Palm Pixi Review: Sprint's New Phone 'Is Screwed'

The Palm Pixi, a slimmer, smaller version of the Palm Pre, is being released by Sprint Nextel.

It will be on sale for $99 (after rebate and service agreement), according to Sprint. What kind of bang do you get for the buck? We've put together some early reviews of Palm's new Pixi. Read on!

EnGadget says:

A $99 smartphone might have seemed like a steal two years ago, but these days you can have one of the best Android devices on a larger network (the Droid Eris on Verizon), or an iPhone 3G on AT&T for the same price -- so 100 bucks doesn't seem like the crazy value it once was.

Gizmodo's take:

The Pixi is screwed. It's totally cannibalized by the technologically superior Pre, which you can find for under $100. Even if you can get the Pixi for $30 at Walmart, it's worth trading up to the Pre for $40 or $50 more if you're absolutely wedded to the idea of a webOS phone, simply for the speed and screen. Mostly the speed, since the Pixi is brain damaged, three-legged dog slow, as nice as the hardware is on the outside.

PhoneArena.com likes the new phone:

Meet the Palm Pixi. This little sprite takes almost everything we love about the Pre and wraps it up in a smaller package. Much smaller. Like, sets a new standard small. Some features are lost in translation, most notably Wi-Fi, and the screen has shrunk a bit, but the Pixi still embodies what we love about webOS and at $99 we can’t really complain.

MobileCrunch is lukewarm about the device:

If Palm’s goal here was to make a really killer smartphone for $99 bucks, they didn’t succeed. If their goal here was to make a really killer messaging phone that happened to have some smarts (and, according to them, it was), they pulled it off just fine.

The phone will run the Palm webOS platform, will come with a 2.63-inch multitouch screen, and includes a camera, but no video-recording capabilities.

See the Sprint website for more pictures of the phone, as well as details on its features.

Comments

[eri 68]

Being a very happy Treo 755p owner, I was one of the first in line to buy the new Pre when it launched on June 6th. The webOS really is to die for and nothing I've experienced before or since has matched it, however the hardware side leaves a bit to be desired. The keyboard is too small, an issue I always had with the Centro unlike the more well laid out Treo keyboard. I don't like the sticky feel of the teeny tiny buttons and they are way too close together. The bigger issue for me was the slide out keyboard. Having never used a 'slide' style phone prior to getting my Pre I was unprepared for how inconvenient it is to have to constantly slide a phone to access the keyboard. An on-screen virtual keyboard companion would've helped somewhat but I hate those too lol which is why I have no love (at all) for the iphone.

Needless to say I was jazzed about a phone that runs like a Pre without the slide feature and pictured a hybrid of my old Treo (which I still have btw) with the webOS, however, as usual, what we get is less than what we imagined. I haven't tried the Pixi yet and probably will not for quite sometime (if then) unless Blackberry comes out with a touchscree­n/physical keyboard phone on Sprint network then I'll be sticking with RIM and hoping for better days for Palm.

[JohnVA]

I think most mobile device reviews can't help but screw up the entire concept when it comes to smart phones. No the Pixi doesn't have some of the features of a top end blackberry, Droid or iPhone; but it doesn't have to.

Have you looked at what teenage girls have in their hands these days? Blackberry Pearls and a bunch of sideways slide phones and the Pixi is a much better device for that market. Palm did well with the Centro a few years back with this type of market and the Centro wasn't even a very good device at all.

Get off it reviewers and understand that you can make a device for a particular segment and do well with it without even trying to be an "iPhone Killer" with every new smart phone.