When comparing the Palm Pre and the iPhone 3G S, it is important to note that the iPhone is already in its third generation while the Palm Pre is in its first. The Palm Pre is far more advanced than the first generation iPhone model, which was almost unuseable.
Palm Pre Design and Build
- The Palm Pre has a plastic feeling, but feels very sturdy and compact in the hand. You will definitely love holding this! There's a power button on top, along with the headset port and a mute button, while the micro-USB slot on the right side is hidden behind a small door.
- The iPhone 3G S feels sturdy as well, although slightly large. There is not a noticeable difference between the design and build between the iPhone 3G S and the regular iPhone 3G.
The Palm Pre wins this round for design and build. It is small, perfectly sized, and the keyboard is easily exposed. The iPhone still feels like an oversized square brick.
Iphone Display
- The Palm Pre has a 3.1” color display that is bright and beautiful. The colors get slightly washed out when not looking at the screen from a straight angle. There is also light leakage towards the corners that is especially evident when looking at an all black screen.
- Watching video on the Pre is definitely a pleasure, although the display is slightly small. The capacitive touchscreen works perfectly and is instantly easy to get used to.
- The iPhone 3G S has a beautiful 3.5” color display. At first, you can’t tell much of a difference between the 3G S screen and the 3G screen. However, there is a major difference: The iPhone 3G S has an oleophobic coating, which means that it is almost smudge-proof. Because of this coating, dust is easy to remove. There is almost no purpose in getting a screen cover.
The iPhone 3G S wins this category. While the colors are crisper on the Palm Pre, the iPhone 3G S doesn’t have any light leakage and has a slightly better contrast ratio. Watching video is better on the iPhone, mostly because of the larger screen.
iPhone Performance
- Palm definitely took a risk with their new Web OS operating system and it appears to have paid off. The Pre can operate multiple tasks at once, with each task appearing as a card on the main screen. Switching tasks is as easy as flicking your finger from card to card. If you are done with a particular task and want to free up memory, an upward flick of the finger will put the card off the deck.
- The iPhone 3G S runs much faster and smoother than the iPhone 3G thanks to its 600 MHz processor. When you turn it sideways, web pages turn landscape right away: You don’t have to wait a couple seconds for this to happen anymore. You can play songs instantly, launch applications instantly, and do almost anything at very fast speed.
The iPhone 3G wins this category. The Palm Pre runs painfully slow sometimes and it’s because of the operating system, not the hardware. One has to take into consideration that this is the very first generation of the Palm Pre and things will likely get better.
iPhone Entertainment
- The Palm Pre has a gorgeous screen that certainly would make for a great movie player if you can survive the time it takes to load a movie. The music player is very basic and there is often a short pause when changing songs. The 3.0MP camera with flash is a great addition, but too bad it can’t shoot video.
- The iPhone is a multimedia master: a very user-friendly music player, a gorgeous and easy to control video player, a 3.0MP camera, and the best video recorder that has ever been included with a smartphone. Best of all, you can edit your videos right after taking them.
The iPhone 3G S, once again, wins another category. There is no contest in this one. However, since the Palm Pre is aimed more towards business users, this isn’t too much of a disability for Palm.
Palm Pre Internet Browsing
- Browsing the Internet with the Pre is an absolute pleasure: The pages render very fast, the text and pictures are crisp, and unlike the iPhone, you can actually enter text on message boards or other sites with a real keyboard. When you tilt the Pre sidewise, the web pages render in landscape mode.
- The browsing experience on the iPhone 3G S is improved from the 3G version since the pages render a lot faster. Text is easy to enter, but it would have been more convenient with a physical keyboard. AT&T is supposed to upgrade their 3G networks by the end of the year, so the speed should be even better.
The Palm Pre barely wins this cagegory. Both phones handle the Internet in a very remarkable way.
iPhone Apps
- The Palm Pre just came out and has a limited number of applications. This makes the Palm Pre feel crippled at times, but one can expect many new applications to come out by the end of the year.
- The iPhone 3G S has an unlimited amount of applications in all categories. Purchasing the applications is as easy as making a single click.
The iPhone 3G S is obviously the winner here since the App Store opened a year ago. Lets hope the Palm Pre catches up soon.
Conclusion
The future of Sprint and Palm depends on the success of the Palm Pre, which is a slick piece of hardware that lacks features of most smartphones in its first generation model. In order to be successful, Palm needs to update the software to include such basic features as voice dialing.
The iPhone 3G S might not look like a major upgrade from the iPhone 3G, but operates much better and continues a brand that is already a major success. Once again, Apple proves that there really is no such thing as an iPhone killer.
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