The Aquisition

My wife had called around in May and found a Sprint store still taking reservations for the Pre, so I knew I was going to get one on Saturday morning.  Even with a reservation, I set out for the store a little more than an hour before opening to ensure I was not too deep in the line to get mine. 

On the way, I swung by the local Best Buy and saw a couple of campers, but no lines.  This was roughly three hours before the stores opening time.  A disappointing turnout - I had expected more.  At Sprint there was a small line, and I took the Number 7 spot.  Number 1 had actually been there since 4 am, and was quite proud of the fact.

The manager of the Sprint store did not show up until almost exactly 8, at which time the line had grown to about 15 people deep.  There were only about 13 or 14 Pres available,  so there were some upset people - but they did have the option of getting one by mail on Monday with an additional $50 credit.  The experience was a lot quicker than I thought, and I was out of the Spint store in just over an hour. 

 First Impressions

The activation process was much faster than expected.  It took less than half an hour for Verizon to cut me off and Sprint to turn me on.  Much better service than I ever experience in the dark days of Nextel.

As for the device itself, I had done my homework so there were not too many surprises.  The Pre is smaller than expected, but feels great in my hand.  And the keyboard is tiny and rubbery compared to my Treo 700p, but I found it easy to get used to -- most likely because of the great job Palm did with the balance of the device.  Many slide-out phones are so horribly out of balance that you can barely type for fear of it toppling out of your grasp.

The screen is very bright and easy to read, although smaller than I had envisioned.  It is also not as sensitive to touch as I expected, but after a little use I found myself adapting.  One area of disappointment was the lack of a stylus -- and the lack of compatibility with a stylus.  I had hoped to be able to use a stylus OR my finger on the Pre.