Mayberry Gets Smart – Day 1 of the Smartphone Switch

One nice perk of ordering a phone through Verizon’s website is free overnight shipping, so I received my phone less than 24 hours after I ordered it. I unwrapped it and plugged it in to get it charged up. Later, I followed some simple onscreen prompts to activate the phone and create a Palm profile. At one point in the profile creation process (because I am a problem child, obv) my screen got stuck and I couldn’t advance. I called Palm’s helpline and quickly got instructions for how to reboot the phone, then I was on my way. If I had another Palm device (it also works with iCal, Mac’s address book, and some versions of Outlook), I would have been able to transfer all my contacts and other info to this phone. Since I don’t, I’ll need to add those manually.

I earned to navigate around the phone pretty easily. As a default, buttons for phone, contacts, email, calendar, and the apps launcher are always available at the bottom of the screen. When I press one, the screen fills with that application or menu, called a “card.” I can tap the bottom of the screen to go to a minimized view of the card; other open cards are lined up in a row which I can scroll through, forward or backward. I can get rid of an open card by “throwing” it off the top of the screen with a swipe of my finger (pathetically, I find this kind of fun. Buh-BYE!).

I wanted to have the web browser as one of my five buttons at the bottom of the screen, which I achieved with a simple drag and drop (I swapped contacts for the browser); you can switch any of the buttons except for the apps menu. I also found it easy to add a second email inbox to my profile. Now it’s easier to check two accounts on my phone than it is on my laptop – I can see at a glance how many new messages are in each account.

So far, so good.

*Disclosure: I received a free Palm Pre Plus phone and one month of service from Verizon Wireless so that I could test them out for this series of reviews. These opinions are my own.