As we all know, the Palm Pre heralded the arrival of an entirely new operating system into the mobile arena, called WebOS. It was, and still is, unique, and Palm promised we’d see it on other phones besides the Pre. And then they announced the Pixi (for America, anyway, as always with Palm, there’s no word on a UK release date), and WebOS found itself a second home.
Well, now, Engadget have got their hands on one, and done a big review on Palm’s bitesize WebOS smartphone (Pixi, it turns out, is a good name). And things are looking rather promising.
I have to say, I find the Palm Pixi rather visually appealing myself. I’ve always liked the combination of candybar design and QWERTY keyboard. It reminds me of my old Sony Ericsson P1, although of course, the Pixi is far, far curvier than the P1 was. However, weirdly, it does feel, in some spiritual sense, like the Pixi’s a successor to the P1, so therefore, I’m highly likely to love it (if and when we ever get the damn thing over here in the UK… seriously, UK release date, please).
But what did Engadget think of it? Well, the review is a mix of praise and reservations. One highlight that apparently stands out is the keyboard, which they say is an absolute joy to use. Despite the phone being physically smaller than the Pre, the keyboard’s not massively different in size, and they say it’s much more responsive than the Pre’s. Obviously the screen isn’t as big or vibrant, colour-wise, as its big brother, but one of the advantages of WebOS is how well it can automatically scale itself to fit any screen size, so it renders beautifully even on the smaller 2.6 inch screen (which is, coincidentally, also the same as my old P1).
Obviously the camera’s not as good as the Pre, since the Pixi only has 2 megapixels, but since I’ve recently come to realise I’ve only used my X1′s camera about three times since I bought the phone, camera’s no longer a deal-breaker for me. The biggest problem, the review points out, is that it’s not a massively different phone to the Pre, and since the Pre isn’t that much more expensive, it begs the question of why you wouldn’t just get that.
However, I view the Pixi as more of a smart feature-phone than a full on smartphone, something to crack the lower end of the smartphone market. Viewed like that, it makes an awful lot of sense. Would I get one? Well, no, because I’m completely, utterly obsessed with getting the HTC HD2 (seriously, it will be my next phone, at the end of my contract, unless I fixate on something else between now and then, which is admittedly entirely possible), but if I could afford a second phone (which I can’t), I’d get one in a heartbeat.
But if you’re not already completely obsessed with a phone that’s already out, should you get it? Yeah, I reckon so. If and when they ever get round to announcing it for the UK. Seriously, the wait on phones like this and the Pre is getting right on my pecs…
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