Palm Inc. is fighting harder than ever to snag a chunk of the smart phone market, and just six months after releasing the stylish Pre it's back with a lighter, more petite and affordable version called the Pixi.
It's too bad such a good-looking phone is so aggravating to use.
With its trim candy bar-shaped body, full keyboard and $100 price tag (with a two-year Sprint Nextel contract and $150 in rebates), it's clear that Palm is aiming the Pixi at younger, text messaging-savvy consumers.
The Pixi is one of the most attractive phones I've seen. Its glossy black face features a crisp-though-diminutive 2.6-inch touch screen and a full keyboard that's about the size of a Pink Pearl eraser. The keys are the sticky, rubbery kind familiar to Palm fans. In between the screen and keyboard sits a small area where you make finger swipes to switch between applications.
The Pixi felt great in my hand. The sides of the device are rounded and its sides and back are a matte, rubberized plastic. At 3.3 ounces, it's a featherweight compared to the Pre, iPhone and most BlackBerry phones -- the Pre and iPhone each tip the scales at 4.8 ounces. The Pixi includes 8 gigabytes of storage  for photos, music and videos.
The Pixi's display is an elfin version of its older brother's. Like the Pre, it has Palm's easy-to-navigate WebOS software, which organizes your open applications like little playing cards that stretch across the screen, waiting for you to tap on them to bring them to the foreground. (You use an upward finger flick to dismiss them.)
A notable WebOS feature has been its ability to aggregate your contacts and calendar entries from such services as Facebook and Google. The Pixi takes things a little further by letting you include your contacts from Yahoo and business-networking site LinkedIn, too.
There's also a Facebook application on the handset so you can start updating your status and checking up on your friends right away.
Numerous issues make the Pixi hard to use, though. The keyboard is cute, but the keys are so tiny that I often had to type with my fingernails. I'm guessing this would be problematic for any people who keep their nails trimmed. The screen also felt too small, as I often found myself squinting at e-mails and enlarging Web pages so much that I had to constantly scroll just to read a block of text. (continued...)
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