Review: Palm Pre Plus Not Worth Switch to Verizon

Verizon Wireless gets its hands on the Palm Pre and the Palm Pixi for the first time next week, and that means a whole bunch of new customers do too.

The phones coming to the nation’s biggest wireless carrier are not exactly the same as the ones offered exclusively by Sprint since last summer. These are upgrades, featuring slightly new names – the Palm Pre Plus and the Pixi Plus. Pre-everything site PreCentral has been taking a look at the Pre update for the past few days and has a lot to say about it, even though not that much has changed.

The site says the Pre Plus won’t be a “flagship” for Verizon like it is Sprint, at least for now. The reviewer likes the Mobile Hotspot feature, which is new to the Pre Plus, and will be especially beneficial to the business user. The Hotspot is what PreCentral calls an “innovative and crazy-cool piece of software … which turns the [phone] into a mobile Wi-Fi router.”

Beyond that, the site lauds the push e-mail and document support, but says those are already pretty good on the original Pre. Full document editing and a longer lasting battery are upgrades the Pre still needs, PreCentral claims. Changes to the exterior of the phone are subtle.

Are the improvements enough to consider dumping Sprint and getting the Pre Plus with Verizon? “Probably not,” the site says. “Increased performance, storage and Mobile Hotspot are all compelling,” says the reviewer, but not enough to make the switch.