Surprisingly thin and light for a phone with slide-out qwerty

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For a phone with a slide-out qwerty keyboard, the Pre is still surprisingly thin and light, but despite its polished black look it feels a bit plastic when the keyboard is out. Incidentally, the bottom ridge of the keyboard is weirdly sharp for a phone that is supposed to resemble a polished pebble.

I know Americans love physical keyboards, but I can't help feeling the Pre would be better without it. I have never had issues with writing emails, texts or even newspaper copy with the onscreen keyboard on the iPhone.

As with so many smartphones (including the iPhone), the Pre falls down when it is actually used for its basic purpose of making calls. The sound quality is poor – the person called sounds like they are stuck in a dustbin full of duvets – and reception is patchy, though again that may be O2's fault. Perhaps they are giving all their network capacity to the iPhone. If so, that is a terrible disservice to the Pre – by far the best of all the touchscreen devices to follow Apple's lead.

Read original review at Guardian.

Richard Wray from Guardian (Oct 14, 2009)