Mayberry Gets Smart – Getting Even Smarter on Day 5

Here’s what I think I like best about this phone. It keeps saving my always-late, always-multitasking butt. I have two kids in two different schools and six different extracurricular activities. I work as a freelancer, which means I have no set schedule and my deadlines and to-dos can vary greatly from week to week. I serve on a nonprofit board and I’m in a book club and a couple of other moms’ groups.

My laptop doesn’t really like to talk to my printer  so I often scramble to access maps, directions, and other details when I’m away from home. With this phone, I can either grab this info a message I’ve saved in my email, search for it using the phone’s web browser, or even navigate using the phone’s GPS (this service carries an additional fee of $10 a month).

In the past few weeks, I’ve used the GPS to navigate unfamiliar streets on foot and by car. I’ve pulled up emails reminding me of when and where to meet someone. I’ve used the mobile hotspot along with my netbook to update my web sites remotely (and at the last possible minute, naturally). I’ve done the all-important Twitter and Facebook check when I have a few minutes to kill–thus giving me more time for work/family when I’m at home.

And of course, I’ve called people to tell them I’m running late. So far I’ve used the Palm Pre Plus phone in six states and seven metropolitan areas (wow, I really got around this month!) and I haven’t had a single problem with dropped calls or lack of coverage. Plus, it’s super-easy to switch among all the different apps and functions on the phone, and you can copy and paste from one place to another easily. The Palm Pre Plus also synchs up any phone numbers I save in Contacts with email addresses and other info it already knows from my email accounts. Handy, especially since I’m slowly entering all my phone numbers manually (my old phone’s data wouldn’t transfer–it would have had I been using another Palm device).

I’ll be posting two more entries about the Palm Pre Plus. Let me know if you have any questions about it and I’ll answer them in my final post.

*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.