Palm Pixi Plus: Performance

PERFORMANCE:

Performance with the Pixi Plus is good, but not breathtaking; the smartphone has a slower processor than its cousin, the Pre Plus. The speed difference is only noticeable if you use them side by side, but I must admit that I was pretty spoiled by the Pre Plus' speed.

When I started using the Pixi Plus after the Pre Plus, it took a little while to adjust to its slower pace. Applications take a few seconds longer to start, and webpages take about three seconds longer to fully open.

Wireless/Call Quality
Call quality is pretty good, though not perfect; and there weren't any problems with background noise. I wish the volume was louder though, because I had a few issues hearing, even when it was turned all the way up. That said, Verizon's network isn't too strong at my house, so I typically saw only two or three bars of coverage out of five, and that could account for some of the problem.

One of the more attractive new features of the Pixi Plus is the addition of Wi-Fi wireless networking, which makes the overall browsing experience much faster and more pleasant. Moreover, Wi-Fi generally isn't included on less expensive phones.

Productivity
Like the original Pixi, the Pixi Plus uses Palm's unique Synergy technology to pull your personal information from the Web, like a Google account, Facebook, Yahoo, Microsoft Exchange, or some other supported service. Simply enter your login details and everything is synced to your phone automatically in the background while you're going about your business. You won't have to manually enter your friend's email addresses or phone numbers; it will be taken care of for you.

All of the webOS productivity applications are included with the Pixi Plus, so you'll get calendar, contacts, tasks, and memos as well as viewers for both Microsoft Office files and PDF documents. The email experience is among the highlights of the Pixi Plus and Google Maps works great too.

Entertainment
Web browsing is quite nice, with a handy "flashcard" view of your bookmarks and nice, readable webpages.

A music player and access to the Amazon MP3 store are included, but the Palm Pixi Plus (like the Pre Plus) does not support Verizon VCast Music service.

This smartphone also includes a video player plus a YouTube viewer, though the screen is a bit small for such things.

Camera
One of my disappointments with the Pixi Plus is the camera; picture quality is OK, but not anywhere near as good as the Pre Plus. It's a two megapixel camera, down one megapixel from the Pre Plus, but the difference in quality is larger than I expected.

The pictures, even using the LED flash, are generally very dark. And if you do find a sunny spot to snap a picture, the background is often blown out and overexposed. I call the camera "OK in a pinch" but definitely not good enough to rely on for important events or even for daily use, if you're a real photo bug.

Video capture works well, though again the quality is relatively poor. The Pixi Plus offers the same video editing tools as the Pre Plus, so you can tweak the exact start and ending points of videos and upload directly to YouTube.

Battery Life
Battery life is pretty good for the Pixi Plus and I didn't get any nasty surprises during testing. I still plugged it in nightly for good measure, and packed the charger for overnight tests, but I didn't encounter the quick battery drain I experienced with the Pre Plus.