Palm Pre Review

This will be my first tech blog posting. They say, "write what you know!", and so I've decided to start with a review on my Palm Pre.

First Impressions

I've had my Palm Pre for about a year now. I paid $200 dollars, signing up for a 3 year contract with Bell.
At first, I was pretty excited about my new Pre. The webOS system, although having a slight learning curve due to gestures/swiping, was fun and easy to learn. True Multi-tasking with their card system was something I had never seen before on a cell phone. Bouncing back and forth between messaging, webpages and apps without having to close one to open the other was fantastic!
After a few months had passed, I started to realize that the Palm app catalogue was sorely lagging behind its competitors. Many of the apps I saw advertised on TV and on web pages were only available for iOS or Android. As an avid World of Warcraft fan, I was disappointed to learn that many of the WoW specific apps available were only for iOS and Android. More and more apps have been added in the last few months, and although we are still lagging behind, things are improving and I expect to find better and more popular apps available as Palm moves forward. This lack of app coverage has been disappointing so far, though. I was getting tired of my Pre and was beginning to look around for alternatives.

Preware To The Rescue!

Recently, I came across a post on engadget that was about overclocking your Palm Pre processor. After a fair amount of research on the matter, I decided to give it a go. I had been finding my Pre sluggish as of late, so the thought of speeding it up was intriguing. After completing the process of putting my Pre in developer mode and installing Preware, new life was breathed into my Pre! Running the CPU at 1 ghz instead of Palm's standard 500 mhz made my phone sing! Windows open incredibly fast, apps load almost instantly. Even Google Maps loads quicker, and the screen redraw is near instant.

Of course, you have to trade battery life for speed in this situation, but in order to make this bearable, you are able to set the overclocking to only take effect when the screen is on. When the screen is off, it reverts back to its standard 500 mhz. This has made it so that the extra battery drain is not that noticeable, and definitely worth the added performance.
As well as overclocking, Preware gives you the ability to change many settings on the Pre that are not normally available. From small things like adding the date to the info bar at the top, to bigger things like a virtual on screen keyboard. The list of options is truly impressive. If you want to breathe new life into your Palm Pre, then Preware is the way to do it.

My Palm Is Here To Stay

Thanks mostly to Preware, my Palm Pre is now fast, adaptable and more fun!