HP Pre 3 Review

I was one of the lucky ones to get hold of an HP Pre 3. As the name suggest, HP bought over Palm's ailing mobile phone infrastructure and released the long awaited Pre 3. The Pre 3 is a cool phone. One may criticise the small 3.58" capacitive screen with no external storage (it comes with 8GB memory) but it has some serious firepower under the hood. First of all, it comes with a dualcore 1.4Ghz cpu with Adreno 205 gpu. Secondly, it comes with a 5MP digital camera with autofocus and LED flash. Users will be able to shoot 720p videos with it so it is an advantage.

Apart from that, it has the usual bluetooth and surprisingly, a wi-fi chipset which supports both 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz! That is so cool! It also comes with a slide out QWERTY keyboard and runs on the WebOS 2.2.2. One can accused HP of not developing the number of apps available in the WebOS market but if we are going to leave the apps behind, the Pre 3 is actually a serious competitor to the Apple Iphone 4 and Samsung Galaxy S2!

The WebOS 2.2.2 is stable and the menu is quick to refresh. Websites would only take a few seconds to load if you are running on either 3G or wi-fi. It is so much faster than my previously Anna OS - lead- Nokia N8. I am impressed with the performance of the WebOS and I feel that HP would have been successful if they further develop the WebOS.

I have no problems when using the Pre 3 but only comes with a few small criticisms. First of all, the digital camera should have at least an 8MP autofocus, with LED flash and supports 1080p recording. Secondly, it should have a bigger capacity battery ( 1500mAh at least). Thirdly, the app market should be growing but taking into account recent events would suggest that WebOS will not be developed further, the app market will not be increased tremendously. I am quite upset about this because there are a lot of potential for the Pre 3 but I think HP has made a bad choice by stop developing on a large scale when it comes to the WebOS. What a shame!

In a nutshell, the HP Pre 3 is the faster dualcore mobile phone at the moment but it is just sad to see that any development in the WebOS will be slowed down tremendously. It is, however, a good mobile phone to use. Who knows that one day, users will be able to port the WebOS to the Android platform.