Palm Pre user thinking of changing to Iphone

[sharpcroft]

Im loosing patience with my Pre and have a chance to swap to an Iphone (3gs i hope) on O2, before i jump i have a few questions.

There are a few things i love about the Pre and i am wondering whether they are achievable on an Iphone,

Things I Love:
1:Contacts sync with google- if i break my pre i can reset it, sync over wireless and all my contacts are back on my pre (phone numbers, email, birthdays, contact photo, etc)
2: Google calander sync- my wife and i both have google calander on out laptops and they both sync with my Pre so appointments/birthdays show up on the native Pre calendar.
3:Universal search- i can just start typing a word/name and if its stored locally (on the Pre) i get options like "Call-SMS-Email" etc if its a name, if its an app it will give me the option to start the app, if not stored locally i get the option to search google/google maps/wiki/twitter.
3: Being able to add music/video by drag and drop without needing a 3rd party app (IE: itunes)
4ownload videos direct from youtube and save them on the Pre.
5: "hard" keyboard
6: Call and sms possible while browsing on 3g without closing the browser
7: Reliable push email from my Gmail account
8: excellent web browser inc scroll and multi touch support
9: induction "touchstone" charger
10: replaceable battery

Things I Dont Love:
1: patchy reception when compared to a Nokia N95-2 and a Nokia E71 on the same network in the same area.
2: very very slow handover from 3g to 2g resulting in missed/dropped calls
3: unreliable MMS messaging, messages arriving late (sometimes days) or not at all
4: Random lockups and slowdowns fixed only by a re-boot
5: Re-boot taking 2mins+
6: battery life being <24h with wifi and push enabled (30 mins browsing, 30 mins calls, 20 sms a day)

Any help greatly appreciated, was never certain about the Iphone because im not a fan of Apples closed rank attitude but if the Iphone can full fill my requirement without too much hassle then i would seriously consider swapping.

Sharpcroft.

 

[Brickman]

Welcome sharpcroft! Glad to have you!

Well here are the short answers to some of your points:

#1-#3. Yes.

#3 (the other #3). No. You have to use iTunes

#4. Not sure about that one I don't think you can though.

#5 Never

#6-#8. Yes

#9-#10. No

My suggestion is to play with an iPhone as much as possible before you make a switch. The iPhone does many things much better than the Pre. There are some things that it does not do as well as the Pre. You need to prioritize what is the most important to you and your needs and be sure that whatever device you pick fills those priority needs.

Just a suggestion.

 

[flyingember]

Things I Love:
1:Contacts sync with google- if i break my pre i can reset it, sync over wireless and all my contacts are back on my pre (phone numbers, email, birthdays, contact photo, etc)

if you use your only exchange account you can do this.

2: Google calander sync- my wife and i both have google calander on out laptops and they both sync with my Pre so appointments/birthdays show up on the native Pre calendar.

Works the same.

3:Universal search- i can just start typing a word/name and if its stored locally (on the Pre) i get options like "Call-SMS-Email" etc if its a name, if its an app it will give me the option to start the app, if not stored locally i get the option to search google/google maps/wiki/twitter.

Sort of. The pre has better quick ways to do this, but you can search for a name, tap the contact

3: Being able to add music/video by drag and drop without needing a 3rd party app (IE: itunes)

Nope. This is the huge benefit of itunes if done right. Setup playlists and sync options once. Break your phone, your playlists are still on your computer. It syncs everything for you again with much less work the second time

4ownload videos direct from youtube and save them on the Pre.

No.

5: "hard" keyboard

You already knew the answer to this

6: Call and sms possible while browsing on 3g without closing the browser

Not a Pre function, actually. It wouldn't be possible with a Pre from Sprint. That's a GSM function. It will work.

7: Reliable push email from my Gmail account

See item 1

8: excellent web browser inc scroll and multi touch support

Arguably it's the best mobile browser

9: induction "touchstone" charger

You knew the answer to this

10: replaceable battery

You knew the answer to this

2: very very slow handover from 3g to 2g resulting in missed/dropped calls
3: unreliable MMS messaging, messages arriving late (sometimes days) or not at all

This could be the network, not necessarily your phone. Have you worked with your provider on the issue?

 

[sharpcroft]

Thanks for the quick reply.
Another couple of questions,
1-3, is this without Itunes?, i already have my contacts saved in a gmail account so can i just sync them with a new Iphone without Itunes?

The other number 3 i think i may a have a sort of solution
w w w.getsharepod.com/ (cant post url's yet)

Is there a "workaround" (not jailbreak) for sites that rely on flash video? IE:hulu

I know someone with an original 3g Iphone, is there much difference apart from speed between that and a 3GS?

Thanks again

 

[ghostface147]

Hello Sharpcroft,

I personally am not aware of any workaround for flash sites that don't involve jailbreaking. There is a big speed difference between 3G and 3GS. Buy an iPhone and stress test it for about a week. If you don't like it, return it.

 

[sharpcroft]

Hello Sharpcroft,

I personally am not aware of any workaround for flash sites that don't involve jailbreaking. There is a big speed difference between 3G and 3GS. Buy an iPhone and stress test it for about a week. If you don't like it, return it.

LOL i like the idea but im not sure that O2 would agree

Whats the battery life like with push and wifi turned on (i have push set to "as arrive" on my Pre)

Thanks

 

[flyingember]

LOL i like the idea but im not sure that O2 would agree

Whats the battery life like with push and wifi turned on (i have push set to "as arrive" on my Pre)

Thanks

you'll charge daily either way

wifi uses less power

also, there's no real workaround for flash period. I would give up the idea of accessing flash content on the iphone

 

[sharpcroft]

Pretty much Pre like then, it wont last 24h with all the bells and whistles running.
Must admit i am tempted by the 3gs reading the reviews just wondering whether its worth waiting for flash 10.1 on the Pre before i make a final decision, i still have an active "problem" logged with O2 network support so i suppose that will help if i do decide to bin the Pre and try and crowbar an Iphone from them.

 

[big9erfan]

Thanks for the quick reply.
Another couple of questions,
1-3, is this without Itunes?, i already have my contacts saved in a gmail account so can i just sync them with a new Iphone without Itunes?

With the contacts sync, you just need to set it up in the iPhone and it should sync your contacts ( assuming you use the 1 exchange account for it ).

Calendars sync without needing to use the exchange account. I have 3 calendars sync'd to my iPhone: mine, my girlfriends, and my facebook events.

 

[sharpcroft]

"Calendars sync without needing to use the exchange account. I have 3 calendars sync'd to my iPhone: mine, my girlfriends, and my facebook events."

Excellent, so google calender events appear on the native (i assume it has one) Iphone app without user intervention/manual syncing needed?
Do events from different calenders appear in different colours like they do on the Pre/google calender.

 

[sharpcroft]

Another quick question.
With the Pre you could not use it till it was activated which was done over the internet with Palms servers creating a "palm profile", i understand the Iphone needs activating as well, can this only be done with Itunes? i hope not as i cant stand it, i use "sharepod" on my Ipod video and nano.

Im beginning to lean towards the Iphone 3gs now i've seen jailbreak phones running proswitcher, WebOs like interface on decent hardware

I know 3.1.3 cannot be "broken" yet but i would hazard a guess it wont take long

 

[ghostface147]

Yes you have to activate it using iTunes.

 

[sharpcroft]

Ok so i would need Itunes installed for the initial registration, i take it that after that im "free"
apps etc can be downloaded and installed direct to the Iphone without Itunes?

 

[big9erfan]

"Calendars sync without needing to use the exchange account. I have 3 calendars sync'd to my iPhone: mine, my girlfriends, and my facebook events."

Excellent, so google calender events appear on the native (i assume it has one) Iphone app without user intervention/manual syncing needed?
Do events from different calenders appear in different colours like they do on the Pre/google calender.

Yes, that's how it works. See the attachment, it shows events for 3 different calendars all in different colors ( the dots )

Orange = Holiday
Green = girlfriend
Blue = mine

 

[big9erfan]

Ok so i would need Itunes installed for the initial registration, i take it that after that im "free"
apps etc can be downloaded and installed direct to the Iphone without Itunes?

Correct, but it is good to get in the habit of sync'ing with iTunes as it will backup the content on your phone in case something bad happens ( say the unit is defective and you get a replacement, you can then restore from backup and all your apps, text conversations, etc are there )

 

[sharpcroft]

So Itunes backs up your sms's as well/
Thats a big plus point over the Pre, you loose all your texts and call logs if your phone goes t**s up, your apps and contacts etc are fine but not much else.
If i decide on the Iphone i might have to install Itunes on a VM just for occasional backups, all my contacts are in a gmail account so that side of things is safe.
Had a play with an older 3g (16gb) today and in comparison its a bit slower than the Pre and the lack of multitasking and screen gestures was a bit of a downer, but, and its a big BUT, if the 3gs (3.1.3) can be jailbroken, i think it could be on a par operating system wise with the Pre when multitasking is enabled via ProSwitcher and would edge above hardware wise given the glass screen and general better build quality (i think i would miss the hard keyboard which is a joy to use even with gorilla hands like mine).
Hmmmmmmmm decision decisions decisions,

Anyone want to lend me a jailbroken 3gs for a couple of days