Walt Mossberg's WSJ.com Pre Review is up!

[bubbatex]

And the article is the focus of the front page of the Personal Journal in WSJ today. Huge picture of the device.

[EeZeEpEe]

Originally Posted by Kupe

That's old think. Wifi radios draw less power than cellular radios now. AnandTech proved that in this article with the first generation iPhone - it's been the same ever since. It is especially true with CDMA radios due to their generally higher power consumption than GSM radios.

Even if you just look at what Apple posts for iPhone battery life you can see Wi-Fi is better (Apple - iPhone - Technical Specifications).

Internet use:
Up to 5 hours on 3G
Up to 6 hours on Wi-Fi

[meyerweb]

Hmm, and here I always thought the Moss was farily savvy with technology, but his comment:

But on at least one day, it died in midafternoon, even though I was using Wi-Fi most of that day and not the power-hungry cellphone network

is idiotic. Unless he turned off the phone, which I doubt, using wi-fi means TWO radios are running, including the power hungry cell network. Sheesh!

[Scott R]

Originally Posted by EeZeEpEe

You can't have the best of both worlds. The always-available keyboard was nice but how would you have that with a 3.1" screen? The device would be awkwardly long. The D-pad is totally unnecessary with a finger gesture interface. Also the Quick Launch wave bar takes the place of the app-specific buttons. No big deal there. I don't see how you see this as less efficient or usable than a Treo when it's clear that multi-tasking with Cards is so much more efficient than the non-multitasking Treo. I think it's more that you don't want to deal with a gesture interface.

Well, you'd probably need to make the screen a bit smaller...say 2.8". Here's a Benq WinMo phone that has a Treo form-factor but with a rectangular screen:


It's funny you say that I can't have it both ways, because I think that's what Palm is trying to do. They're trying to copy Apple while adding in a keyboard. The type of screen technology that the iPhone and pre use require touching things with the pad of your finger, so they don't offer the accuracy that the old screens which supported a stylus or fingernail could offer. IMO, the smaller size of the pre's screen (with the same resolution as an iPhone) is going to make mis-hitting things more common. If they're going to have a finger-focused interface, they should have made the screen larger and dropped the keyboard altogether, IMO. That said, the reviews I've read thus far have not raised that as an issue, so maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised.

As far as efficiency/usability is concerned, the wave bar is a fine substitute for the dedicated app buttons. But the tile app launcher is a very poor/inefficient substitute for the launchers we currently have. As for the cards and multitasking...I'm all for multitasking, but the cards concept seems more like eye-candy to me. I use Hi-Launcher on my Treo as a simplified "recently used apps" list and that offers a more efficient method to jump back to my most recently used apps than the cards look to offer. With the cards, I'll bring up that list, then may have to swipe around a few times to get to the one I want.

And I personally think that scrolling through a web page and the links on that page is better with a D-Pad. Moving through other types of "cells" onscreen (e.g., spreadsheet) would also be more accurate with a D-Pad. If I'm composing an email, I type in the subject line, and the "To" fields, etc., how am I moving from field to field on the pre without a D-Pad? Do I have to tap on the screen to go from field to field? I imagine they allow for using the "enter" key to move down, but what if I want to move back up?

I've forgotten how app-specific menus work on the pre...can someone remind me? On the Treo, I like having a dedicated menu button (which I remapped to the green key when Palm erroneously relegated this back to a tiny key in the most hard-to-reach spot of the keyboard).

[Kupe]

Originally Posted by Minsc

On my old WinMo phones that have WiFi (such as the PPC 6700), the results are opposite - WiFi has a much greater drain on the battery. (you can almost watch the battery meter drop while connected)

I hear ya. Another reason why folks sometimes still mix this up is they either run their phone on the cell network radio or they run their phone on the cell network radio AND wifi. Users typically don't turn off their phone radio to run wifi so it would inaccurately appear that wifi consumes more power than the phone radio.

[Kupe]

Originally Posted by meyerweb

Hmm, and here I always thought the Moss was farily savvy with technology, but his comment:

But on at least one day, it died in midafternoon, even though I was using Wi-Fi most of that day and not the power-hungry cellphone network

is idiotic. Unless he turned off the phone, which I doubt, using wi-fi means TWO radios are running, including the power hungry cell network. Sheesh!

Walt is fairly savvy. What has convinced you that what he wrote is not what he meant? He said he was "using wifi most of the day and not the power-hungry cellphone network." What part of "not the power-hungry cellphone network" did you not understand? Were you standing next to Walt observing this when he did it, or are you simply guessing so you can make unsubstantiated claims?

[EeZeEpEe]

Originally Posted by Scott R

Well, you'd probably need to make the screen a bit smaller...say 2.8". Here's a Benq WinMo phone that has a Treo form-factor but with a rectangular screen:


It's funny you say that I can't have it both ways, because I think that's what Palm is trying to do. They're trying to copy Apple while adding in a keyboard. The type of screen technology that the iPhone and pre use require touching things with the pad of your finger, so they don't offer the accuracy that the old screens which supported a stylus or fingernail could offer. IMO, the smaller size of the pre's screen (with the same resolution as an iPhone) is going to make mis-hitting things more common. If they're going to have a finger-focused interface, they should have made the screen larger and dropped the keyboard altogether, IMO. That said, the reviews I've read thus far have not raised that as an issue, so maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised.

As far as efficiency/usability is concerned, the wave bar is a fine substitute for the dedicated app buttons. But the tile app launcher is a very poor/inefficient substitute for the launchers we currently have. As for the cards and multitasking...I'm all for multitasking, but the cards concept seems more like eye-candy to me. I use Hi-Launcher on my Treo as a simplified "recently used apps" list and that offers a more efficient method to jump back to my most recently used apps than the cards look to offer. With the cards, I'll bring up that list, then may have to swipe around a few times to get to the one I want.

And I personally think that scrolling through a web page and the links on that page is better with a D-Pad. Moving through other types of "cells" onscreen (e.g., spreadsheet) would also be more accurate with a D-Pad. If I'm composing an email, I type in the subject line, and the "To" fields, etc., how am I moving from field to field on the pre without a D-Pad? Do I have to tap on the screen to go from field to field? I imagine they allow for using the "enter" key to move down, but what if I want to move back up?

I've forgotten how app-specific menus work on the pre...can someone remind me? On the Treo, I like having a dedicated menu button (which I remapped to the green key when Palm erroneously relegated this back to a tiny key in the most hard-to-reach spot of the keyboard).

By best of both worlds I was referring to the always-available keyboard and a decent size finger gesture touchscreen. By having the keyboard slide out it make it much more compact and pocketable. That Benq, at 0.8 inches taller, looks like it wasn't. I don't think accuracy will be a problem because, as you stated, reviews haven't had anything bad to say about it. Don't get me wrong about the D-pad. I do use it all the time on my Treo and love how I can page up and down and skip to links. But after using my iPod Touch, I never left like I missed having one. Even with doing emails and going from field to field it's not a big deal to press where you want to be. I do agree that I might miss the menu button because I love shortcuts. With shortcuts only for cut, copy, and paste I'm going to be wanting more.

[Scott R]

Walt probably had his cell radio on, but as Kupe said, we really can't know for sure. If he was inside of a building with poor/no coverage, he was draining his battery even more, as the lower the signal the harder it works to find one. Personally, I like Walt because, like me, he tends to put an emphasis on usability/efficiency. I would never look to one of his "reviews" for detailed information about every facet of the device, least of all specific battery life times, as I suspect he doesn't use any scientific method for measuring battery life.

[kbritt31]

totes.

[prejune]

dead thread is dead.