Palm Pixi Review – A good everyday SmartPhone for the Price
The Palm Pixi is Sprint’s latest handheld loaded with Palm’s new webOS.
Following in the footsteps of the Palm Pre, the Pixi supports multiple running applications, nearly limitless customization, and access to a large repository of applications from Palm’s App Catalog. On the outside, the Pixi is solid. Although it is incredibly thin for a smartphone and very light, it’s built well. The outer shell of the Pixi has a matte finish and feels like it could take a drop or two without suffering any major damage. The outer edge of the Pixi holds three buttons, a 3.5mm headset jack, a switch, and a microUSB port. The buttons are a power button and two volume buttons. They’re raised slightly from the casing, and it takes a solid press to activate the buttons. The power button is slightly hard to press, but it’s not a big issue. The switch is used to flip between ringer and silent modes. It’s more convenient than having to rapidly press the lower volume button to silence the phone. The microUSB port is hidden behind a flap that snaps securely into place when no cord is present. Speaking of the microUSB port, Palm packages a nice AC adapter for the Pixi. Akin to the name of the phone, the adapter is incredibly small and the prongs fold in to form one complete package.
The Pixi’s keyboard is adequate; it contains a full keyboard’s worth of buttons so you won’t need to double or triple tap like you would on other smartphones. However, the buttons are packed together to retain the small figure of the Pixi. I found myself occasionally pressing multiple keys when I tried typing a message. On the other hand, the errors that I made while typing were much less frequent than I would expect from such a small keyboard. I attribute it to the raised keys, which respond quickly. They give a satisfying click with each press, so you know that you hit the key.
An interesting deviation from the Pre’s center button is a solely touch based “gesture zone.” This zone sits between the touch screen and the keyboard, and it hides an illuminated bar. You can do a variety of things using the gesture zone, such as bringing up the quick launch menu, the application menu, switching to card view, and navigating backwards. After using a gesture, the illuminated bar displays what you just did, such as flashing from left to right or top to bottom.
On the software level, the webOS interface is almost as impressive as it was on the Pre. The Pixi sports a less powerful processor, so don’t expect to do any heavy lifting with it. For the regular phone user–and that’s the Pixi’s target audience–the processing power will definitely be enough. The Pixi can run multiple applications and swap between them using the “cards” interface. This system, tried and true from the Pre, works incredibly well and is very intuitive. A simple tap on the “gesture bar” throws the phone into “card mode” which shows all of your open applications in slightly reduced sizes. You can then cycle through them. Applications can be closed from this screen by “throwing” them out the top of the screen. So far, I haven’t noticed any lag while running multiple applications, but there have been reports of the phone slowing down slightly after four or five applications have been running continuously. The phone’s notification system shines. When an email is received, the phone vibrates or rings, displaying a small icon in the bottom of the screen. Clicking the icon displays a small box with message information. From there, you can access the full email application.
One of the outstanding features of the Pixi is its ability to manage contacts from a variety of sources. In addition to having a large address book built in, the Pixi can aggregate your contacts from your Google account, Facebook, Microsoft Exchange, or LinkedIn. This is a great way to ensure that you’ll never be searching for that lost phone number. However, you might not want all of your Facebook friends in your address book, and I couldn’t find a way to change that.
All in all, the Palm Pixi is a great phone. Its outer casing is smooth and sleek, and its keyboard is outstanding for the category that it’s placed in. The screen is vibrant and responsive, and the webOS software runs very well. However, the Pixi noticeably lacks Wi-Fi. This isn’t a problem if you’re always in range of the data network, but sometimes a faster connection may be desired. This is the only area where the phone is clearly lacking. For its price point, however, the Pixi is sure to satisfy the everyday smartphone user.
Special thanks to Tricorp Wireless (http://www.tricorpwireless.com) who lent us one to play with and review.
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