I acquired a Palm Pre on Friday and have been putting it through its paces. So far, it’s been incredibly pleasing to use particularly compared to Windows Mobile and the UI far more visually appealing than the Blackberry Pearl it replaces. I’ve heard a lot of complaints about the keyboard. I like it just fine and think it’s big enough. One of the reasons I switched to the Pearl from the Curve was because of the larger keys. Switching between open applications makes sense and I like the integration of the web browser into the general UI.

Some of the applications I’ve been using and like: Tweed, Accuweather, Sprint Navigation, Where, and Flixster. The camera app and camera itself are quite good. Web browsing is pretty much perfect. Some things I don’t like: battery life, wildly inconsistent signal strength, inability to customize any sounds other than ring. I also miss my Wall Street Journal application. These issues are particularly hard to stomach coming from a Blackberry with much better battery life and the ability to customize any alert, any time. The notification system on the Pre is clunky and archaic at best. I’m lucky to get a day out of the Pre thus far on an overnight charge, hopefully some software will come along and fix this.

For work purposes, our enterprise Groupwise system has been the bane of my existence and this continues here with no decent way to synchronize calendar, tasks and contacts with the Pre. There’s a third party app called Companionlink that will do this via gmail, but seriously, every enterprise PIM should have solved this issue by now. The only thing that might save me is Novell’s licensing of Activesync, or a switch to Exchange.

I’ve had some students ask me about using the Pre instead of the Windows Mobile devices I’m requiring (Treo Pro, Touch Pro or Touch Diamond), but thus far none have complained after being regaled by my tales of bad battery life and no Epocrates. Really, as a version one product the Pre is great, but just a little more enterprise friendliness would go a long way.