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The Palm Pre Plus promises 5.5 hours of talktime and 350 hours on standby, but on the modern smartphone, talk-time is very much a secondary consideration. Like most of the other top-end do-it-all devices at the moment, extensive use during the day will pretty much wipe out the battery.
Using push email, browsing constantly and watching YouTube is a real drain on the Pre Plus' fuel tank. Multitasking is a great addition, but it goes without saying that the more you leave open, the more the battery will suffer.
You'll need to charge it every day, without question, but what else is new? It does seem to drop very fast once it gets under 50 per cent, but touching the top battery icon at the top of the screen will let you know exactly how much you have left. It'd be nice if that was reflected in time rather than percentage.
Once the battery completely dies, it does need to be plugged in for a couple of minutes before you can switch the device back on again, which is really annoying, especially when you take into consideration the Pre Plus' epic start-up time.
We're talking nearly two minutes (1.47 to be exact) of looking at a pulsating Palm logo before it returns to a functional state.
There is of course the wireless charging with Palm's Touchstone technology, but that costs around £40 and we can do without.
Maps
Naturally, Google Maps is pre-loaded onto the phone, and the web OS edition is one of the better incarnations. The app pinpoints your current location lightning-fast, while directions searches are also remarkably rapid.
Both graphical and satellite maps render very quickly, even when moving around the map and using multi-touch to zoom in and out. If you're heading to a destination, a handy guide at the top of the screen gives you information on your next turn.
Android users now have turn-by-turn navigation, but there's no sign of Google deploying that to anything outside of its own operating system just yet and there's nothing like Co-Pilot or TomTom featured in the naked App Catalog.
