Palm Pre Reviews pouring in: from "not bad" to "great but"

Apparently, Palm lifted the ban on publishing reviews of it's resurrection-grade new phone, the Pre, which is stated for release next week.

Here are some extracts of the main reviews I found around the Web.

Gizmodo:

Full house. Respectable. Decent. Impressive even. But not the highest hand. [...] The software has quite a few interesting innovations that push the concepts of what people can do with smartphones [...] But the hardware? Cheap. Flimsy. Dangerous even.

Engadget:

To put it simply, the Pre is a great phone, and we don't feel any hesitation saying that. Is it a perfect phone? Hell no. Does its OS need work? Definitely

WSJ's Mossberg:

So do the Pre’s perks (beautiful hardware and software, compact size, keyboard, swappable battery, flash, multitasking, calendar consolidation) outweigh its weak spots (battery life, occasional sluggishness, ringer volume)?

Oh, yes indeedy.

MacWorld:

While the Pre isn't perfect, it definitely does not disappoint: I found the webOS interface clean, engaging, and intuitive. My main issues were with the hardware itself.

Wired:

Great look and superb feel. Well-conceived OS with multitasking and instant notification. Physical keyboard. Utilizes iTunes to load and refresh content.

Multitasking puts a big suck on the battery. Sprint exclusivity will be annoying to Palm-philes on a contract with AT&T, Verizon or T-Mobile. Keyboard is puny. If Apple blocks the handset's access to iTunes, Pre users are hosed.

So, overall very positive, with some drawbacks. These reviews are eerily similar to the first iPhone reviews: great, but where are the APPS? Two things I'll highlight:

• some reviewers think the hardware is cheap and flimsy (which does not surprise me, having owned a Palm and a Palm III, which were great PDAs but had horrible plastic);
• multitasking kills your battery: who would have guessed... that's why Apple does not do multitasking on the iPhone, because it's a phone, battery life is paramount;
• everybody talks about how it is smaller than the iPhone (as in narrower/shorter), but hardly anyone mentions that is it quite a bit thicker (probably because the Palm PR shots never really show the Pre's side);
• OMG it doesn't run Flash...