PI in the Sky – Paul Irvine

The Palm Pre Plus / webOS comes with built in sync for exchange calendars, but not for outlook calendars. I have Outlook 2007 and use it for accessing a couple of hosted exchange accounts (POP without calendar), and multiple imap accounts. So there was no apparent way to get my Outlook calendar data into my Palm Pre Plus. I found several commercial software tools that could do it, and it wasn’t that I was bothered with paying for software that does a good job, but it wasn’t a deal breaker and so I left it a day or so. I’d just got my several contacts info sorted out from my old phone (by adding them to my gmail account) when I saw that Google has a calendar sync utility you can download to sync your outlook desktop calendar to your Google Calendar. I hadn’t used Google Calendar before but decided to check it out. It was okay, but the interesting thing is the widgery allows you to do full sync, sync Google to Outlook only, or sync outlook to google only. Very cool. Select the last option, and google calendar has my outlook calendar in it. Fire up the Calendar tool on webOS on the Palm, and bingo… there’s my new google account data all sync’d in with my other calendar information, nicely merged and color coded.
This Palm Pre Plus continues to impress. Very nice.

After dragging my heels on the whole smartphone thing, I finally decided I had to switch from my aging flip thingy. And it takes me ages to review everything on the market, consider what’s coming, and make a choice. A key factor for me is I need to stay with Verizon Wireless, as they are the only carrier with effective reception where I live (about 35 miles outside Portland, OR). I might have considered the iPhone, except I’m now glad I never donated to the Steve Jobs Church of megalomania! Imagine banning Flash from his device and then also banning the use of cross-compilers to his iPrecious? wow, that’s iPriceless. And what a price rip-off they are anyway.
Back to the main story, I had also considered the Droid, and after waiting forever for Verizon to announce the Nexus, I gave up waiting and was just about convinced I needed a Droid.
I tried one out in store, and although I was sure I liked the slideout keyboard idea, I was underwhelmed when I tried the Droid. It just didn’t feel like a ’solid’ phone. That’s entirely subjective, I know. so is this blog.
Anyhoo… to the point, I was comparing the online discounts and rebates, and was absolutely amazed at some of the offers. Particularly the Palm Pre Plus from VZW. It had it all, and then had something the others all struggle with… wi-fi tethering for free under the same data plan. no hacking required. just pair it with your laptop and you are rolling.

Then the kicker… it was FREE!! With VZW online instant rebates, and my new-every-two credit, it was entirely and astoundingly FREE! Sign me up! How wrong can I go??

So what else do you get? I’m a three day old user so far, but I’m impressed. The phone itself feels outstanding. substantial yet small and comfortable. really solid. the keyboard is better than droids. webOS lives up to the hype too. a really smooth multi-tasking experience out of the box. And the built in calendar/contacts/mail work perfectly for me because I run three calendars and ten email inboxes (check my side links out… I have several business adventures running). So this thing not only brings all my inboxes in, it syncs and merges my calendar into one, and handles the contacts the same way too. It can integrate to your facebook, linkedin, or twitter, google, exchange, any imap or pop email. And its easy to set up. and the UI is very well thought out to handle all that. It wasnt an afterthought.
If you want faster access, and you are near an available wi-fi hotspot, you can switch to using the wi-fi instead of your carrier data plan. It is really good. For me its outstanding as I cannot get any signal actually in my house from any carrier – even VZW.
And if you need to use your Palm Pre Plus as a wifi hotspot, just pair your laptop with bluetooth (if not built in to your laptop, you can get a bluetooth USB dongle for about $15). Surprisingly, try Barnes & Noble for best price and free shipping!
The apps catalog is often cited as weak, but quite frankly there is nothing more I need right now. Having 100,000 poop applications? I saw some stats the other day that showed that over 80% of all app downloads from iphone app store are uninstalled within the first 30 days. I’d rather have a few good ones that worked really well. And Palm Pre Plus with webOS works exceptionally well. I’m a happy camper.

Did I mention the big surprise? This phone was free!
Hope you found this useful.