Palm Pixi: Performance

PERFORMANCE

I expected the Palm Pixi to be a scaled-back version of the Pre, and therefore to offer slower performance. That's not the case at all. The two devices perform at roughly the same speed.

Because I knew there would be people who have a hard time believing this, I shot a video of the two performing the same action at the same time: 

The Pixi will run the webOS, Palm's new operating system. I'm not going to give a full overview of this here. The short version is that I thinks it's a good option for people who want a smartphone that can help them keep up with their personal and business lives while on the go, especially when it comes to social networking, as it ties in to Facebook, MySpace, and Google's many services. If you want to learn more, I suggest you read my review of it.

By the time the Pixi comes out, Palm will have added Twitter, LinkedIn, and Yahoo support to the webOS.

It's not going to have stripped-down software -- as near as I can tell, everything on the Pre will be on the Pixi, the standard apps and things like Sprint TV and Sprint Navigation. And like the Pre it will have an ambient light sensor, an accelerometer, and a proximity sensor.

This device will have 8 GB of built-in storage, which is twice as much as the rumors had lead us to expect. I'm confident that this is signaling that the storage capacity of the Palm Pre will have increased to 16 GB by the time the Pixi is on store shelves.

This model is going to have Sprint's mobile broadband service EV-DO but not Wi-Fi. I'm sure there will be complaints about this, but not from me. Most people like Wi-Fi in their smartphones so they can save money by not signing up for an unlimited cellular-wireless data plan, but Sprint's going to require everyone who buys a Pixi to get an unlimited data plan. On any device with this type of plan, Wi-Fi is practically unnecessary.

Items in the Pixi I didn't get a chance to test yet are the GPS receiver, Bluetooth, and the 2 MPx camera. 

PRELIMINARY CONCLUSIONS

Palm's Pixi will do what it needs to, add a good second option for those who are interested in the webOS. It's not going to be just a cheaper Pre with bad compromises, but rather a device with equal performance and even a few advantages over the current model.

I expect one of these advantages to be price. Sprint's not talking about this yet, but I'm hoping it gets aggressive and prices the Pixi at $99.99. Still, any calculation of cost will have to include the monthly service charge for voice and unlimited data.

I'll bring you more details on this smartphone closer to the release... which we still don't have a date for.