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Palm Pixi Plus Phone (Verizon Wireless)
Reviews |
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| Availability:
Usually ships in 24 hours |
| Release
Date: 2010-01-25 |
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Consumer Ratings and
Reviews for Palm Pixi Plus Phone (Verizon Wireless) |
Rating:
| | Review: not great as a phone, especially if you use while driving
| This phone has a few nice features but is missing some I consider essential. Service (if it can be called that...) provider AT&T.
PROS:
Keyboard. The keyboard has a nice feel and is well designed. The "." and "@" keys are separate, and the most-used symbols are right on the the keys so texting is breeze. The threaded text feature is also nice (all texts between you and any given recipient are grouped together).
Size. It's quite small and light (fits in a pocket).
Display. The display area is fairly small but of good quality. It also allows for horizontal tilt, so if you're watching a video, it's like a mini TV screen.
Signal strength indicator. This seems to be more accurate than on other phones I've used (in places where my other phone from AT&T shows full bars but frequently drops calls, this one showed only 1 or no bars.)
Quick launcher. Similar to the dock on a Mac, it's an area on the main screen where the user can quickly access a few of the most-used apps; the apps displayed there can be changed by the user.
WebOS. Pretty smooth, easy to use.
CONS:
Slooooow start up. From powered off mode to available for any function is >2 minutes. Too long if you need to make a call in a hurry.
NO VOICE COMMANDS THIS PHONE. I've got a daily car commute so this was a real problem. The last 3 generations of phones I've bought used voice commands. I would tap my bluetooth headset, speak the name of the person I wanted to call et voila!, the call is made. And hitting the bluetooth doesn't "wake up" the phone. It goes into sleep mode (settings = 30 secs to 3 mins). Once asleep, you have to hit the power button, make a sliding motion on the screen to unlock and then hit the phone icon just to get it into calling mode. From there, if a number is in speed dial you can hit that letter on the keypad and it will dial. Otherwise, you can start inputting on the keyboard the name of the person on your contact list, or input the number on the fussy touch keypad, but that's too close to texting and really too much distraction while driving. Even when not driving, it really requires too many steps to make a call once the phone has been asleep.
Battery life. Will not make it through a day of even light use (<1 hour of talk, email check x2, and text x3) on a single charge. This is NOT the phone to take on a 2-day camping trip.
Freezes. It would occasionally get "hung up" on something but give no error message. Rather, it would just stop responding to most (but not all???) commands. For instance, at one point the phone icon (which you need in order to actually place a call) disappeared from the quick launcher and wasn't in the apps menu. Restart (that 2-3 minute process) didn't work, so I had to actually take out the battery (and don't believe Palm when they say you can take off the cover using just your thumbnail) and wait another 2-3 mins for it to restart again. Similar freezes happened several times over a 5-day period.
Numeric keys are only on the touch screen and rather finicky. I have smallish fingers and would frequently get an "8" instead of a "5" or have a number double enter.
Speaker volume. The speaker feature is really only useful to 1 or 2 people in a quiet room. Otherwise, the volume isn't loud enough to heard by a group.
AT&T's customer service. I've really lowered my expectations of service over the past several years, but AT&T reached new lows during this episode. I won't bore you with the details, but will say that one AT&T supervisor, reviewing the notes on my account of the nightmare process to get this phone once I had paid for it, and then to get it up & running, was "the worst [she'd] ever seen". She was very apologetic, gave me the top secret address (even SHE had trouble finding it) for AT&T's corporate complaint department and encouraged me to write them.
BOTTOM LINE: Despite the cool things this phone can do, I am going to have to return it. First and foremost, I need a phone to be a phone, and when it takes more than 3 steps to make a call, it's just too many. That, combined with the fact that it can't make it for the 10 hours I'm away from home on a full charge with only light use, makes it not worth the hassle. |
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Rating:
| | Review: Great phone for the price
| This phone is everything I've wanted in a cell phone. Multitasking, great UI, and the ability for homebrew applications (something you'd never see on a WinMo, BB, or iPhone).
The only quibble I have is the battery life. That's why I charge it whenever I'm in my car, at my house, or infront of a computer.
For the price (free), this phone is great. |
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| Rating:
| | Review: More trouble than it's worth
| I've had my palm pixi for about week now and my reccoemndation would be- pass. This phone is more frustrating than it's worth.
Cons-
1) Battery life. Barely makes it to dinner when starting the day with a full charge. If you use it during the day, a few phone calls, texts and some email.. you'll want to recharge it about lunch time. This is not a phone that you'd want in an emergency if you can't even get one day out of it.
2) Mobile Hot Spot- this was the reason I bought the phone. I have yet to get this to work because I couldn't find the app. Went the to the Verizon store and they were able to fet the app up and running after several tries because..
3) Touch Screen- the touch screen on this is very sensitive. You will find yourself inadvertantly opening applications because you "missed" when touching the screen. Paging from one screen to the next is difficult as well. Often I'd wind up opening apps instead of scrolling. Repeatedly. The Verizon employee helping me with screen actually, after 5 or 6 tries to page over and instead opening an app let go an F'Bomb and looked up ashamed.. sort of a "did I sat that out loud?" All I did was smile and remark, "my sentiments exactly".
4) Slow- the phone is very slow to open apps. The thing freezes while it's opening or updating which is very frustrating as well.
On the other hand, good stuff about the phone-
1) The keyboard is excellent. Small but works great. My last phone was a centro and I was constanlty fat fingering letters, this one doesn't do that. Also, puting the "@" key as it's own.. very smart.
2) Display- the actual display is beautiful.. just try not to touch it. Emails and texts are very easy to read.
3) Call quality.. compared to an iPhone which is great for apps and email but very poor at calls.. this unit makes fantastic calls. The only complaint I have is the address book is your online address books and this slows the phone down when looking for address. It also means you're going to have to spend a couple hours cleaning up that old GMail or Yahoo contact list to use it.. One advice, if you have both pick one and stick with that one.. the phone and your sanity will thank you.
My overall experience, I'm sorry I bought the phone. The Mobile Hot Spot is the hook that got me and I've not even been able to get that to work. And, I'm afraid that when I do, the battery issues will really be a problem for long term use.
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Rating:
| | Review: Form and Functionality
| So after waiting like 6 months for Verizon to get the Pre, I was so ready to buy one, until I read a couple reviews on this little monster called the Pixi. I decided to go to the store and check both of them out. After spending 10 minutes listening to the Verizon guy tell me the Driod was better/manlier/cooler/whatever, I asked to play around with the 3 phones for a bit while he helped other customers. I encourage anyone to do this.
My impression:
The Pixi weighs something like half as much as the two others. It is slimmer than an iPhone or Razer. I could not tell if it was in my pocket or not.
This is how a phone should feel.
There was no sacrifice. The Pixi can do literally 98% of what the Pre can do. Unless you are planning on 800 mHz overclocks, opening 10+ cards, or 3-d games, the Pixi will do it. Now, I regularly leave my email, messaging, stocks, dialer, facebook all open simultaneously. I can instantly switch back and forth with a swipe, and no, it does not affect battery life to leave cards open. If I ever needed to call someone I literally just start typing the first few letters of the name, tap, and I'm dialing. Much easier than onscreen keyboards.
In comparison the Driod operating system felt clunky and slow. It was hard to switch between applications and there was no pinch zoom. It had a built in application that you had to use if you wanted to close down extra programs running in the background. webOS is everything Android should have been.
Not only is the pixi one of the smallest most capable phones on the market, but it's one of the most solidly built. With no slider it has zero flex and fits easily in your hand. I have fairly large hands (6'2" guy) and thought I would have trouble with the keyboard but it was actually easier than any other phone I have ever used. I can easily dial and message with one hand (I know it's not safe while driving, but this is coming from someone who regularly watches his friends drive with their knees while trying to type on an iPhone).
Anyway, if you can't tell, I endorse this product. Now that it can be had for free it's a no brainer. It is important to point out that the Pre is also free at some online locations and Walmart. If you want slightly more power check that out. But if you want one of the smallest most capable phones ever made, this is it. I'm hoping in a years time Palm will merge the Pre 2.0 into a slightly wider Pixi with the same slim feel and form factor. |
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| Rating:
| | Review: Really great phone for personal (non-enterprise) smart phone users
| I recently dumped Sprint service and a HTC Touch Pro (awful phone) for Verizon service and the Palm Pixi Plus.
I noticed that the reviewers of this phone tend to be women. I suspect that with a name like "Pixi", males were not the intended market for this phone. However men shopping for phones should not dismiss this out of hand - I am glad that I gave it a look.
Just a few things I want to note:
Unlike in previous Palm phones - Centro, Treo Pro, etc, the keyboards on both the Palm Pre and the Palm Pixi are significantly improved and much more usable. The Pixi's keyboard has what feels like rubberized plastic keys that are very grippy and spaced well enough apart that thumb typing is possible, even for a person with larger fingers (i.e. men, me).
The phone is super slim which is not only a nice aesthetic, but practical too - especially if you carry your phone in a pants pocket rather than in a belt clip case or handbag.
Finally, the Palm WebOS operating system is superb. While other OS's may have better or larger aftermarkets / application development communities, this OS is very easy and intuitive to use. I have not yet had to consult this phone's user manual for any routine tasks. Everything just works. Additionally, the integration with major web services (Yahoo and Google especially) are incredible. The phone can accommodate multiple e-mail accounts with ease. Calendars can also be synced with online services so that a change on the phone shows up online and vice-versa. Very cool. These integration features really increase the utility of a smart phone and I find myself making more frequent use of this device than I did my HTC Touch Pro. The straw that tipped the scale for me in favor of Palm's phones using the WebOS versus other phones and other operating systems is that, through the online Palm Profile (requires registration w/ phone activation) you can erase all your phone's data if your phone is lost or stolen. This is a feature that I imagine will be common on mobile OS's in the future, but to my knowledge is exclusive to Palm today.
Other users have noted poor battery life; for moderate use (3 or 4 hours of calls, texts, web, apps), the phone usually gets through 1.5x days of use, in my experience. If used heavily for multimedia (video / music), the battery drains quicker, of course.
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