The Palm Pixi is official, headed to Sprint this holiday season -- we've got hands-on and video!
The Palm Pixi has officially arrived, and if you're an avid reader of Engadget (you'd better be), this device should look a
little bit familiar to you. We
first broke specs and imagesof the phone -- codenamed Eos and the alternately-spelled "Pixie" --back in April, when we nabbed what appeared to be a leak of a new,Centro-esque phone
headed to AT&T.Today, Palm has announced that the Pixi -- a tiny, sleek webOS-basedhandset -- will be coming to Sprint this holiday season. The phone willhit shelves sans-WiFi (EV-DO Rev. A only here), with 8GB of storageonboard (a nice bump up from the rumored 4GB), 2 megapixel camera (withflash), a full QWERTY keyboard, and a minute, 2.63-inch, 320 x 400capacitive display (guess they didn't get that
HTC memo).
Along with the new handset, Palm will offer five artist-designed backcovers in the "Palm Pixi Artist Series" -- similar to Zune Originalsand Dell's Design Studio laptops -- which can be purchasedseparately... of course. Touchstone owners take heart: those backs, aswell as a separate black backing that you'll also pay extra for, areall compatible with the accessory. In addition to the hardware, Palmwill be introducing a native Facebook app when the Pixi hits, as wellas new Yahoo! and LinkedIn integration for Synergy. Right now no datefor launch has been set, though Palm says the phone will be ready intime for the holidays. The company is also mum on price, but coupledwith the news that Sprint will be slimming the Pre's entry point
down to $149.99,we have to assume it's going to be in the $99-or-less ballpark. We hada chance to play around with the new phone, so read on after the breakfor our initial, early impressions.
Gallery: Palm Pixi hands-on
Palm is still tweaking the device, so we aren't making any finaljudgments on the Pixi -- though what we saw is mostly heartening.
For starters, the phone is really quite handsome. In terms ofindustrial design, the clean lines and smart choices in materials beliethe Pixi's likely price-point. In your hands it feels solid, thoughit's shocking just how tiny it is. The standard backing is a soft-touchmaterial (not unlike the Touchstone back for the Pre), and perhaps dueto the lack of moving parts here, the phone feels really well puttogether. Just as with the Pre, the Pixi includes a ringer on / offswitch and 3.5mm headphone jack, as well as a removable 1150mAh battery.
The body of the phone is -- as we said -- very small, but the thicknessis where it really struts its stuff... or lack of stuff. The Pixi isjust 0.43-inches thick. To put that in perspective, the iPhone 3GS is0.48-inches -- which means anyone who has complaints about sliding ahandset into their pocket should be swooning.
Instead of a center button, Palm has made the middle of the gesturearea (part of its capacitive coating) take on the duty. The target isrepresented by a small, white slit, and the same gestures that webOS isknown for seem to work flawlessly around it. While the screen gets 80pixels lopped off compared with the Pre (and the iPhone, G1, Hero, andStorm, to name a few), it looked clean and crisp to us. Theresponsiveness on the main part of the display was just as tight -- ifnot tighter -- than the Pre, and that's a plus. Of course, webOS makesclever use of the cramped space by squashing card and app sizes down tofit. It's a tremendous example of the UI's
literal scalability.
The QWERTY keyboard on the Pixi was also a bit of a shocker -- eventhough the keys are tiny and tightly spaced, it's definitely usable.The reps we spoke with noted that due to the candybar form factor andlack of a sliding mechanism, they were able to get more height on thekeys. Besides the more pronounced buttons, the Pixi's keyboard seemedto have a more tactile click than that of the Pre, and honestly, wemight have liked the Pixi's variation better.
Inside, the phone is powered by a completely different CPU than it'sbig brother. In this case, Palm chose to use the Qualcomm MSM7627, asmaller chip which enabled them to mint the micro form factor. The CPUitself isn't dramatically different than the 7200 series, though it isnoticeably less charged than the TI OMAP3 chip in the Pre. Regardlessof what's cranking the gears, the phone seemed pretty snappy when itwas demoed for us (you can see it in action in the videos below). Wedid notice a few hangups during big image scaling and heavy webpages,but again, this is early software on an early device.
All in all, we walked away impressed by the Pixi, but a little bummedthat Palm has chosen to bring another webOS device to Sprint. Here'shoping that this proliferation means the Pre will be finding its way toother carriers soon -- part of Palm's strength right now is that it'snot locked into a long term Apple / AT&T situation, and it would bea shame not to take full advantage of that. Still, it's always nice tosee a quality handset joining the smartphone ranks, and if this pansout to be as cheap as we think it should be, Palm could find themselvesmaking a lot of new friends... Centro style.
狗仔卡
离线
提升卡
置顶卡
变色卡
）
