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Early Palm Pre Review: WebOS Off to Great Start But Bad Keyboard

Friday May 29, 2009 12:51 pm PDT by Arnold Kim
BoyGeniusReport publishes the first hands on review of the upcoming Palm Pre. Palm has been especially secretive about allowing media access to their device, so this represents one of the most detailed looks of the device.

BoyGeniusReport breaks down the review into Screen, Keyboard, Size, Feel, OS, Multimedia, Battery Life, Browser, and Apps. Some aspects were difficult to test at this early stage including Apps, Multimedia and Battery life. The site gave the phone high marks for the operating system and screen but found both the keyboard and feel of the device to be poor. Specifically, the physical keyboard which distinguishes itself from the iPhone's soft keyboard was described as disappointing:

It's really not good. My hands aren't that big (I can type faster than you could ever dream on a BlackBerry, iPhone or E71) and my thumb literally takes up 3 or 4 keys on the keyboard. There's less space in between each key than say, a BlackBerry Curve 8300 keyboard, and the texture takes some time to get used to.
....
You can't compete with RIM in the keyboard area and you can't compete with Apple in the soft-keyboard area, so how are people going to enjoy using your product when the data entry isn't perfection?

Still, the reviewer was enthusiastic about the OS and expects the device to be successful.

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