Monday, June 08, 2009

A sislaw’s Pre review

Sislaw Nettie (sister to sislaw Martha and to Emily) has a Pre.

I trust her reviews far more than the pro reviews – am I the only one to notice that Amazon’s product reviews are much better than those printed in magazines?

Like me Nettie misses Graffiti One. She likes her Pre a lot, but unsurprisingly the battery is troublesome. iPhone users can feel smug about the Sprint crapware infesting the Pre. NASCAR … brrrrrrr

My Little Pre « Nettie’s World

…I can’t delete the Sprint NASCAR app – other posters on the Pre forums yesterday confirmed this. RI-DI-CU-LOUS. So now I need to see if there’s any possibility of hiding it, although the thing I object to most strenuously is the fact that it’s taking up my 8GB space in the first place, of course.

6. Battery life. It wasn’t a very promising feeling when I woke up on Sunday morning. The battery had been at nearly 100% when I turned out the light (I had spent 10-15 minutes cleaning up contacts -more about that later) and all apps were closed. When I picked it up to say “Good morning dear Pre” the battery was at 65%! For 7 hours of (nothing?) — all I could think was that the WiFi connection was what was dragging it. The Pre forums also complained about poor battery life – and some constructive posters also provided tips, a few of which I’ve put into practice like dimming the screen a bit, syncing email a bit less frequently, turning off IM and WiFi when not needed. I think I also have to do more reading on better management of lithium ion batteries in general – a few posters said things like, “It typically takes a new battery a week of so to condition itself for maximum results” — is that really true…

No, I don’t think the “week or so” story is true – more like wishful thinking. Maybe Jobs was right about the battery cost of multitasking, though I could believe the Pre OS might be more energy efficient than OS X.

Nettie, if it makes you feel better my iPhone battery will run out by day’s end if I talk more than about two hours during the day (it’s almost a year old now). In airport mode it will last a few days even if I use WiFi occasionally.

Condolences on the Sprint crapware Nettie. Apple was in a stronger bargaining position with AT&T, though I’ve hear rumors AT&T has been fighting mightily to put their garbage on the iPhone. Rumor has it Jobs arose from his sick bed to smite them (ok, I made that up).

2 comments:

  1. hi John, my review is only getting started! I will add to it - so watch that space.

    Also re the battery - yes, I think multitasking is such a sensitive differentiator for the Pre, that I can't believe that Rubenstein would let battery life suffer so badly for it. (I believe in Web0S.) I am hoping that battery life is just as bad in the iPhone (well, at least the one that is on store shelves now).

    The Sprint store threw in a car charger since they made me wait for **5 hours** and I can see I will need it now.

    I think I'll keep fiddling with settings, and I'll do another overnight experiment this week to gather more data on 'sleep-seep.'

    Yes, acting like a lithium ion battery is a person and will get better over time - hee hee!

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  2. I have chargers everywhere for my iPhone for the same reason.

    For a car charger I love the Griffin devices -- the other USB chargers I've used haven't held up.

    Since your Pre uses a mini-USB connector (hallelujah!) it should be easy to charge from you office computer too ...

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