Palm Pixi Plus unboxed: see the photos!

(US customer): I retired my Palm 755p to get the Palm Pixi Plus, which I acquired from Verizon in March 2010. I loved the small size, small weight, raised keys and ease of typing, and Google Maps. Long story short, the hardware is amazing; the software is horrible. Major annoyances included:

1. The email program list: you have to delete emails INDIVIDUALLY, meaning there is no “check-box” list where you check each one and hit a 'delete; button.

2. Memory issues. “Sorry, too many cards.” (While annoying, I'd say it's less annoying than numbers 1, 3, 4, 5, and 7 on my list here.)

3. Calendar and inability to set custom reminder times. There was no way to select a reminder time BETWEEN one hour and one day.

4. No 'tasks' software. (No importing your old tasks, either.)

5. Terrible 'memos' software. No more list showing the first line of the memo. Now you get “post-it” notes. Scattered on the screen. No list. No organization.

6. Backup to a “cloud” with no access to said “cloud”? Huh? (Gone is the old Palm Desktop software.)

7. “Documents To Go” is not made for the webOS, and probably won't be.

I wrote a list of my complaints before exchanging my Pixi and will type up a more detailed list when I have time and post on my blog at http://vicmeow.blogspot.com/ but I wanted to give a quick review so you know what issues you should consider. Generally, I'd say the Pixi is fantastic for someone (like a teenager) who wants a cool gadget. But it was full of frustrations for me because I needed it for actual work and tasks. Shopping the “market” for basic system software was a task that annoyed me to no end. The stuff I found was garbage, whether free or not and was a frustrating waste of time. Basic, decent, usable software should be part of the OS. Those crappy “market” programs should be for extra “fluff,” not basic OS.

Under pressure from the 30-day trial period at Verizon and the fear that Palm was going down and I'd be stuck with a phone for two years with no support or developers making corrective software for it, I dumped it for the Droid.

Big mistake.

The Droid developers were seemingly just as lazy in developing their basic software as Palm was in developing theirs. Horrible. Now, instead of spending my spare time playing a calm, relaxing game of Scrabble on my handheld device (like I did with my 755p), I spend my time searching for software that doesn't suck. Just like I did with the Pixi.

So, I used to carry a feather of a phone that had sucky software (Pixi) and traded it for a brick of a phone that has sucky software (Droid). I think I'd rather have the feather.

I'm now on a mission to trade the Droid back with a Pixi, or maybe one of the Blackberries. I dunno. It's so difficult to make the choice when you're in the store because the salespeople are usually clueless and you just can't tell how the thing will work in your real life until you start using it.

With the Droid, I mumble the words, “I hate this phone” every single day, several times a day. I may have guiltily mumbled the same words about the Pixi, but not nearly as frequently, nor with such venom.

There's more to say, but check out the software issues before you buy.