone features could be turned off.  I don’t see a way to do that with the Pre.  But I’ll admit that I haven’t looked very hard.  I’ve spent so much time trying to transfer the files from my Centro to the Pre that I haven’t had time.
• Reception – The reception and call quality of the Pre have not changed from the Centro.  At least not noticeably.  And that’s sad because they weren’t that good.
• Battery – If you read the intro to this, you’ll see that I’ve had many problems with battery life and charging.  As I stated before, both phones, during one week of usage, had issues with recharging after totally drained.  Since there is a school of thought that you should occasionally fully drain your phone battery before recharging, I will guess that this issue will be a big problem for many people.  Even the time when I fully drained the battery and it came back properly, it took a full 5 minutes from plug in until the phone came back! 5 minutes! Most electronic devices will become functional after about 30 seconds of plugging them in for a recharge.  I’m not talking about the time it takes to fully charge the device, I’m referring to the time until the device boots.  5 minutes is insanely long. Also, the phone gets really hot when it’s charging!
• Contacts – Contacts are the only things that transferred smoothly from the Centro to the Pre.  Well, let me qualify that.  The numbers and addresses and caller id photos all appear to have transferred smoothly.  I lost my contact categories.  Which sucks.  I do like that the Pre will sync contacts with Google contacts and Facebook contacts.  I don’t use either one really (I have a Facebook account to check up on my daughter’s facebook activities), but it’s neat.  It would be far more useful to have Pre contacts sync with Outlook but… I don’t use Outlook Contacts either, well, at work, but I’m not calling any of those people from my personal cell phone.  A feature I’d love to see is allowing one to set call alerts (ringtones) based on the contact group.  Even my ancient LG did that.  But my Centro did not.  It would be nice if the Pre allowed you the option of putting people into contact groups.
• Preferences – There is no single place where one can set all one’s phone preferences.  In fact, there are very few preference options.  You cannot change how long your screen stays lit before it’s powered down. There are no themes.  You cannot change the alert tone for texts, IMs, or calendar alerts.  This is the first phone I’ve ever had that didn’t let you set each of those things.
• Camera – The camera is ok.  It’s only a 3 megapixel, which isn’t a big improvement over the Centro’s 2 megapixel, I expected a bigger improvement.  And there’s no zoom.  Don’t take away my zoom! There is a flash! Nice.  But autofocus is slow.  There is a cool mirror that is available on the back of the phone when you slide the keyboard out. Nice for taking self-portraits of the myspace variety (I like to take before and after drunkface pictures.  They’re hilarious, and the after pics are often very, very blurry! But it may be that my face is blurry after.  I’m not sure) When you slide the keyboard out, the camera lens ends up near the middle of the phone, where it’s natural to hold it, and I’ve had lots of pictures that included portions of my hands. Oh, and you can’t turn off the clicking sound! I could turn off the camera sound on my Centro.  That’s an important option for a pervy girl like me.  How can I surreptitiously snap a pic if the camera makes the sound?  Boo, Palm, boo! I realize the flash might tip someone off, but you can turn the flash off.
• Interface – the touchscreen is not very accurate, so doing things like selecting boxes, or inserting the cursor are very difficult and frustrating.  This would be aided greatly by directional buttons but alas, there are none.  Menus are totally spartan.  Keeping menus as part of the way to interact with the phone would have eased existing customers into the Pre’s drastically new software.  Changing things for the sake of change is not good.  Forcing your customers to relearn everything is annoying.
• Privacy – as I’ve stated in my previous posts.  I liked having desktop software to sync my phone with.  This allowed me to back up data to my own pc.  And this kept me in control of my information. Now, there is no desktop management software but you can have Sprint back up your data.  Using this service takes my information out of my hands.  It may be simpler I suppose, but I’ll take the extra time to insure my privacy.
• Sprint Backup – this service is supposed to backup (hence the name) the data on your phone and for the most part, it does.  However, photos are not backed up.  For some people, this is one of the most important part of the backup.  I almost never use the expensive super zoom Panasonic camera I own.  My kids pictures over the last two years are almost all taken on a cell phone camera.  I don’t want to loose those.  You can’t recreate those.  That sucks.  So you have to 1) e-mail the pictures to yourself, or 2) use the mini USB cable and manually find the pics on your phone and transfer them to your hard drive.  LAME!
• Included accessories – the only included accessories were a pair of headphones, a sueded case, and a proprietary mini USB cable that has an adapter so that it can be an AC adapter or a data transfer cable.  I’ve seen cheaper phones include great things like a car adapter (especially if it’s proprietary, come on the battery life on this thing is terrible, you know we’ll need a car adapter to really use it).   And maybe an extra battery would be nice.  I’d rather pay a little more up front and have these things in the box.  It saves me time and makes me feel less resentful than having to buy all these things separately.  A car adapter, screen protector, and maybe an extra battery would be really cool things to have in the box.  Plus, you know people who buy these types of phones are total techno-geeks, how about different color backplates? Something fun.
• Music – I had to convert all my MP3 files into iTunes format because the Pre uses iTunes as the media manager for the Pre.  It took 24 hours to convert my 36 GB of music files.  I don’t use iTunes much, only when I’ve had free codes (from buying concert tickets).  It was really annoying to have to do this. I do like the way the music is shown on the Pre.  I haven’t tried searching for a specific song yet though.  I hope that it’s less cumbersome than the Centro.  But, I really don’t get using your biggest competitor’s software on your device.  This is a strange business decision, I don’t care that your new CEO was a big shot for Apple.  It’s still weird.  I understand not wanting to spend the time and money developing and maintaining your own software.  It’s far easier to get your device to run others’ software than to develop your own.  But there has to be another company that makes media management software.
• Ringtones – You can use any song loaded into your phone as a ringtone! Sweet.  You don’t get to pick which part of the song it uses, it starts from the beginning but you can use some audio edited software (even iTunes lets you pick which part of the song to play) and select the part you want! Good job Palm!
• Memory/Storage – I miss the microSD expansion slot.  I know the Centro only recognized 4 GB and the Pre has 8 GB of memeory, but I’ve already filled the available music space and I wasn’t even trying.  I expect more features on a new phone, not less.  And even though total memory available on the Pre is more than the Centro, the loss of the expansion capabilities makes this a lost feature and I’m NOT happy about it!
• Copy/Cut Paste, Selecting Text – these features were a huge benefit on the Centro and the Pre has these features listed in the menu (other than “Help”, these are often the only menu options) but they are just there to taunt you, they don’t work! Trying to select text just moves your card (the applications are opened in “cards”).  You can’t select a block of text and delete it. When you’re editing an e-mail, this is a really great feature.  You have to delete each character individually, very inefficient.  The loss of this functionality is a huge step backwards for the Pre (if you consider the Centro as a starting point, which I probably shouldn’t.  I know the Centro is considered a baby smartphone and the Treos were much more sophisticated.  But regardless, the sentiment is the same).  If you have a great feature, why wouldn’t you keep that great feature in new versions of your product?
• Memory/Running Applications -  having multiple applications running is really neat, now give the phone enough power to run more than one without totally bogging down.  If you’re going to give me the ability to do something, have it work well.  Don’t just have it there to taunt me!
• Applications – the Apps catalog is so cool – I love Pandora! And Where has lots of potential but I’ve not really used it.  LinkIn is a useless app.  I played with it for a bit but have already removed it.
• Web – the web display is beautiful.  I love how you can double tap on the screen and it will zoom in, making the page larger.  Unfortunately, the double tap doesn’t always work.  Mostly because the phone is a bit slow.  And I love being able to watch youtube videos from my phone.  You could with the Centro, sometimes, but it was a bit cumbersome.
• E-mail – the constant access to my e-mail accounts is nice.  The html display is really cool.  The e-mails open relatively quickly.  I could use this as my only form of interacting with my e-mail.  I could read the text only versions of e-mails with my Centro, but many e-mails just weren’t comprehensible and I’d have to wait to get home and read them on my laptop.
• Display – the screen is large and the colors are beautiful.  I have no complaints.   It’s really impressive looking.
• Missed Call Alert – when you tap on a missed call alert to see who has called, it automatically calls that number! Ah! No! Not Good!
• Call waiting – Does not work with the Pre! I hated the Centro.  The Centro manual said that you should press “hang up all” and the phone would ring you back with whichever call was still on the line.  Stupid, but if it worked it would be fine.  However, it didn’t work.  The button did exactly what it said, it hung up on all calls, and nothing more. And the Pre functions the exact same way!  Why would you build this crap non-feature into a new phone?  If you can’t hang up on the call that you want, then you are losing the functionality of call waiting.  How can you build a phone in this century that is not compatible with call waiting?
• Camcorder – there is none.  It’s supposed to be part of a software update however, I haven’t seen an update yet, and there are many things that need to be updated.
• Memos – you can’t send your memos.  It was nice to beam or use bluetooth to send my memos to my husband.  My memos consist of grocery lists and such.  The Centro let you send everything.  It was handy.  Again Palm, you should be adding new features, not taking away old features.
• Sharing Photos via E-mail – this feature doesn’t seem to work.  I have tried going to a specific photo and selecting the “share via e-mail” option twice and I just received error messages.  I know if I start in the text message screen, I can successfully attach a photo.  I haven’t tried sending a photo via MMS from the photo screen though.
• Microphone – I don’t have a headset, if it is expected that I should own one to use this phone, it should come in the box.  I often cradle the phone between my left shoulder and my ear so that I can use my hands to do things (I’ll let you imagine what I could be doing, it’ll be more interesting than what I’m actually doing).  And I always use my left shoulder because, like most of the population, I’m right-handed (no hate for you lefties, these are just the facts).  Unfortunately, the microphone is on the right-bottom of the phone and therefore becomes wedged under my cheek and no one can hear me.  While my husband enjoys this if I”m complaining to him, I generally am not complaining and so it just frustrates him and anyone else I’m talking to.
• Updates – supposedly, according to the Palm rep who spoke to my brother-in-law, there would be almost daily software updates (as of June 30th, there have been 2 operating system updates for the phone.  I have no idea what specific issues these updates were meant to correct because 1) there was no information on the download screen 2) the link on the download screen went to a generic Palm support page, not even a Pre support page. Sure the Pre has a nice internet interface but nice web browsing capabilities on a phone are relative to the idea that you’re using a phone rather than a pc.  Trying to hunt for a tech bulletin on a phone is akin to trying to perform open heart surgery with a butter knife. So good thinking it through Palm support staff!)
• Actually placing and answering calls - is a nightmare.  If the screen saver has been activated, and your phone rings, you have to drag the little green circle up to answer the phone.  If you’re like me, you kind of haphazardly make the motion upward.  But his won’t answer the Pre.  You have to drag the icon up in an almost perfectly straight line to answer.  And there are plenty of times where I believed I dragged it pretty straight, and it still didn’t answer my phone. Placing a call isn’t much easier.  I always use the contacts books to place calls.  They only go through half the time.  The other half are disconnected before they ever begin.  I don’t know if my cheek hits the screen and cancels the call, but it’s extremely frustrated.  And when I’m in a hurry (which is most of the time), and I don’t get my call connected the first time, I get flustered and it’s even harder to place the call.  If I ever needed to call 911, whoever was waiting for emergency services would die before I could place the call because it’s too difficult.  This goes back to the imprecise functionality of the touch screen.

Sprint doesn’t carry a single phone that has all the features I want.  Why? Why? Why Sprint, do you have such a rubbish selection of phones? If this phone worked the way that it should, the way that it says it does, then Sprint would carry a total of ONE acceptable phone.  Ah, why does my sense of conserving (in this case, conserving my cash) play such a strong role in my choice of certain things.  That big 25% discount swayed me to renew with Sprint, again.  I always swear that I’m leaving Sprint, and then the frugal me steps in.  I don’t mind spending money: on others, on entertainment, on clothing.  But for some reason, when it comes to a utility bill (and a cell phone is a utility, just like my gas, electric, water, sewer and cable), I just have this switch in my head that refuses to let me pay more.  I must quash this next time.  I have two long, long years with Sprint to build up to switching to a better company.

Palm, you attempted so much and fell sooooo far short.  How did this happen?  Promise less and deliver on those promises you do make.  Don’t hold out those promises to mock me when they don’t come true.  And I understand that I am very picky.  And I understand that the new OS requires rebuilding from the ground up, so it’s not that you removed features that I previously had on my Centro.  It’s a fresh start, so it’s a matter of building those features into the new OS.  I understand.  But companies want customers to feel certain ways about their products, to have certain expectations.  The Centro shaped my expectations for Palm products.  And that’s a good thing.  But that’s also a bad thing if Palm can no longer meet those expectations.  And Palm, you just didn’t do it with this product.  I know 4 other people who got this phone the day it came out (June 6th).  My husband and I are keeping ours, for now, but just barely.  We still have 10 more days to ring it back.  And we might.  One of the other people just always has the new toy.  He’s content for now, but it has nothing to do with the phone’s performance and everything to do with having the latest and greatest.  Another friend took his back.  His comment was “I’m returning it.  It’s the best phone I’ve ever had.  But I can’t use it”.  That is the worst complement EVER! He other friend is like my husband and I, on the fence.

Companies need to spend more time developing a product.  Stop shipping out products that aren’t ready and then put the burden on the customer to update/upgrade it.  What a crap way to treat customers.

(this was last updated on June 21st, which means it’s current to Day 15 of Pre ownership)!

This morning, my Pre’s battery was dead.  Not a huge issue, I should’ve plugged it in overnight but hey, that’s what the car charger is for.  I plugged my Pre into the car charger and began my 40 minute drive to work.  The Pre never charged.  It just sat there with the battery outline with the red coloring at the bottom of the battery (to let me know that the battery was dead) and did nothing.  When I got in to work, I had to remove the back cover of the Pre, remove the battery for a minute, and replace the battery in order to unfreeze the phone.  My husband had this happen to his Pre 3 days ago, so I know it’s not just a fluke (happening to both phones in the first week of owning them is not a fluke, it’s a habit). In fact, my phone was charging at my desk for almost 3 hours and the battery life stayed at 1%! I had to take the battery out twice more to reset it.  Then I decided to try the AC adapter and to try and charge the phone that way instead of using the mini USB.  It finally worked.  It took a full hour to get the phone charged though.

We purchased two of these, we have to return my husband’s anyway because there is a dark band across an entire section of the screen and also an inclusion in the screen (not on the surface, on the underside).  And mine has this battery issue.  Did Microsoft make these phones? I expect rubbish quality from Microsoft products (Zune, you giant piece of garbage.  After the 3rd time sending you back, I didn’t even care that you were still under warranty.  I was too frustrated by having to continually reload my music.  And then the software! Oh christ, it would just randomly remove songs from the device when I plugged it in for a simple charge! WTF? So, after the third return in less than a year, I gave up and that pile of garbage is sitting around my house somewhere, collecting dust and the remnants of my frustration with it.  And XBox 360, I cannot put my disgust into words so I’ll just say “grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr” ).

So for anyone who’s considering purchasing a Pre, I’ll do a recap of my continually updating review (for the original posts you can click the links:  Day 2, later on Day 2, Day 3, later on Day 3, Day 4, and Day 6).

• Calendar – My previous experiences with a smartphone begin and end with the Palm Centro.  The thing I like (and need) most about it is the calendar.  I work, I have 3 kids in all kinds of activities, and I have an active social schedule.  So the calendar feature is a necessity. And this is one of the biggest problems I have with this phone.  My Centro calendar data did not transfer properly.  After much fooling around, I have started entering all my calendar info (and geez, it’s  ton of stuff, I’ve been working on it for two days and am only about a quarter of the way through) into Google calendar because the Pre will sync it’s calendar with the Google calendar.  I shouldn’t have to do this but fine, I’ll do it (the biggest problem is the recurring events, they all showed up on the wrong dates.  But there are other problems, such as the very limited selection of reminder times for an appointment. The forced selection of a preset reminder time is a step backwards from the totally customizable reminders on the Centro). Also, I’d really like someone to incorporate the sweet customizable snooze setting for calendar reminders that Outlook uses.  Maybe I need a reminder in an hour, I don’t want the phone reminding me every 5 minutes.
• Communication – I love the combined MMS (thank you Palm for finally added MMS capabilities, it took you long enough), SMS, and IM communication card.  Everything’s right there together.  And I like how Palm makes text messages into “conversations” and keeps everything together just like a IM chat (the Centro did this too) because sometimes a text message reply is so far after my text message that I’ve forgotten what I wrote and the fact that I can click on the reply and scroll up to see the previously exchanged messages is very handy.  It’s insane that you cannot forward a text message.  And where did my happy yellow emoticons go?  And I miss the character counts in the text message mode.  That’s very handy for those of us who like to twitter.  But I love that the Pre automatically splits messages longer than 160 characters into multiple messages and then numbers them 1 of _.  That’s handy, especially since my text service with Sprint is such that messages are often received out of order.  I’ll be texting back and forth with someone and the responses I get don’t go with the texts I’ve sent.  Then I realize that they are out of order.  I like that texts are time stamped, this sometimes helps with the out of order issue as it appears that the stamp is applied when the text was sent and not when received.  The Centro did this also.  I’m not sure if this is a function of the phone or of Sprint, but I appreciate it either way. Also, the quicktext is gone (I think that’s what it was called, where you can set quick messages and insert them as texts.  I had set a few inside jokes as quicktext and would occassionally shoot them off to my husband).  It was useful, especially the “where are you”, I sent that to my kids a lot.
• Picture Mail – I was always under the impression that sending picture texts to a web site was a function of Sprint and had nothing to do with the capabilities of the particular phone.  Most people I know have other cell phone providers and even the cheap phones had MMS capabilities.  I just recently found out what MMS and SMS meant and now know that it’s the phone and not Sprint (although Sprint could be helpful and CARRY PHONES THAT ARE MMS CAPABILE!).  So prior to June 6th, I had to use Sprint’s ridiculous Picture Mail service to send/receive pictures.  I can’t access any of the pictures I uploaded from my Centro.  This normally wouldn’t be a problem because the pics should still be on my Centro, and I can transfer those to my pc.  However I did something stupid and removed some pictures that I now want.  They still exist somewhere in the depths of cyberspace.  However, Sprint’s customer service told me that my Pre is not capable of useing Sprint picture mail and therefore I cannot retrieve them.  I know those bastards have all the pictures that I uploaded.  They should be able to give me access to them.  It should be as simple as giving me a website address.  Plus, until a few weeks ago, I thought that my uploaded pictures were only stored for 60 days.  Any pictures sent to a Sprint customer are only kept on the picture mail server for 60 days,  why would they keep customer’s pics longer than that?  And if they are keeping them longer, why can’t I go and manage those pictures?  I am tempted to take my Centro up to the Sprint store, have them activated long enough to retrieve the pictures I want from the picture mail server and then to reactivate my Pre.
• Resetting the phone.  I hate that you can’t turn a Palm device off.  There’s no off button.  You have to take the back off and remove the battery.  The Centro was like that too.  At least with the Centro, you could turn the phone off, not the device itself, but the phone features could be turned off.  I don’t see a way to do that with the Pre.  But I’ll admit that I haven’t looked very hard.  I’ve spent so much time trying to transfer the files from my Centro to the Pre that I haven’t had time.
• Reception – The reception and call quality of the Pre have not changed from the Centro.  At least not noticeably.  And that’s sad because they weren’t that good.
• Battery – If you read the intro to this, you’ll see that I’ve had many problems with battery life and charging.  As I stated before, both phones, during one week of usage, had issues with recharging after totally drained.  Since there is a school of thought that you should occasionally fully drain your phone battery before recharging, I will guess that this issue will be a big problem for many people.  Even the time when I fully drained the battery and it came back properly, it took a full 5 minutes from plug in until the phone came back! 5 minutes! Most electronic devices will become functional after about 30 seconds of plugging them in for a recharge.  I’m not talking about the time it takes to fully charge the device, I’m referring to the time until the device boots.  5 minutes is insanely long. Also, the phone gets really hot when it’s charging!
• Contacts – Contacts are the only things that transferred smoothly from the Centro to the Pre.  Well, let me qualify that.  The numbers and addresses and caller id photos all appear to have transferred smoothly.  I lost my contact categories.  Which sucks.  I do like that the Pre will sync contacts with Google contacts and Facebook contacts.  I don’t use either one really (I have a Facebook account to check up on my daughter’s facebook activities), but it’s neat.  It would be far more useful to have Pre contacts sync with Outlook but… I don’t use Outlook Contacts either, well, at work, but I’m not calling any of those people from my personal cell phone.  A feature I’d love to see is allowing one to set call alerts (ringtones) based on the contact group.  Even my ancient LG did that.  But my Centro did not.  It would be nice if the Pre allowed you the option of putting people into contact groups.
• Preferences – There is no single place where one can set all one’s phone preferences.  In fact, there are very few preference options.  You cannot change how long your screen stays lit before it’s powered down. There are no themes.  You cannot change the alert tone for texts, IMs, or calendar alerts.  This is the first phone I’ve ever had that didn’t let you set each of those things.
• Camera – The camera is ok.  It’s only a 3 megapixel, which isn’t a big improvement over the Centro’s 2 megapixel, I expected a bigger improvement.  And there’s no zoom.  Don’t take away my zoom! There is a flash! Nice.  But autofocus is slow.  There is a cool mirror that is available on the back of the phone when you slide the keyboard out. Nice for taking self-portraits of the myspace variety (I like to take before and after drunkface pictures.  They’re hilarious, and the after pics are often very, very blurry! But it may be that my face is blurry after.  I’m not sure) When you slide the keyboard out, the camera lens ends up near the middle of the phone, where it’s natural to hold it, and I’ve had lots of pictures that included portions of my hands. Oh, and you can’t turn off the clicking sound! I could turn off the camera sound on my Centro.  That’s an important option for a pervy girl like me.  How can I surreptitiously snap a pic if the camera makes the sound?  Boo, Palm, boo! I realize the flash might tip someone off, but you can turn the flash off.
• Interface – the touchscreen is not very accurate, so doing things like selecting boxes, or inserting the cursor are very difficult and frustrating.  This would be aided greatly by directional buttons but alas, there are none.  Menus are totally spartan.  Keeping menus as part of the way to interact with the phone would have eased existing customers into the Pre’s drastically new software.  Changing things for the sake of change is not good.  Forcing your customers to relearn everything is annoying.
• Privacy – as I’ve stated in my previous posts.  I liked having desktop software to sync my phone with.  This allowed me to back up data to my own pc.  And this kept me in control of my information. Now, there is no desktop management software but you can have Sprint back up your data.  Using this service takes my information out of my hands.  It may be simpler I suppose, but I’ll take the extra time to insure my privacy.
• Included accessories – the only included accessories were a pair of headphones, a sueded case, and a proprietary mini USB cable that has an adapter so that it can be an AC adapter or a data transfer cable.  I’ve seen cheaper phones include great things like a car adapter (especially if it’s proprietary, come on the battery life on this thing is terrible, you know we’ll need a car adapter to really use it).   And maybe an extra battery would be nice.  I’d rather pay a little more up front and have these things in the box.  It saves me time and makes me feel less resentful than having to buy all these things separately.  A car adapter, screen protector, and maybe an extra battery would be really cool things to have in the box.  Plus, you know people who buy these types of phones are total techno-geeks, how about different color backplates? Something fun.
• Music – I had to convert all my MP3 files into iTunes format because the Pre uses iTunes as the media manager for the Pre.  It took 24 hours to convert my 36 GB of music files.  I don’t use iTunes much, only when I’ve had free codes (from buying concert tickets).  It was really annoying to have to do this. I do like the way the music is shown on the Pre.  I haven’t tried searching for a specific song yet though.  I hope that it’s less cumbersome than the Centro.  But, I really don’t get using your biggest competitor’s software on your device.  This is a strange business decision, I don’t care that your new CEO was a big shot for Apple.  It’s still weird.  I understand not wanting to spend the time and money developing and maintaining your own software.  It’s far easier to get your device to run others’ software than to develop your own.  But there has to be another company that makes media management software.
• Ringtones – You can use any song loaded into your phone as a ringtone! Sweet.  You don’t get to pick which part of the song it uses, it starts from the beginning but you can use some audio edited software (even iTunes lets you pick which part of the song to play) and select the part you want! Good job Palm!
• Memory/Storage – I miss the microSD expansion slot.  I know the Centro only recognized 4 GB and the Pre has 8 GB of memeory, but I’ve already filled the available music space and I wasn’t even trying.  I expect more features on a new phone, not less.  And even though total memory available on the Pre is more than the Centro, the loss of the expansion capabilities makes this a lost feature and I’m NOT happy about it!
• Copy/Cut Paste, Selecting Text – these features were a huge benefit on the Centro and the Pre has these features listed in the menu (other than “Help”, these are often the only menu options) but they are just there to taunt you, they don’t work! Trying to select text just moves your card (the applications are opened in “cards”).  You can’t select a block of text and delete it. When you’re editing an e-mail, this is a really great feature.  You have to delete each character individually, very inefficient.  The loss of this functionality is a huge step backwards for the Pre (if you consider the Centro as a starting point, which I probably shouldn’t.  I know the Centro is considered a baby smartphone and the Treos were much more sophisticated.  But regardless, the sentiment is the same).  If you have a great feature, why wouldn’t you keep that great feature in new versions of your product?
• Memory/Running Applications -  having multiple applications running is really neat, now give the phone enough power to run more than one without totally bogging down.  If you’re going to give me the ability to do something, have it work well.  Don’t just have it there to taunt me!
• Applications – the Apps catalog is so cool – I love Pandora! And Where has lots of potential but I’ve not really used it.  LinkIn is a useless app.  I played with it for a bit but have already removed it.
• Web – the web display is beautiful.  I love how you can double tap on the screen and it will zoom in, making the page larger.  Unfortunately, the double tap doesn’t always work.  Mostly because the phone is a bit slow.  And I love being able to watch youtube videos from my phone.  You could with the Centro, sometimes, but it was a bit cumbersome.
• E-mail – the constant access to my e-mail accounts is nice.  The html display is really cool.  The e-mails open relatively quickly.  I could use this as my only form of interacting with my e-mail.  I could read the text only versions of e-mails with my Centro, but many e-mails just weren’t comprehensible and I’d have to wait to get home and read them on my laptop.
• Display – the screen is large and the colors are beautiful.  I have no complaints.   It’s really impressive looking.
• Missed Call Alert – when you tap on a missed call alert to see who has called, it automatically calls that number! Ah! No! Not Good!
• Call waiting – I still haven’t seen what happens when you have two calls going.  I hated the Centro.  The Centro manual said that you should “press hang up all” and the phone would ring you back with whichever call was still on the line.  Stupid, but if it worked it would be fine.  However, it didn’t work.  The button did exactly what it said, it hung up on all calls, and nothing more.
• Camcorder – there is none.  It’s supposed to be part of a software update however, I haven’t seen an update yet, and there are many things that need to be updated.
• Memos – you can’t send your memos.  It was nice to beam or use bluetooth to send my memos to my husband.  My memos consist of grocery lists and such.  The Centro let you send everything.  It was handy.  Again Palm, you should be adding new features, not taking away old features.
• Sharing Photos via E-mail – this feature doesn’t seem to work.  I have tried going to a specific photo and selecting the “share via e-mail” option twice and I just received error messages.  I know if I start in the text message screen, I can successfully attach a photo.  I haven’t tried sending a photo via MMS from the photo screen though.
• Microphone – I don’t have a headset, if it is expected that I should own one to use this phone, it should come in the box.  I often cradle the phone between my left shoulder and my ear so that I can use my hands to do things (I’ll let you imagine what I could be doing, it’ll be more interesting than what I’m actually doing).  And I always use my left shoulder because, like most of the population, I’m right-handed (no hate for you lefties, these are just the facts).  Unfortunately, the microphone is on the right-bottom of the phone and therefore becomes wedged under my cheek and no one can hear me.  While my husband enjoys this if I”m complaining to him, I generally am not complaining and so it just frustrates him and anyone else I’m talking to.
• Updates – supposedly, according to the Palm rep who spoke to my brother-in-law, there would be almost daily software updates (as of June 21st, there have been 1 software updates for the phone.  I have no idea what specific issues this update was meant to correct because 1) there was no information on the download screen 2) the link on the download screen went to a generic Palm support page, not even a Pre support page and nice web browsing capabilities on a phone still are relative to the idea that you’re using a phone rather than a pc.  Trying to hunt for a tech bulletin on a phone is akin to trying to perform open heart surgery with a butter knife. So good thinking it through Palm support staff!)

So, I need to return this phone, but I’m having an issue.  Sprint doesn’t carry a single phone that has all the features I want.  Why? Why? Why Sprint, do you have such a rubbish selection of phones? So, I renewed m Sprint contract to get the discount on this phone but now that I have to return it (I can put up with some things, but a major hardware issue like a battery that won’t hold a charge is not something that one can work around).  Since my phone is defective, and doesn’t live up to my expectations, and I only signed for 2 more years for the phone, and Sprint has no acceptable (to me ) alternative phones, I want out of my contract.  I’m sure that I won’t get what I want though.  And I’m not willing to pay to break my contract (because I have 4 lines and that would be insane).  I don’t even see an acceptable phone that is scheduled to come out.  Why do AT&T and Verizon get all the good phones?

Palm, you attempted so much and fell sooooo far short.  How did this happen?  Promise less and deliver on those promises you do make.  Don’t hold out those promises to mock me when they don’t come true.  Companies need to spend more time developing a product.  Stop shipping out products that aren’t ready and then put the burden on the customer to update/upgrade it.  What a crap way to treat customers.

I have made an up-to-date, comprehensive review of the Pre.  To read it, click here.

Well, my husband’s Pre died.  Halfway through his fourth day of owning it.

So, I guess that regardless of what he and I think about the functionality of the phone, the battery won’t hold a charge. It’s been “charging for 3  hours and hasn’t charged even a little.   I’m not sure what he’s going to do, replace it with another Pre, simply go back to his Centro, pick a different phone.  Sprint really has a rubbish selection of phones.  It’s depressing.

Right now, I’m sticking with my Pre.  I’m slowly, slowly trying to get the things I need into it.  I hate spending so much time customizing something that I might not keep but…

I’ve put a 10th of my appointments into Google Calendar.  I guess that even if I don’t keep the Pre, I should be able to sync a new smart phone with Google Calendar or I should be able to export from Google and import into whatever new phone I pick.

Right now, iTunes is converting all36 Gb of my MP3 files so that I can transfer them to the Pre (iTunes is the way to manage the music files).  I started the conversion around 9 am and it’s still running 13 hours later.  It’s converted a little over 29 Gb worth of files.  I’m not sure that I want all my files converted but what am I going to do?

After I get my calendar events into Google and my MP3 files converted, I’ll sync my calendar and transfer my music files.  Then I still need to move over the photos and documents I want.  And after that I’d like to explore contact groups.  I hope I can set group-specific ring tones and such.  I suppose I should order some new ringtones since those don’t transfer over. I had some pretty good ones also.  I had the Imperial March from Star Wars.  I used that for my boss, nasty little tyrant.  She often wears all black and stomps up and down the hallway, all she needs is a cape (preferably made from a garbage bag).  And she’s starting to look a bit like Emperor Palpatine… I’ll let you use your imagination on that.

Cheers!

I love my Palm Centro.  Although, I guess you wouldn’t be able to tell if you actually look at my phone.

My phone has been dropped so many times that the touch screen won’t work.  And many of the functions are unavailable without the touch screen.

I have been planning to replace my phone anyway.  I almost did so about a month ago, but then found out that the only smart phones with touch screens that Sprint carries are:

• the Centro (and I’m sorry, I’m not paying to just get a new Centro no matter how much I like it.  I expect something new when I get a new phone.  More storage, better pictures, new functionality. Something.  But I won’t pay to get the exact same model that I already have.),
• the HTC Touch and HTC Pro (I’ve heard way too many bad things about both of these phones.  I don’t have any personal experience with them but I know people who have had them and HATE HTC touch phones.)
• I think that there is a touch screen Treo but I’m not positive

I thought they were going to carry a touch screen Blackberry.  Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

So, now I’m waiting, impatiently, for the release of the Pre.  I’m very disappointed in three main things:

1. it’s a Windows operating system (I liked the Palm OS, it was very stable.  Windows.  Well.  I am not very optimistic.)
2. no camcorder.  Seriously.  Who’s fault is this?
3. no expansion capabilities (8 Gb are built in and the Centro only recognizes 4 Gb of the 8 Gb micro SD card I have in it, but, like I said above, I want improvements when I upgrade something.  This seems like a step back in these three areas)

When are they bringing this out?  Smart guesses are for June 7th.  I’m not sure that I can wait that long.  I’m already getting phantom pains where my Centro used to be.

Notice the E, R, & T "keys" are missing, also, you'll notice the chips all over the bottom edge

More phone abuse - really this thing has been dropped countless times

Photographic evidence of the abuse my Centro has endured

"I gotta bone to pick with Robin Monique!"

Dear Robin,

Lately you’ve been doing a lot of whining about how badly you want to get rid of me. Your ass has been downright rude. All over Twitter talking about how my applications are sucky and that you’re so called “over” my sexy touch screen capabilities. I know you daydream of Blackberrys with all of their supposed “awesomeness” and the “miracle” that is BlackBerry Messenger. So next month you’ll have the opportunity to trade me in and upgrade to something you think is so much better. But before you do, let me remind you of a few things:

• I worked just fine until that evening you decided to tipsy text/Tweet while drinking that sticky pink shit. Remember? You spilled X-Rated on me which is why four of my main buttons no longer work. Don’t think you can really blame the folks at Palm for that one.
• You keep talking about better applications. You barely TOUCH the applications that I have! When was the last time you did anything other than text, Tweet, internet browse or make a phone call from me? Miss me with all that ish about being a “young businesswoman” I can count with one key how often you’ve used me to read a document or a spreadsheet.
• That BBM ish that everyone keeps praising looks no different than my threaded text messaging feature. So it moves faster than text? How effin fast do you need to receive information???
• All this BlackBerry talk is nothing more than you trying to keep up with the Joneses. You just want to be one of the “cool kids” who exchanges pin numbers instead of phone numbers. So you’re going to spend money that you really don’t need to spend so you don’t feel left out of crowd? You suck for that.

Here is a thought: Pay the $50 deductible to get me replaced, get a cute little case to keep the new me protected, keep the sticky liquor away from me, read up on what you can do with me and shut the hell up already. You keep talking all this BS and I guarantee my internet browser will suddenly get as slow as hell.

Sincerely,

The Centro

Oooh! More ways to waste some time.

The website www.iwantoneofthose.com! I could look through the stupid crap on this site for days.  And I might.  Gnome bowling, Boxing grannies, fart machines, ipod speakers that look like Legos, a USB missile launcher – you know, I often need to launch missiles while typing on my laptop – (it’s as though someone put me in charge of stocking a store).  I swear I’m not making this up, they have this thing you attach to your keys that, when it hits the water, inflates a balloon so that your keys float.  It’s called the waterbuoy.  Who buys this shit?

Pirate-ese on Facebook. At the bottom of  Facebook pages is a place to select language.  For English, you have the option of US English, UK English, and Pirate English.  So, instead of Home it says Home Port.  For Friends it says Me Heartys.  I have Arrplications.  I can open Ye Bottle O’ Messages, Recruit Mateys, see people I was Shipmates with at my alma mater,  check out my Captain’s Log.  Ah pirates, if only they all looked like Johnny Depp.

Texting. I text soooo much that the plastic is coming off the keypad of my phone.  I never knew that the keys weren’t keys with a plastic cover.  The key bumps are actually a part of the plastic cover, underneath is just a flat piece with the letters and numbers printed on it. I tried super gluing the keyboard edges down but a week later it’s already coming up again. It doesn’t help that I drop my phone all the time.  Seriously, I have big gouges in it.  Actually, that’s a really good testimonial for my phone, the Palm Centro.  I absolutely love this phone.  I’ve had it since last February.  I use it for everything; texting, checking e-mail, grocery lists, my calendar, all photos and videos I’ve taken since I bought it, surfing the web, im-ing, I just do everything with this phone.  I definitely need to replace it but as much as I want it, I can’t justify spending a ton just to replace it with the same phone.  I want something new.  Unfortunately, Sprint has no selection for phones.  I can’t go back to a phone without a touch screen (I just bought my oldest a Rant and I keep trying to touch the screen to navigate.  It’s a good phone for my girl though).  I’ve heard way too many bad things about the HTC phones.  I’m looking forward to the Palm Pre.  There are two big negatives that I found about it.  1) No camcorder – I swear this is true – how can you put out a phone that’s supposed to compete with the iphone and not have a camcorder?  are the palm engineers crazy? 2) no expansion slot – i don’t care that it has 8 Gb of memory, i want to add a 16 Gb microSD card and fill it with songs, and I have more than enough mp3 files to do it.  The worst is that my Centro has both the camcorder and the expansion slot.  I don’t care how much you’ve added, you can’t step backwards on things.  Yes, the flash and the mirror to take self portraits are REALLY nice features.  The software looks really sweet.  But I need expansion and a NEED a camcorder.  Still, it’ll be the best thing going on Sprint.

Twitter is just too much.  I found my favorite comic artist, Jennie Breedan.  I found one of my favorite comedians, John Cleese.  I found my favorite band, Stereophonics.  And my other favorite band, Cheap Trick. I found John Hodgman, who is just too strange.  I adore it.  Anyone on the Jon Stewart show.  And Neil Gaiman is one of my favorite authors, but he tweets so much that I think I’ve read more text from him as tweets than I ever read from his books.  He’s endless.  It’s great. Also I found Tinted Windows, Bun E. Carlos is so cool that I named my dog for him!

And now I’ve wasted tons of times blogging about things that I waste my time doing.

Slainte.

[From Michael Matrix] I didn

I’m here to warn you of a new kind of evil that has entered my life. This evil can be held in my hand and taken almost anywhere. It knows my friends’ and family’s birthdays, and miraculously cures my ailment of being socially inept.

And oh yeah, it knows 216 phone numbers and I can check Facebook with it.

As if Facebook was a good enough way to ignore my academic growth, it turns out I can get it anywhere I go. Including class.

I’m speaking of nothing other than a BlackBerry, and it’s all the rage at present.

It has so many options that my Palm Centro couldn’t afford me, such as Twitter, managing e-mail accounts (that’s right, plural), IM-ing, and of course, the aforementioned. And oh yeah, the Internet.

I can also call people with this phone.

No wonder people call it a CrackBerry

You mean I can tweet on the Red Line? What?

Damn it, CrackBerry, stop being so awesome!

Palm Centro PDA Mobile – Read More on Palm Centro PDA Mobile

This Quad band PDA mobile phone comes with a QWERTY keyboard, Touchscreen display, 5-Way Navigation Key and 65k colour TFT display with a resolution of 320 x 320 pixels. It has a 312MHz Intel processor, Palm OS 5.4.9 operating system with 64MB RAM. The PDA supports softwares like Word Processing, Spread Sheet, Presentation and PDF Reader. The PDA comes with a 1.3 MP camera, Bluetooth, USB connector, GPRS and EDGE. The PDA supports email accounts like POP3 and IMAP and comes with a Lithium Ion battery.
Form Factor : Bar
Mega Pixel : 1.3
Digital Zoom : 2X
Video Recorder : Yes
Digital Zoom Range : 0-2.5
Mega Pixel Range : less than 2.0
Colour Options : Glacier
Dual Band : Yes
Tri Band : Yes
Quad Band : Yes
QWERTY Keyboard : Yes
Touchscreen : Yes
5-Way Navigation Key : Yes
Music Player : Yes
Music Format : MP3
A2DP (Stereo Bluetooth) : Yes
Games : Yes
Inbuilt Dictaphone : Yes
Voice Dial : Yes
Voice Command : Yes
Depth (mm) : 18.6
Length (mm) : 107.2
Weight with Standard Battery (Grams) : 124
Email Client : Yes
Type of Email Account Support : POP3, IMAP
MMS : Yes
Operating System : Palm OS 5.4.9
Word Processing : Yes
Spread Sheet : Yes
Presentation : Yes
Additional Softwares : PDF Reader
Operating System Type : Palm
Bluetooth : Yes
USB Connector : Yes
EGPRS or EDGE : Yes
GPRS : Yes
Ringing Tones : Polyphonic
Internal Vibrating Alert : Yes
Standard Battery Type : Li Ion
Standard Battery (mAh) : 1150
Talk Time with Standard Battery (hours) : 240
Standby Time with Standard Battery (Hours) : 300
Display Type : TFT
Number of Colours : 65K
Display Resolution : 320X320
Width (mm) : 53.5
Processor Manufacturer : Intel
Processor Name : Xscale
Processor Speed (MHz) : 312
Inbuilt RAM (MB) : 64
Extendable Memory: Yes
Extendable Memory Type : Micro SD
Maximum Extendable Memory (GB) : 4
To know more on Palm Centro

Palm Centro PDA Mobile

*SUPER EXCITED!*

KONBANWA MINNA-SAN!!! [^-^]/

Is minna-san having a lovely day today? Well, MK has wonderful news…

My Palm Centro (dream keitai) has arrived!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

\[*Δ*]/{YAYAAYAYAYAYAAAAAY!!!!)

Wow! MK is still in awe that her phone which she worked so long and hard for, has finally arrived in her hands! [•◊•]{?!)

I actually got it on Friday, so MK will share with minna-san a quick story of when she recieved her phone:

It was Friday, I had just gotten home from my unexpected trip to the hospital (I was having issues with my heart – gonna have to give blood tomorrow [0.0] for them to figure out what’s up). I decided, since I was going out of the house to go to work, I might as well pass by the Post Office on my way there. I really didn’t expect for anything to be there because they said they’d call me when it arrived. But I went anyway, and to my surprise, the guy working there called me over and said that MY PACKAGE HAD ARRIVED!!! MK stayed very calm as the package was handed over to her (didn’t want to act crazy in front of all those people). After recieving two packages (one with new keitai and one for grandpa), I walked quickly to the phone company placey where I bought a SIM card for my new phone! I wasn’t fully sure whether I should go to work with my package and open it there (I had about 25 min before I had to be at work), or if I should run home and quickly unbox the phone and carry it to the shop. I decided to do the last option, that’s why the pictures for the review will seem a bit rushed…

Alright, time for the pictures of the…

UNBOXING…

Note: Many of these pictures are pretty much pointless, but at the time MK felt as though she had to record every step of the unboxing.

OK, so MK quickly opened her box and saw purple bubble-wrap. Come to think of it, I don’t think I’ve ever seen purple bubble-wrap before in my life…

Purple bubble-wrap - fun to play with!

So, after taking out the pretty purple bubble-wrap, MK discovered, to her fascination…. [0.0]

The box of her PALM CENTRO!!!!

I then took the box out of the shipping box, with much caution – didn’t want anything to go wrong…

Palm Centro box - Let's see what's inside, shall we?

Inside of the box I found…

- A “Read this First” Booklet…

Of course, I did not read this first - Who has time for that?

- A “Quick Reference” Booklet.

Will keep this, I know it'll come in handy

- A “Palm Desktop Software Installation CD”….

Installed this at work

After getting through the little booklets and un-important stuff….

- THE PALM CENTRO!!!! [•◊•]{*GASP*)

*O*{HALLELUJIAH!!!!) - (Srry about the flash)

Took it out of plastic

Back of phone - srry, bad pic

By this point MK is bursting with joy! My brother was just ignoring me while I was making a whole lot of noise. It was kinda funny (MK’s brother → (¬_¬)

- Here are the leftover contents in the box↓

Charger, USB Cable, Headphones

————————-

So… That was the unboxing of MK’s new Palm Centro!

Something that MK noted as she was unboxing:

• The size of the phone. Trust me when I say this. The Palm Centro is a very decieving little guy. When you see him in pictures, he looks so big and fat and heavy. But when you see him in person… it’s quite a shock. At least it was for me.

The tiny size of the phone is one of my favorite things about this phone. I’ve never been a fan of big chunky phones that look like a PSP, so I was very pleasantly surprised to see just how small it is.

One thing that many people seem to complain about with this phone, concerning it’s size, is the keyboard. Honestly, it is quite small. And I can understand why most people would have a problem with that. It’s not such a big deal for me because my hands aren’t that big. But I wouldn’t advise my dad or any man above the age of 11 to get this phone because I really don’t know how someone with hands as big as my dad’s (or bigger) could manage with such a tiny phone.

So, the keyboard can easily become unbearable if you don’t have small hands. That’s why I think that in general, you should only buy this phone if you’re a teenage girl or a woman with really small hands. Advice to anyone who’s planning on buying a Palm Cento: Try it out, if you can.

OK, on to…

The CAMERA:

The Palm Centro has a 1.3 megapixel camera. Nothing special…. It can take pictures (2x zoom) and record videos (no zoom).

MK took two pictures with her Centro:

No zoom - LOL Hello Kitty!

Zoomed

Sorry about the lame topics of my pics. I really didn’t have anything interesting to take pics of [-_-].

Now for the video…. OK, I did this video myself. Very embarrassing, but again, I had nothing better to tape…

[...]

Uh oh! The type of file that the Centro’s videos are cannot be uploaded… [-__-] I’m gonna have to look for a converter if I want to be able to use those vids for anything. Accept my apologies [u_u]…

Hmmm, what else is there to say?

Don’t have much else to say. One bad thing is that the USB cable is kinda hard to disconnect from the phone and I’m always afraid that I might break something while pulling it so hard to get it out…

About how MK’s enjoying having this new phone:

I really love it. Of course I don’t get tons of calls, and I have a prepaid cellphone account, so I always have to watch how much I’m calling or texting. But I do really like being able to always contact whoever I need to contact. Also, I’ve set up twitter on my phone, so I can send tweets through text messages, which is very cool…

Alright, MK is getting tired. This has been a very long post and I’m now ready to retire to my quarters to enjoy my phone some more! [^-^]v

Sayou!

]]> http://sozialgeschnatter.wordpress.com/2009/03/12/t-mobile-g1-alias-google-phone-mobiltelefon-fur-stubenhocker/ Thu, 12 Mar 2009 21:17:51 +0000 pjebsen http://sozialgeschnatter.wordpress.com/2009/03/12/t-mobile-g1-alias-google-phone-mobiltelefon-fur-stubenhocker/

Größenvergleich: Google Phone / Palm Centro / Nokia N95

Ich verwende das Wort „mutig“, weil ich das „Google Phone“ Anfang Februar selbst drei Wochen lang getestet habe und es für den täglichen Gebrauch vollkommen ungeeignet fand. Hauptgrund war die miserable Lebensdauer des Akkus, der bei mir nach drei bis vier Stunden schlapp machte. Bei Cem gab er sogar schon nach rund zwei Stunden Interneteinsatz via 3G-Netz den Geist auf.

Was soll ein Mobilgerät, das ich dauerhaft nur nutzen kann, wenn ich eine Steckdose in der Nähe habe? Dann kann ich ja gleich mein Notebook mitschleppen, damit ist der Internet-Zugang sehr viel komfortabler. (Mehr Glück hatte übrigens Google-Pressesprecher Stefan Keuchel, der mir per Twitter mitteilte, sein „G1“-Akku halte bei intensiver Nutzung circa einen Tag.)

Der nervigste Anblick beim "Google Phone"

Wenn ich ein Smartphone benutze, dann möchte ich es wirklich als mobiles Büro einsetzen. Daher schwöre ich derzeit noch aufs „Palm Centro“ (auch wenn es gegenüber meinem vorigen Palm, dem „Tréo 680“, leider den Nachteil hat, dass Opera nicht darauf läuft).

Mit dem Palm-Stift kann ich beliebige Passagen in meinen Texten kopieren und verschieben, mit dem mitgelieferten Programm „Documents to Go“ kann ich unter anderem Word- und Excel-Dateien bearbeiten sowie PDF-Dateien lesen.

Aus mir unverständlichen Gründen versagt das „Google Phone“ hier auf ganzer Linie. Man kann damit noch nicht mal Texte bearbeiten, die man mit „Google Documents“ angelegt hat – die kann man nur lesen.

Natürlich hat das „Google Phone“ auch Vorteile. Einige „Android“-Anwendungen wie „ShopSavvy“, „Qype Radar“ (gibt’s auch fürs iPhone) und der Twitter-/identi.ca-Klient Twidroid gefielen mir, und im Gegensatz zu Cem konnte ich auch mit der Klapptastatur gut leben.

Ich bin sehr gespannt aufs Palm Pre, das im Januar auf der CES vorgestellt wurde (siehe u. a. SPIEGEL-Story von Matthias Kremp). Vielleicht ist das ja endlich ein Smartphone, bei dem weniger Wünsche offen bleiben.

After the very brief affair with the Samsung F210, I still needed to find a replacement for the dead Nokia 6120c. Browsing round the web left me feeling a bit confused. What exactly did I want from a phone and which phone has please me most so far.

Sitting down and having a really good think really allowed me to focus on what really matters. I have had loads of Windows mobile/pocket pc/smartphones. I realised that I have put up with the foibles of windows for too long. It is just too slow, for my needs. Sometimes you just want to fire off a quick text or call without all the fuss of searching menus and waiting for the OS to allow you to get on.

Symbian was fine on some phones, but I had a yearning to get back to basics and less fuss. So yes, I just plumped for a Palm Centro. Good old Palm. No multi-tasking, no wifi, no 3G. Just an operating system that hasn’t changed for years and I know like the back of my hand (maybe even palm).

I have load most of the stuff off my other Palms and Sonys, with few problems. Noviiremote doesn’t like the infrared on the Centro, most other stuff works. SplashID, ereader etc.

I am also impressed by the amount of stuff that the Centro has preinstalled compared to the Treo 600 I had years ago. Video, music, docs to go, Astraware games and Vox blogging. Battery life is great too, having got used to charging winmo phones almost every day.

It’s still snowing outside so I’m going to have another play, sad isn’t it?

My Ipod Touch, Palm Treo 500v (given to a little'un, hence Winnie) and Palm Centro

]]> http://generationtraffic.wordpress.com/2009/01/28/times-top-10-gadgets-2007/ Wed, 28 Jan 2009 17:24:23 +0000 therealsouthkorea http://generationtraffic.wordpress.com/2009/01/28/times-top-10-gadgets-2007/

Time’s Top 10 Gadgets (2007)

#1. Apple iPhone

The iPhone changed the way we think about how mobile media devices should look, feel and perform. The design is exceptional inside and out: It’s got a slick glass-and-stainless steel case and an elegant touch screen loaded with eye candy. It’s an iPod and a 2-megapixel camera. Images and video clips display vertically or horizontally — they reorient themselves depending on how you hold the thing. When the phone detects a wireless network within range — your own home wi-fi set up or somebody else’s — it lets you tap once to connect, and then proceed with your Web surfing, Google mapping, emailing and other activities that can otherwise be painfully slow over AT&T’s cellular network — the only one, unfortunately, that carries iPhone calls.

#2. Nikon Coolpix S51c

Have you ever maxed out your digital camera’s memory card midway through a vacation? The 8-megapixel Nikon Coolpix S51c point-and-shoot is tricked out with built-in wireless capability, so you can email your images or beam them directly from the camera to your Flickr account or to Nikon’s own online photo bank. It’s also got a 3x zoom and a roomy 3-in. LCD screen — and it comes in black.

#3. Netgear SPH200W Wi-Fi Skype Phone

This cordless wi-fi phone comes with Skype software already built in, so you can log in to an existing account and start making cheap Internet calls immediately. If you’ve never used Skype before, do not fear: It takes a few moments to create a new account and you can do it right from the phone’s keypad. (The first 10 minutes are free; after that, you’ll want to visit Skype.com from your computer to sign up for a service plan with a credit card.) The phone will also work at most public hotspots (including T-Mobile’s) so if you have lots of friends overseas, you may not want to leave home without it.

#4. Palm Centro

Do you secretly covet your friend’s smart phone while dismissing it as way overpriced? The new Palm Centro provides an opportunity to get all the essential smart-phone features without breaking the bank. This light and bright device supports Web surfing, emailing, instant messaging and text messaging, and sports a 1.3-megapixel camera and a touch screen that works best with a stylus. A mobile version of Google Maps comes preloaded. The qwerty keypad is seriously small, but the bubble-like tactile design of the individual keys makes them easier targets.

#5. Sony Handycam HDR-CX7

The CX7 records rich high-definition footage straight to a flash memory card (Sony’s Memory Stick PRO Duo), so it feels light and compact in your palm, and the 2.7-in. LCD screen features touch controls for set up and playback. Should you get the shakes while shooting, the CX7 has the ability to stabilize the image (using optics, which is more effective than a digital correction) and smooth out the action. A built-in HDMI port lets you connect the camera to an HDTV and watch your home movies in all their high-def glory.

#6. Samsung P2

The slim and sexy P2 sounds terrific and plays a variety of music file formats: MP3, WMA and songs from subscription services like Rhapsody and Yahoo Music. The pretty 3-in. screen has touch controls for viewing photos and watching videos, which are displayed at a DVD-quality rate of 30 frames per second. The device also works with BlueTooth headsets and speakers, and soon you will be able to receive forwarded calls from a BlueTooth cell phone. (You’ll have to download what’s called a firmware upgrade from the Samsung website, but don’t worry, it’s not as difficult as it sounds.) Comes with 4 GB of memory for $200, or 8 GB for $250.

#7. Toshiba Portégé R500-S5004

This ultra thin-and-light notebook is a dream machine for road warriors. It runs on an Intel Core 2 Duo processor and offers 2 GB of RAM, an integrated DVD burner and graphics card and built-in wireless capability (both wi-fi and Bluetooth). The 12.1-in. widescreen LED-backlit display is super slim and displays in high-definition (1280 x 820 pixels). With the S5004 model you get a solid-state hard drive, which means no fragile spinning parts, so the machine is less likely to suffer damage if dropped or bumped. Total weight: 2.4 lbs.

#8. FlyTech Dragonfly

WowWee’s flying insect soars, dive-bombs, hovers and glides using authentic flapping-wing action, which makes it the first commercially available toy ornithopter. It’s lightweight (about 1 oz.) yet sturdy, and sports a 16-in. wingspan. The two-channel radio remote lets you control wing speed and tail rotor speed and doubles as a charging base (a 20-min. recharge gives you about 6 min. of flying time). The kids will love it — if you can bear to let them have it for a while.

#9. Iomega eGo Portable Hard Drive

Who knew file storage could be so chic? The 160 GB eGo has enough room to hold up to 640,000 digital photos, 2,900 hours of music or 240 hours of video (depending, of course, on the compression rate). A new dual-interface version works over USB or FireWire and comes with both types of cords. If you accidentally knock the eGo off your desk, the shock-absorbing case will protect the important documents and precious media stored inside.

#10. Belkin N1 Vision Wi-Fi Router

Though the new “N” wi-fi standard, which carries data signals faster and farther than its predecessor “G,” isn’t expected to be officially ratified until next year, it’s far enough along that you can buy certified N products with confidence that they will work with your computers and other hardware. Belkin’s audaciously designed N1 Vision router stands vertical and reports on network activity in your house so you can see if your kid is downloading video games when he should be doing his homework. It is designed to configure itself the first time you connect it to your cable modem or DSL, and computers still using older “G” adapters will still be able to connect.