I’ve been waiting to get a new phone for quite a while and while originally waiting for the iPhone 3GS release, I decided to wait a little longer when I learned that the Prē was on its way. Last Friday finally was the day, and it has been over week now that I own this shiny new toy. That’s plenty of time to explore every little detail of it and the reason I’d like to share a few of my thoughts, point out what I like about it and what not so much. There are a lot of things in which  i don’t agree with other reviews out there, but of course there are a few things that you may have read before, so here we go:

Pros

• Multi tasking is just so much more natural and handy than the way the iPhone works
• WebOS is fun to use and actually looks awesome
• Standard apps like browser, email and messaging are rock solid
• The app store is getting new additions every few days now
• German Prē is sim and net lock free (see O2 FAQs here)
• The Prē isn’t as Google focused as Android and not as manufacturer bound as the iPhone
• App store less restrictive than Apple’s version
• Gesture area is an awesome idea (I’m hardly using the middle button on the device)
• While not possible yet, the instructions for tethering are already present on the device and tethering is planned to be supported with future firmware versions (see O2 FAQs here)
• Touchstone charger: Works great and is well thought through (automatically takes the call when you take it of the charger while it’s ringing, automatically switches to speaker mode once you put it on the charger during a call, etc) BUT seems there are quite a few faulty touchstone chargers on the market (see below for details). Once you got a good one though, it’s just awesome.
• UPDATE: Form factor: With the slider closed it’s just tiny and cute, with the slider open it’s the most comfortable phone to hold while talking that I’ve ever seen. BUT the form factor also has its drawbacks. See below.

Popular Cons I do NOT agree with

• Sharp edge at the bottom of the device: People have claimed it’s sharp enough to slice bread, but I really don’t see the problem here. Sure, it’s a sharp edge, but I don’t even feel in during my daily use of the device. I’ve never had the slightest complaint about this edge!
• Small, tiny keys on the keyboard and bottom of the screen to close to the keyboard: I’ve got small hands, small fingers, for me the keyboard is quite comfortable and not too hard to type on. I wouldn’t give up the hardware keyboard for the world! As for the bottom of the screen being to close to the keyboard: No problem here either. Though I must admit, I can picture people with larger hands having way more problems here. The keyboard for sure isn’t too large and while it isn’t a problem for me it definitely might be a point of complaint for some of you.
• Wobbly slider mechanism: Total crap! The slider is absolutely fine. It’s not 100% firm and stiff but nowhere near annoying or disturbing!
• Battery runtime: I somewhat agree with this one, but it isn’t worse than e.g. the iPhone. Just switch of push email and use WiFi when at home instead of 3G and battery runtime increases from intolerable to ok ;). A few more tips (in German) can be found here.

My personal Cons

• Hard- and software adaption regarding Europe: Palm claimed that hardware and software adaption are the reason for the late release of the Prē. I know this is true as for the GSM support the Prē needs to work on European networks, but what about the rest of the hardware? What about special characters on the keyboard? There umlauts in German, accents in French and Spanish, etc. You could have adapted the keyboard!!! Even worse for the software: O2 stated things like “support for popular European social networks” (I don’t recall the exact phrasing) in its advertising for the Prē, but in fact the only thing supported is Facebook. I can only speak for Germany, but the most popular networks here are: StudiVZ, lokalisten and maybe Xing (for business). Besides, there other less important ones like Stay Friends and I’m sure Spain, Ireland und UK have their proper social networking sites besides Facebook. Not a single one of those is supported! In fact, Europe did not even get the same software version as the US. We are two versions behind! I honestly did expect more in this regard. Honestly Palm, if you want to win the hearts of your European customers, you’ll probably have to do more than just make your devices technically work on European networks. Please!
• Combined and instant messaging: The idea is admittedly awesome BUT what good is it if only AIM and Google Talk are supported? Again, I don’t know about the US, but in Europe, ICQ and MSN are far more popular. They should be supported since the initial US release of the Prē. I really can see no reason why those are not supported. Please Palm, this is a MUST. It is the feature I miss most!!!!
• Software keyboard: I really love my hardware keyboard but sometimes you just need to type a single word like a login or a street name on Google Maps, not worth the effort of sliding your phone open. This is not among the most important features to add, but a software keyboard would surely make nice plus!
• Auto-correct and auto-complete: The Prē has basic typo correction but nothing more. Even the oldest Windows Mobile phones have auto-complete (in conjunction with hard- as well as software keyboards). Leaving this out is a big one! On mobile devices, T9 or auto-complete just makes typing so much faster. That needs to be added as soon as possible!
• Support for third-party music players: Support for iTunes is really nice, but first of all I need the latest firmware version to able to use it (which isn’t available yet in Europe) and secondly, we probably all know that this cat and mouse game can’t go on forever. Sure, the Prē also support third party players like Windows Media Player or others via its flash drive mode, but it doesn’t provide a reasonable way to sync playlists. There’s not even a way to create playlists within the music app on the Prē itself. I’d be 100% OK not to use iTunes, but you can’t seriously expect me to sync hundreds of songs to my device and not have a single playlist, only being able to choose between all songs or a single artist or album to play. That’s not very satisfying. My suggestion: Focus on supporting other players for music sync instead of continuing that time consuming game with Apple.
• App launcher: Currently one can rearrange icons but not add new pages to the launcher. That’s annoying, with three pages (one being for device & settings related stuff) I can’t figure out a reasonable way to order and arrange my apps. It should be an easy task to allow users to add more pages to the launcher. That’s not really a big challenge. But it would definitely make a difference! As a last thing: Reducing the icon size on the launcher or the launcher bar would allow to add more icons to either of them. (Though I see that they would be harder to touch and icon quality would probably suffer due to the down sampling, so I understand it that one is not coming)
• Lid for the USB charging cable: It’s so hard to reach and open that you’re probably annoyed by the second time you have to do it. Seems like a strategic design aiming to increase the sales of the overpriced, wireless touchstone charger. Sad, but then again, Palm’s goal is to earn money just like any other company out there, so somewhat understandable! Still, if the touchstone charger weren’t so overpriced it would be even more understandable.
• Touchstone charger: Palm obviously has or had a quality problem in the manufacturing of the wireless charger. I had to go to the O2 shop three times to exchange both, the back cover as well as the charger till I had a set that did actually work reliably. Before, my Prē would loose the connection to the charger from every few seconds to every few minutes, just to pick it up again shortly after that, bringing up the “battery charging” notification (along with the according sound) each time. This is just plain annoying and intolerable (see this video). A little bit of internet research also brought up that I’m obviously not the only one with this problem. Anyway, for those experiencing this issue, have your retailer exchange the charger (and possibly the back cover that comes with it). A perfectly working charger (like the one I own now) should not have this issue, not even once a day or so. My Prē hasn’t lost the connection to the charger in over seven days now, except for when I took it off the charger of course. Also, unlike some of the forums posts or Palm support guys tell you, the problem with this issue is not misalignment of the Prē on the charger. Sure, it has to be aligned right, in fact there are only two possible position in which the Prē will charge but you’re not required to align it to the millimeter. The magnets in the charger take care of the alignment as long as you’re not trying to put it on the charger in some completely awkward position like diagonal or so.
• UPDATE: Form factor: While perfect for your pocket and super comfy in your hand while talking, it has quite a few glitches. With the slider open, the phone seems extremely unbalanced  when you type on the keyboard. Even more so if you’re trying to type one-handed. Especially for the latter case, I find this quite annoying.

In the end, the Palm Prē is a great phone in my opinion. In a few ways it’s two years behind the iPhone, in most things it can totally take it up to the iPhone and in some ways, it even beats the cr** out of the iPhone. As long as Palm doesn’t think they can take it slow now (in which case they would be sadly mistaken) and as long as they keep the updates coming and address current shortcomings and problems with the Prē, it has the potential (together with future WebOS phones) to be mentioned in the same breath as the iPhone and any Blackberry.

Oh, and as a last note: The reason I’m comparing it to the iPhone so much, although it’s not meant to be a so called “iPhone killer”, is because that’s the main competitor in functionality in my opinion. RIM / Blackberry I just don’t know well enough, and Android / Windows Mobile and manufacturers supporting those are just way too busy badly imitating the iPhone, trying to make their devices look like yet another iPhone without actually being one and more importantly without putting the necessary effort and creativity into the job to actually make their devices good and shiny. I just can’t get why they’re doing this, as Palm made the solution so obvious: Don’t copy everything, just copy the good and important features and copy them well! Then add a few of your own ideas. There must be some?!

UPDATE: I see the need to revise my statement on Android above. I still think what I said is true for Android 1.x and according phones, but it seems this all just changed with the release of Android 2.0 and and a vast number of manufacturers jumping on the Android train. The new software version seems to do exactly what I recommended above. Copy all the good existing features like the iPhone’s app store idea, multi-touch / touch-oriented interface, the Pre’s combined messaging, synergy, hardware keyboard and multi-tasking. Then add some of your own ideas (like a killer navigation app that’s even free) or / and improve on the existing features like combined messaging, better hardware keyboard, etc. Combine this with a developer with nearly unlimited resources (such as, I don’t know, Google?!) and a variety of Hardware manufacturers willing to go along, and you get a system that should be gaining ground immensely fast, casting a huge shadow on the new Palm. More so since Palm is taking it really slow with its update policy and currently not doing much but fix bugs. (This article says a lot of the things I am thinking.) I really hope they have something big to show with the upcoming update(s) because otherwise I see a lot of dark clouds at Palm’s horizon, again!

No why is this worth writing about? First of all because it’s an astonishing tool creating absolutely realistic images of your board before you even think about manufacturing and soldering it. But secondly, because Eagle3D is not the type of tool with funny, colored icons in a nice little toolbar where you just click one of those icons and your rendering is done. Unfortunately, using it as it comes out of the box, you’ll probably end up with only half of the parts on your board being rendered correctly or rendered at all. To see the rest of you parts on the board, there’s no way around some fine tuning of the Eagle3D scripts (or even some CAD construction work to build custom parts). Below is an image of one of my boards at various stages, rendered with the out-of-the box version of Eagle3D, rendered after editing some of the Eagle3D scripts and finally, rendered after construction and adding some custom parts with Google SketchUp.

So before I explain all this, let’s make sure you got the basic part right:

1. Go here and download Eagle3D AS WELL AS the archive containing all the parts included with Eagle3D as images. You’re gonna need the latter one later on for lookup purposes.
2. Get the latest POVray version here.
3. After you’ve installed all the above to whatever location you prefer, fire up Eagle, open your favorite board and select File –> Execute ULP then in the dialog that appears, navigate to your Eagle3D directory and the ULP sub-folder there and select 3d41.ulp
4. Once you hit Open a settings dialog appears. You can basically leave the default settings as they are, just remember the path that’s shown on the first page where Eagle3D stores the povray file.
5. Hit create POV-File and exit and answer all the questions you’ll be asked (e.g. colors of LEDs, logos on ICs, …)
6. After the POVray file has been created, open it with POVray and hit Run to render your board.

At this point I’d like to point you to this site here and this one for a detailed description of Eagle3D’s features and further instruction on its basic usage.

Now, if you’re really lucky, after the six steps mentioned above, you end up with an image of your board with all parts rendered correctly. Unfortunately, in most cases, some of the parts will be rendered incorrectly (misplaced, mirrored, etc.) or not rendered at all. These problems result from two different situations with different solutions, but first a little but important background info:

Eagle3D parts are all described by macros written in POVray’s scripting language and you can find them in the povray subfolder in your Eagle3D directory. These macros are named different from the Eagle part / package names, which is why there are two files 3dpack.dat and 3dusrpac.dat in the ulp subfolder of the Eagle3D directory in which you can find the mapping between Eagle package names and Eagle3D part macros.

So if now some of the parts on your board are not rendered (correctly or at all) there’s the following two reasons:

1. There is no or a wrong mapping in the 3dpack.dat or 3dusrpac.dat file between some of your parts in Eagle and the Eagle3D macro BUT such a part EXISTS in the Eagle3D image library.
   
   Example:
   In the design above, I’m using 4-pin Molex connectors with the package name 53048-04 in my Eagle layout and Eagle3D doesn’t render those connectors
   
   BUT I browse through the image archive I’ve downloaded before from the Eagle3D website and I see, that there is in fact an image of the connector I’m looking for, named CON_MOLEX_53048_4.png.
   Solution:
   1. So I open the 3dpack.dat file and search for CON_MOLEX_53048_4 to find the following line:
      

      NOEAGLEPAC:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:CON_MOLEX_53048_4(:Molex 53048: 

      This line tells me that the Eagle package with the name NOEAGLEPAC is mapped to the Eagle3D POVray macro CON_MOLEX_53048_4.

   2. Now you can either directly edit the line in this file or more elegantly copy the line into 3dusrpac.dat
      

      53048-04:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:CON_MOLEX_53048_4(:Molex 53048: 

      This way, you tell Eagle3D to map your Eagle package 53048-04 to the CON_MOLEX_53048_4.

   3. Now if you save your changes and go through steps 3 to 6 of the basic Eagle3D instructions above again, the missing Molex connector should be rendered correctly

   Hint:
   If a part is actually rendered but misplaced or flipped, rotated, etc. you can edit the mapping above and change the 13th to 16th ‘0’ digits to correct the rotation angle and x-, y-, z-offset of your part, e.g.

   53048-04:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:90:3.2:1.2:2.6:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:CON_MOLEX_53048_4(:Molex 53048:

   Details see here.

2. There is no mapping in the the 3dpack.dat or 3dusrpac.dat file between some of your parts in Eagle and the Eagle3D macro AND such a part DOES NOT EXIST in the Eagle3D image library.
   In this case, there are two different solutions:
   
   Example 1:
   Eagle3D comes with the following 6-pin and 10-pin connectors (named CON_DIS_WS6G and CON_DIS_WS10G)
   
   similar to the connector I need, BUT I need an 8-pin version which doesn’t exist in Eagle3D. 

   Solution:

   1. Look for the Eagle3D macro for these connectors, to be found in the connectors.inc file in the povray sub-directory.
   2. Inside this file, look search for CON_DIS_WS6G or CON_DIS_WS10G and you will find the following:
      

      #macro CON_DIS_WS6G()
      object{CON_DIS_WS_XX_G_GRND(6)}
      #end
      #macro CON_DIS_WS10G()
      object{CON_DIS_WS_XX_G_GRND(10)}
      #end
      #macro CON_DIS_WS14G()
      object{CON_DIS_WS_XX_G_GRND(14)}
      #end
      #macro CON_DIS_WS16G()
      object{CON_DIS_WS_XX_G_GRND(16)}
      #end 

      As you can see, these lines describe a 6-pin, a 10-pin, a 14-pin and a 16-pin version of the above connector AND more importantly, they all just call another macro named CON_DIS_WS_XX_G_GRNDGRND with the number of desired pins passed to in brackets.

   3. Add the following lines to the file
      

      #macro CON_DIS_WS8G()
      object{CON_DIS_WS_XX_G_GRND(8)}
      #end 

   4. Now, of course, you need to add a respective mapping to to 3dusrpac.dat again:In 3dpac.dat you’ll find a line saying:
      

      ML6:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:180:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:CON_DIS_WS6G(:Wannenstecker 6Pin:Shrouded Header 6Pin 

      So, add a similar line for the 8-pin version to 3dusrpac.dat:

      ML8:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:180:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:CON_DIS_WS8G(:Wannenstecker 8Pin:Shrouded Header 8Pin 

   5. Render your board again and you should now see your 8-pin connector!

   Hint:
   This does not only work for connectors as used in this example. In fact, many of the Eagle3D parts, especially ICs are implemented as specific macros that then call a generic macro to which they pass the number of e.g. pins as a parameter. So you can easily add a similar part with fewer or more pins for example. There is no guarantee that this does always work as it depends on how the generic macro is implemented but fact is, in many cases it works!

   
   Example 2:
   On your board there is a completely exotic part, e.g. the Amber Wireless BlueNiceCom IV in the case of the board above
   
   AND there is nothing even remotely similar to be found in the Eagle3D image library.

   Solution:
   In this case, think about living without this part being rendered on your board but if you’re really desperate to see this part on your board, there are two ways to go:

   1. You can manually write a povray macro to draw your part. This option receives a straight ‘zero’ though on the intuitivity scale and is extremely time consuming. I’d only recommend that for very simple parts. If you still wanna go there, have a look at this site here and the pages linked here.
   2. Design your component / part in Google SketchUp and have SU2POV export it to povray format which can then be included in your Eagle3D design. Don’t underestimate the time needed for this approach! But especially for more complex parts this is way easier than approach number one!

      When this idea came to my mind, I did a quick Google search and it turned out someone has had this idea before. So instead of writing detailed instructions on how to export SketchUp designs to povray and include them in Eagle3D, I’d like to point you to this tutorial which does a pretty good job in explaining the whole process.

      I’ve used this method to design the Amber BlueNiceCom IV mentioned above as well as a CR 2032 battery among others.
      
      You can find these and other Eagle3D components I’ve done in Google SketchUp at Google’s 3D Warehouse here.

Finally, some eye candy… these are a few of my boards rendered with Eagle3D: