Palm Pre trouble roundup

So we've been doing this whole gadget blogging thing for a while now, and we've noticed a timeline trend with these major, buzz-filled launches. They tend to go something like this:

• T minus 2 hours: lines reach critical mass across the country; odds are you'll find some of us in those lines. Camaraderie amongst line-waiters is at a high, but it's a guarded emotion -- the scene'll turn ugly the second inventory runs out.
• T minus 30 minutes: for morning lines (particularly those where folks have waited overnight), store managers come out and offer coffee and pastries. Anything less is uncivilized -- don't hesitate to complain.
• T minus 0 minutes: the gizmo goes on sale.
• T plus 1 hour: the first teardowns and cost estimates hit the web.
• T plus 4 hours: mass (or at least loud) complaints of manufacturing defects, bugs, and shortcomings start cropping up.

It's still too early to tell whether the Pre is more, less, or equally as defective as any other blockbuster product in recent memory, but as you might expect, there are plenty of issues being sporadically reported in the first weekend of availability and it'll be interesting to see how Palm spins and handles them. Here are a few we're tracking:

• A good number of early adopters are reporting "splotchy," distorted, or discolored displays (we've seen reports of dead pixels, too, though we'd actually be more weirded out if there weren't). See examples here, here, and here.
• We've also heard reports of unexpected system shutdowns (like those reported in the LAPTOP piece above) that require a battery pull to resolve. We're hearing that you can also patch this up by holding down the power button and toggling the ringer switch three times, but your mileage may vary. If we had to guess, this'll be fixed up with a firmware update at some point, which really drives home the value of OTA capability.
• Text fields in the web browser don't seem to support symbols that aren't on the keyboard (that is, symbols you need to hold down "Sym" to access). We've independently verified this one, and it's nasty -- it'll be particularly bad once the phone launches internationally, so we'd also expect this to be patched sooner rather than later.

If you've noticed anything else, drop us a line in comments -- we think Palm and Sprint are both motivated to make this launch a smooth one, and something tells us their ears are firmly planted to the ground right now.

[Thanks to everyone who sent these in]

[va jj @ Jun 7th 2009 9:08PM]

I'm sure there's enough pre in stock as replacements.

[Freakin Ijit @ Jun 8th 2009 5:22AM]

Yes, Engadget will have to cover THAT story, too.

Say...do you know if the Pre knows when you're going to be late for an appointment and emails ahead to the other attendees?

[Spencer @ Jun 7th 2009 8:58PM]

iPhone 3GS FTW!

[Kaitou KID @ Jun 7th 2009 9:00PM]

How can you say this when it's not even out yet?

Oh yeah, because you're a DUMBASS!

[PedoJokerBear (aka Deeznuts) @ Jun 7th 2009 9:01PM]

gtfo

[ShirkPower @ Jun 7th 2009 9:01PM]

haha so true,
But i think overall its Palm FTL,
trying to make super profits with a cheap ass phone.

[GnuGeek @ Jun 7th 2009 9:01PM]

he may be downrated

[Ryan @ Jun 7th 2009 9:09PM]

Yeah that compass will be SWEET!!!!! And SO useful!!!

[jimmy @ Jun 7th 2009 10:23PM]

i think you mean "iPhone 3GS *RUMORS* FTW!

In a related story, unicorns are better than horses.

[WickedEast @ Jun 8th 2009 1:49AM]

FTW where no one except the US cares about the iPhone. LOL.

[Matt @ Jun 7th 2009 8:58PM]

Everyone over-hypes. It's probably a small amount of people making a lot of noise.


... Or people who don't want the Pre to succeed and are making stuff up.

[absolutc @ Jun 7th 2009 8:59PM]

It's the post pre prevalent problems! Say that 5 times fast!

[Jonathan @ Jun 7th 2009 9:02PM]

These are reports from people in Precentral and EverythingPre forums, who have been waiting for 6 months for this phone. That picture is actually forgiving, the blurring can be a lot worse.

As for my Pre, it's behaving well. One time it told me that I have too many cards open when I've had 1 or no cards open, and the only fix was to restart, but I'm not too concerned with the software. More with the hardware, everytime I do the back gesture I feel the top layer of the phone move. It's annoying, the Pre may not feel cheap in some ways, like simply holding the device in your hand, but sometimes you are made all too clear that it's a slider phone by the Pre wiggling when shut.

[Kaitou KID @ Jun 7th 2009 9:02PM]

Excellent points Matt. I have to agree with you. So many iPhone fanboys out there, there is bound to be some BS floating around bashing the pre. I saw a youtube video of that dumbass iJustine chick who said the pre sucks when she didn't even use one. She didn't even know what a "palm pro" (she meant treo pro) was. Lots of idiots out there pretending to be tech experts but fail miserably.

[Thunda Chunky @ Jun 7th 2009 9:04PM]

I doubt anyone would make this stuff up. Most, if not all, new devices have these kind of issues. Like Chris said, it'd be weird if they didn't. Very nice, but weird.

[Quantumphysics @ Jun 7th 2009 9:03PM]

WHEN YOU TAKE ON APPLE.... THINGS GO BADLY FOR YOU

[Ryan @ Jun 7th 2009 9:05PM]

Actually these things are very real. On my pre (which I'm using to make this comment) there is a dead pixel and those heat spots on the bottom. Think it is beacause the processor is uber hot and its right under it. ( I am probably wrong). Also when charging its pretty darn warm

[ShirkPower @ Jun 7th 2009 9:08PM]

This is justice for using Apple as your R&D department Palm.

Create your own ideas already...

[Dragonfly @ Jun 7th 2009 9:08PM]

I know you want the Pre to succeed and all, but don't be silly. Your post just makes you sound like a paranoid fanboy. None of this stuff is made up, most of the complaints originated from a dedicated blog called precentral.net, and I think its fair to say that most of them are probably Pre fans, well at least they were until these defects started to show up.

[Gerard @ Jun 7th 2009 9:09PM]

Not really. It's day one with extremely limited availability and we're already seeing some pretty big problems. Did you read the thread at all? The buyer stated that both of his phones have it to some extent and that a few of the other ones in the store had it too. In addition some of his fellow forum users posted similar stories. And also these complaints are coming from Pre/Sprint fans as I don't think any Pre haters are going to line up on launch day and buy a Pre just so that they can find a defect.

I also have to bring up Engadget's review where they stated that the device physically "broke". This raises some serious doubts for me regarding the quality of the product. Thankfully I like to wait at least a week before I buy a product so that if there are issues such as these, it will at least have a chance to be brought to light before I commit to purchase.

Also I played with a Pre for a minute at a Sprint store today. I noticed it was running rather hot but that could be chalked up to the Touchstone wireless charging base it was attached to. While there was a lot of eye candy it was not quite as intuitive as the iPhone. There was a slight learning curve and a few lags but nothing serious. I'll have to see what Apple offers before I make a decision as to my next phone but one thing for sure is that I'm getting rid of my Xperia X1 lol

[tj @ Jun 7th 2009 10:20PM]

..how hard are swiping for the back gesture...i did notice that it did wiggle put i had to sweep very hard... id hate to be your cat if you pet as hard as you swipe...

[hangfire @ Jun 7th 2009 10:31PM]

@matt

i never heard of these problems with the iPhone, at least not literally overnight.

pre might have taken many ex apple employees
BUT
they couldn't get stevie now could they.......

[ShogunMaster @ Jun 7th 2009 10:51PM]

You iPhone morons seem to have a short memory. When the iPhone came out and had all the hoopla of this new 'wonderphone', the whole network crashed for a day or two and no one could activate their accounts. Problems happen on release days; even for Apple products.

[Prokanda @ Jun 7th 2009 11:05PM]

oh. my. god. ------^

[iphonerulez @ Jun 7th 2009 11:11PM]

Is it really true that a Pre set a house on fire after it overheated while the user was making a phone call? Maybe Palm should offer a fire insurance policy with every Pre sold.

There have been local reports that hospitals are seeing victims of third degree burns to their hands after using a Palm Pre for longer than ten minutes. Apparently the Pre's plastic case starts to melt after running more than two programs at a time. Had something to due with background processing overworking the TI OMAP 3430 processor to the point of combustion.

A class action suit will likely follow and Palm will file for Chapter 11. Pre burn victims swear they will get iPhones which are trouble-free.

[SimbaDogg @ Jun 7th 2009 11:36PM]

can anyone tell me why K. KID got low ranked?
1) the girl that he's talking about is a iphone fangirl, which is true...and lets be honest, there are A LOT of iphone fanbots that are talking bad about the pre, when they haven't even used one themselves (even some ON this page)
2) he said she didn't know what a palm pro was, which after watching the video is true (unless she was playing the 'i'm a dumb hot blonde w/ brown roots growing out' role...which she did quite well)
3) she never actually touched a working model the entire day, poke the dummy phone once or twice and said the keyboard sucks.

maybe i'm crazy, but everything he said about the girl, and about iphone fanbots is true. and to be honestly, the majority of iphone users seriously dont give 2 shits about the pre, cuz they just like their phone, and thats all they care about...but there are a lot of iphone lovers who feel for some reason that their phone is somehow cheapened by the release of pre...and feel for some dumb reason motivated to take swipes at it. w/e

[Lee Walton @ Jun 8th 2009 4:05PM]

Probably iPhone (L)users who don't even HAVE Pres!

[CraigJ @ Jun 8th 2009 12:56AM]

@ShogunMaster - There's a big difference between the NETWORK (AT&T) not being able to keep up with demand and potentially defective DEVICES.

[ushak @ Jun 8th 2009 1:03AM]

I have the phone and its great. No problems whatsoever.

[ushak @ Jun 8th 2009 1:06AM]

Honestly, if there are thousands of a device being produced its not unreasonable for a few to have minor defects. I bought mine at 8AM Saturday and have had no issue at all whatsoever thus far. I love the phone, I love the OS, and last time i checked no ones Pre has spontaneously combusted in anyones pants YET. SO RELAX.

[Mike P. @ Jun 8th 2009 1:14AM]

Those "splotches" just look like uneven throw from the row of LEDs at the bottom of the screen that provides the backlight... If that's the case, tons of devices have that.

[CheshireCat @ Jun 8th 2009 2:24AM]

Hahaha
A bunch of fat having no real life nerds yelling at each other for the right to call their piece of plastic with wires "the best phone".
Pathetic

[IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII (BarCODE) @ Jun 8th 2009 3:01AM]

@alienicecooler

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ytCEuuW2_A

[tkandme3 @ Jun 8th 2009 6:18AM]

Good. They deserve it. They bought a crappy phone and signed up for crappy service from Sprint.

Should have gotten an iPhone.

If it lacks an Apple logo, it's nothing special.

[UnixSystemsEngineer @ Jun 8th 2009 10:02AM]

I wouldn't worry too much about minor SW problems, those'll get fixed. HW problems are the ones to keep an eye on.

[OneLove @ Jun 8th 2009 6:34PM]

Thats just a risk of being an early adopter. Everyone knows you dont buy a brand new product until you are sure the kinks are out. Pre 2 ftw!

[bmn @ Jun 8th 2009 7:32PM]

iphone had the same problem with the screen
http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=526266

[debra @ Jun 11th 2009 11:09PM]

i love the pre, i love sprint, i dont want any other phone but that spotting and blotching is the real deal. I'm on my second phone and it is like the heat from the battery causes the screen to distort, I don't want the phone to fail but its pretty crazy that we all shelled out 300+ for a phone that has an obviously flawed screen....and my battery is not warm..no, that thing is scalding hot. I have to use bluetooth and headphones on phone calls.

[houari44 @ Jun 16th 2009 9:37AM]

hi

[GnuGeek @ Jun 7th 2009 8:58PM]

so much for Quality Assurance

[GRAMMAR POLICE @ Jun 7th 2009 9:53PM]

*So much for quality assurance.

[Mr. 14 @ Jun 7th 2009 11:10PM]

@ GRAMMAR POLICE:

*Grammar and Punctuation Police

[GRAMMAR POLICE @ Jun 7th 2009 11:27PM]

Sometimes you need to go that extra mile for the good of the community.

[Austinekong.web @ Jun 7th 2009 11:56PM]

Comment from a person that actually owns a pre and had used an iphone3g before (I don't own it but my sister has one and I have used it many times. I also own and HTC touch pro and a blackberry...

My verdict:
Phone has some issues my suggestion is to get over it. Its the nature of the game. I mean of course there is a fine line between what's acceptable and what is not and so far nothing has presented it self that is unacceptable...so all the people yelling fail pls put a cork in it.

I'm sure the engadget review was enough for most so I will not attempt to turn this into some sort of mini review.

Observed issues:
-when phone charges and you try and use it at the same time the back get super hot..I dnt have any knowledge of how these components interact but all I know is that it gets hot as $hit. Don't know if that's something an update can fix but whatever.

-next cloud synergy is pretty slick but in some cases its to over powering. As in it does not let you opt out under certain cases. For example when you add a gmail account to the phone it automatically includes all contatcs listed in that account. Some might not want that especially if you don't have any real contacts in gmail and just names with emails because then ull just have a bunch of emails thrown into your address book. But you can opt out and make the contacts application ignore a particular account. BUT when you sign into a ghat account while signed in it will but all ur buddies into your contact list while signed into an account (I dnt know if its the same with aim but I'm sure it is). This can be very annoying if you have ALOT of buddies. Not the end of the world but there needs to be a way to shut that off.
-palm needs to include away to text from call history screen. When ur in the call history screen there are no other options expect to just click on a name or number to place a call. This is kinda ridiculous..I shld not have to go to the contacts menu or messaging app if I'm already looking @ a number in my call log.
-no virtual key board pls palm we need one there are really times you just need to text "wats up" "call me" "love you too" "that was great"...lol and so forth and slidding out the keyboard is just to much effort for those kinda things (I'm sure either palm or someone else will eventually release one).
- weird but like in the engadget comment box the scroll bar doesn't work..(in the comment box) so as you type and the text fills the space and goes to the next line you have no way of scrolling back up to the top of your text since there is no dpad to move the cursor up. So far its only been an issue here. Well to be honest I realized it while typing this. I was trying to go back up to look at what I wrote and I realized I couldn't. Odd.
-no shortcut key to move quickly through long list. For example if you have 100 emails to get to the 100th email you must scroll to it...kinda silly but I'm sure it will be addressed sooner or later.
-keyboard is small. If your a man or woman with big hands and fingers good luck! I have big hands and palm must be on drugs if they think anyone with large hands will be able to type alot on this without their hands hurting..mine hurt a bit just from this message. Pls pls pls pls PLEAAAASE palm if ur reading this I need a good virtual keyboard for those quick messages.
-i saved the best for last.
I hate accesing the keyboard...not a deal breaker but I was NOT amused by it. Infact within the first hr of playing with the phone I was very upset lol..there was just no fluent way to open the damn thing. Now its ok because I figured out the perfect motion so I'm ok now.

Overall I'm very happy with the phone thus far.....
iphone killer? umm def not...well I retract..I think someone needs to define the term iPhone killer. That's something I have never seen anyone really define.. When I think of iPhone killer I think of a device that will just utterly put the iPhone to shame..in my opinion the pre doesn't do that. It trumps the iPhone (as we knw it today not factoring what they have cooking) in "certain" areas but its not an iPhone killer and I doubt there ever be such a thing. Unless someone steps up and does what iPhone did to the game with its first release. The palm pre to me offers a GREAT user experience for us in the CDMA world. If I had both an iPhone and a pre on the same network I'd go for the palm pre...not because its an "iPhone killer" but more so because it has a few tricks up its sleeve that in my opinion give it a slighter advantage over the iPhone...but that's just me though. I will not waste my energy to argue that the pre is an iPhone killer because by my definition its not.

For any of you that have personal issues and get sensless hard ons over slight typo errors/ minor grammatical errors please go stick it in something else...I'd really appreciate it. I have already explained that there is an issue with scrolling up and dwn in the comment box and I am posting this from my pre which I fully have not adjusted to the small keyboard so please spare me the drama.

[GRAMMAR POLICE @ Jun 8th 2009 1:32AM]

"and I am posting this from my pre"

That's not going to hold up in court. The easy way out of proper grammar in a long post...

[atlasfugged @ Jun 8th 2009 4:45AM]

@GRAMMAR POLICE:

(hint: It wasn't a sentence, so technically he wasn't violating any rules of grammar.)

[Justin B @ Jun 7th 2009 8:58PM]

So you're telling me gadgets have issues upon first release?

Wait a second, this implies the iPhone wasn't perfect.

Remember when the iPhone came out, you rabid Apple fanboys, it was plagued with problems too.

[ShirkPower @ Jun 7th 2009 9:02PM]

But that could be solved by software...

[patriotsn1 @ Jun 7th 2009 9:13PM]

What software made it 3G?

Also willing to bet that about half the palms I see won't have cracked screens (like the iphone)

[ShirkPower @ Jun 7th 2009 9:17PM]

its already 3g...?