Palm Pixi. Great phone. Bargain price
Palm has chosen a very clever name for their new smartphone. The moniker”Pixi” is very close to the word pixie which the dictionary says means “small, elfin, pert, or mischievous”.
Palm’s Pixi is actually none of the above. It’s not really super-tiny/small or elfin (it’s longer than its “big” brother the Pre). Pert? It’s not really “boldly forward in behavior”. And mischievous? Not at all.
So, what is Palm’s Pixi? A terrific, modern-day smartphone that Sprint is selling for just under a hundred bucks.
This is what you need to know. Both the Pixi and its older brother the Pre run on Palm’s WebOS (1.3.1 is the latest version). Both use Sprint’s 3G EV-DO network. Both have 8GB of built-in memory, built-in GPS, a microUSB port, Bluetooth 2.1+ and a standard 3.5mm headphone jack. Both handle Microsoft Outlook Push email and integrated IM, SMS and MMS messaging.
As for the differences, the Pixi is candy-bar shaped with its QWERTY keyboard right under the screen. The Pre has a slightly larger screen (3-inches diagonal versus 2.8-inch) and a slide-out keyboard. The Pixi has a 2 megapixel camera; the Pre’s is 3MP. Pre does Wi-fi (802.11b/g). The Pixi does not.
Pixi’s battery is a high capacity, user-replaceable, 1500 mAh rechargeable slab that is said last you as much as five hours of talk and up to 350 hours of standby time. The Pre is rated 5/300.
Pixi measures 2.2 by 4.4 by 0.4 inches and weighs 3.26 ounces. That means Pixi is longer than a closed Pre. Slide open the Pre’s keyboard and it’s then longer than the Pixi. Pre is slightly wider too. That’s probably because of the slide mechanism. The Pixi is slimmer than the Pre. In real world use it just about disappears in your pocket.
If you don’t compare the two phones side-by-side, the Pixi appears as a small sliver of a smartphone. It’s only when they’re next to each other that you realize the Pixi is slim but isn’t all that small.
The Pixi and the Pre both use the same operating system. Navigating a WebOS device takes a minute or two to learn but once you do getting around becomes second nature. Nearly everything you need to do is handled by a flick of the finger either up/down or side-to-side.
Both seem to work at similar speeds. Opening new programs or sliding from one app to the other is very close to a tie. The Pre’s Wi-fi connectivity gives it a slight speed edge especially in questionable signal reception areas but my test Pixi nearly always says it sending and receiving on Sprint’s 3G “EV” network.
I find that typing on the Pixi a lot easier than typing on the Pre. Even though both hardware keyboards are similar, I prefer the Pixi’s keys (all in a straight line). Also, Pixi’s keyboard doesn’t have a raised plastic bottom edge to get in the way.
On the other hand, the Pixi’s screen is smaller than the Pre’s. Although they’re outwardly close in size, off by a quarter inch or so diagonally, that little difference translates into a big deal for small smartphones. Personally, I found the Pixi’s standard typeface a little bit small for my eyes while browsing the Web. Of course using the WebOS two-spread-finger zoom motion allows you to easily resize everything on the screen.
Bottom line? The best feature of the Pixi is what they’re charging for it. Cell phones priced under the magic $100 mark almost always sell better than more expensive models. Palm, under the previous régime, understood that fact. When they priced their terrific little Centro phone under $100 they sold millions of them. And that move allowed the company to remain in business long enough to lure new inventors and create the Pre and Pixi.
At the $99.99 price point (after a rebate and with a two-year service agreement) the Pixi is a terrific bargain.
Even better, Wal-Mart has announced that after rebates and such they will be selling the Palm Pixi at the Black Friday price of $30.
At that price it’s virtually a no-brainer.