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Palm Pre 2 review: Battery life
The battery on the Palm Pre 2 is rated for five hours of talk time or 350 hours of standby.
Of course, with this type of phone, these two activities are probably what you're least likely to do, so how does it fare when you're constantly browsing the web, checking email and generally fiddling with it?
The answer is: not very well. From it being at 100% in the morning, we used it a fairly standard amount, sending a couple of emails, reading a few, checking Twitter every so often and some web browsing.
By mid-evening, it was down to 20 per cent of battery. Now there's lots you can do to try to mitigate this, such as turning down the brightness, having it check for email less often and various other tricks, but against comparable smartphones using similar settings, the Pre 2 simply doesn't make a good account of itself.
In fact, during some of the more intense testing we did, we had to be charging it constantly more or less.
Connectivity
Connection options on the Palm Pre 2 haven't changed much from previous iterations. Wi-Fi 802.11b/g complements 3G data connectivity for wireless internet access, and there's also Bluetooth 2.1 with A2DP audio streaming support.
We found signal to be a bit up and down on the Pre 2. In some areas, 3G appeared to be fine and strong, but it was slow in practice (and wouldn't access some services at all). It wasn't bad, but certainly wasn't the strongest we've seen.
The micro-USB port enables you to charge from the mains (UK and European plugs are both included in the box), or connect to a PC. As we mentioned in the Media section, there's no official PC client for loading media, so you can either drag and drop files or use a third-party solution, such as DoubleTwist.
The 3.5mm headphone jack means you can connect your own headphones or a set of speakers.
There's no microSD card slot for expanding the 16GB of built-in storage, but this will be enough space for most people anyway.
The Pre 2's battery cover is ready to work with the optional Touchstone charger, which enables you to charge the phone wirelessly. New software features mean that the phone now knows when it's on the Touchstone, so apps can adapt what they display when the Pre is in charge mode.
