gerryk.com

Since I qualified for a free upgrade to a Pre, I decided to get one.
My initial impression is that it is a small phone, compared to my previous iPhone 3G. The keyboard is small, but very usable... not as good as the one on the Treo 700w I had about a year or so ago though.
The OS looks good, and I like the multitasking aspect... being able to leave a Twitter client and GTalk client open in the background while making calls, sending texts and emails, is fantastic. The Google integration is impressive, and it handles Yahoo mail and even Hotmail, unlike a certain other competing handset.
Graphically, it's pretty, but the OS animations are a little on the jerky side compared to the iPhone.
Battery life was abysmal to begin with... I was getting 3 hours from full charge to dead. Apparently having my Hotmail account configured wasn't helping, so I removed it. Battery life jumped from 3 hours to about 6. Still terrible, especially when you consider that the 6 consisted of about 5 minutes of of calls, 5 minutes of email/web and the rest sitting in the centre console of my car or in my pocket. Rubbish is the only way to describe it.
Another puzzling thing is that it gets extremely hot. Not long phone conversation hot, I mean 50+ degrees hot... as in very uncomfortable to hold hot. The heat doesn't seem to come from the battery either, but possibly a poorly heat-sunk processor, located a little south of the battery.
I really wanted to like this phone, having been a Palm fan going back to the original Pilot nearly 15 years back and including pretty much every model since. I really wanted an alternative to the iPhone, which, since 3.1, has become flakier and flakier, hanging often and requiring regular resets. It looks like the iPhone is staying with me for a while yet... maybe until the Motorola Droid hits our shores, a long wait, if the carriers prove to be true to form.
As for the Pre... it's going back to O2. I'd feel guilty selling it on eBay, and I really want my gold upgrade back for a better handset.