Palm Pre is tougher and more stable

Remeber the Palm Pre? Remeber how it likes to fall apart? Not anymore, PreThinking has an excellent article following the self destrusctive nature of the first genertion Palm Pre. Some of those poor soles who spent money that saved the company merely ended up with a fragile plastic device lead to no end of headaches. Have a look at the guided tour of Palm Pre horrors and the phone works its way to perfection, again (If your Mobile phone under 18 months you should maybe place it in another room as some of the imagery can be disturbing.)

If you’re an early Pre adapter like myself that nabbed one of the first batches of Palm Pres, then chances are you experienced it firsthand or have heard of some of the build quality issues surrounding the first shipments of Palm Pres. Although the particular Pre I got was one of the solid ones. Palm acted swiftly from the reports, and looks like Pres manufactured in July and up, fixes some of the issues.

I took 20 people that bought a Palm Pre in the last 15 days and found some interesting things. These Pres were manufactured between 7/1 and 7/29 and are in the "sunset" box.

Screen Cracking

Users were reporting spider web-like cracks mysteriously and sometimes not so mysteriously finding its way on to the Pre. Out of the 20 people, no cracking anywhere so far. But then again, they just bought it, so who know…

Pres resetting or shutoff when the user closes the keyboard

It was a common thing to all early Pre adaptors that when the we close the keyboard with a bit of force, the Pre would reset itself or shutoff. The problem lies in Pre’s battery compartment and Palm’s standard battery. The battery fits tightly in the Pre, but when a user closes the keyboard, it sometimes creates a tiny gap between the connectors for a millisecond, just enough to shutoff the Pre or reset it.

Palm fixed the issue by adding a little gray foam behind the tab you pull to get the battery out (Image above).

The finish on the Center Button

This one is not really an issue, but worth mentioning. The first batch of Pres had a center button that looked like a pearl, newer ones have more of a silvery finish.

Screen Twisting/"Oreo Effect"

There is like 1 in a 100,000 chance that your Pre will become what you’re seeing in the image above. But some users have reported twisting between the two halves of the Pre. Though we’re seeing less of this problem in the newer models, at least out of the 20 people.

New Model of Standard batteries

We don’t know if it’s new, but there are definitely two different models of the 1150mAh standard battery. [Thanks for the image, Chi]

Palm Logo embossed on the Pre carrying pouch

This one is not a big deal, but I’d wish my pouch had the Palm logo embossed on it. And BTW, do you place your Pre on top of the pouch? Just curious.

There could possibly be more improvements and fixes, that maybe you guys could point out, and we’ll add it here. But the newer models are really solid, and if you were the few that hold off on buying a Pre because of the quality, nows the time to get one.

[Source PreThinking]