Yep, you read the title right. The Palm Pre 2 should never have been released because it's not ready for the public. It is hands down the worst, most buggy phone I've ever used. It's worse than beta software. The hardware is nice, but the OS is so buggy I would consider it alpha level. I had a Palm Pre on launch day and have been a fan. I'm still a fan of the concept of webOS, but I'm not a fan of is releasing phones before they are fully tested. I paid $500 forth is Pre 2 and I feel completely ripped off. It's going to back to HP tomorrow!
Before I get too far into this story I should just say that I'm not a novice. When I called Palm's support line I could tell that they assumed that I had some issue on my end. It was obvious that they though maybe my computer was messed up, or maybe I was doing something wrong. I assureyou, I did not do anything wrong. Everything the tech asked me to do, I had already done multiple times. I have had smartphones for years. I have 7 on my desk right now, and probably 27 in the closet. It's my job to know smartphones. During the last 5 days withthis Pre 2 I've had to wipe the phone 5 times, doctor it twice, and soft reset at least 5 times. I synced it with Google, with the Palm Profile, and with Yahoo individually after clean wipes of the phone, and still the bugs persist. Palm should be embarrassed by this phone.
When you call tech support they tell how stable the phone is and how webOS 2.0 is so nice with so many features. Well, I expect a few basic things to work without requiring a workaround, and without having to wait for an update. Those things are:
*.I need to be able to receive all calls. I can't misscalls and my callers can't receive messages about the subscriber not being available.
*.I need a data connectionto work at least most of the time if not all of the time. No, I'm not in a poor signal area. I can take the SIM out of the Pre 2 and pop it into my iPhone or Nexus One and it is fine.
*.I need all of my contact photos to appear everywhere they are supposed to, all of the time. It's basic. When you load the SMS app you don't want to see missing contact photos, at least not when you pay $500 for the phone. Yes, all my contacts have photos attached to them. When I open the contacts app I expect all of my contact photos to be there, and appear instantly. I don't want to have to wait for them to fill in.
The Pre 2 couldn't handle any of these basic needs. I'm missing calls, and I can only get a data connectionabout 20% of the time. I drove all over town today for 2 1/2 hours and never once got a data connection. Yes, I called AT&T and provisioned my phone with them.
I had so many issues over the last 5 days that it was almost like a Seinfeld episode. I chatted with Palm's support and then talked to their level 2 and 3 tech support team. They had no answers, except tryusing the webOS Doctor. My response - "already didthat." Their response, "oh."At the end of one of the calls the tech told me,"well, I haven't had a lot offace time with the Pre 2." He said this after he figured out that his test phone was doing the same thing my Pre 2 was doing. That was after he insisted that webOS 2.0 was not buggy, and after I insisted on getting a level 3 tech. Why waste my time if you haven't had a lot of face time on the Pre 2?
I got another call from a level 3 tech who had me do a bunch of things. I hadalready tried them, but I did it again just so he would get it. He wanted tome to erase all the apps and reset the phone. I had already done that 12 times. He ran me through a bunch of hardware tests hoping that the hardware was somehow defective. The Pre 2 passed all the hardware tests. I sent them the logs from my phone so they can go overthem too. They just won't admit that webOS 2.0 is sub-par, and buggy as all get out, but it is. They have not tested this OS enough, period. And I'm one of the suckers who keeps believing in Palm. Not anymore.
UPDATE: I was sent a new Palm Pre 2 yesterday and Istill have the same issues. Today, I updated to webOS2.1. The same issues remain even after the update. What a piece of junk.
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