Following up on the trend that seemingly was started by the original Palm Pre, the optional $79.99 Touchstone Charging Dock for the HP TouchPad combines the functionality of any pedestal stand, while juicing it up via inductive charging.
Much like the original Touchstone for the Palm Pre, the one for the HP TouchPad follows [...]

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For those planning to nab the upcoming HP TouchPad when it’s finally officially released next month, you can continue to drool over the webOS powered tablet even more because we’re seeing a good dose of accessories hitting HP’s online web store.
If HP’s pride and joy isn’t enough to satisfy your itching fingers, then [...]

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While HP may be the biggest consumer PC seller out there, they’re also tops when it comes to business purchases. We’re talking both big corporate and small shop buys – this is what we in the business refer to as “diversification” and “scale,” wherein HP is capable of selling their products to large and small groups across multiple industries and revenue levels.

With such scale, we’re pleased to see HP using their multitudinous business contacts to push webOS. In fact, not that long ago the HP’s “Small Business Education Series” email newsletter heavily and exclusively featured Palm smartphones. Very smartly, the email focused on the benefits of webOS, noting:

• webOS multi-tasks like no other. HP was sure to put emphasis on flicking between “apps & docs,” as business users don’t just care about multi-tasking with browsers and games.
• You can add up to sixteen email accounts. Yeah, we didn’t think about that either, but we can see how some small businesses can have multiple accounts (sales@, support@, admin@, etc) with one person managing them all.
• Touchstone!
• Wireless cloud syncing magics, otherwise known as Synergy. No need to plug in, unless you want to transfer files, that is.
• “Zero-touch IT support,” as in Palm manages for you the security “from the server, to the cloud, to your phone. Simple.” Granted, that’s a big of an over-simplification, but we’ll allow it.

And then there’s noting that every Palm phone, be it a Pre, and Pixi, or a Plus variant of either, is available for free on your choice of major American cellular carriers (excepting T-Mobile, of course). And the oh so lucrative accessories too, like the above mentioned Touchstone charger, fancy colorful backs for the Pixi, and the requisite cables, batteries, and Palm-branded cases. Though we’ll take the opportunity here to point you to our own PreCentral accessory store for that – we’ve got a bit more diversity and scale in that department.

Source: HP

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As Annie notes over at sister-site TreoCentral, Palm has let loose that they’re going to be roving the country, handing out Pre and Pixi accessories, Palm stickers, and who knows what to people they see using webOS devices out in public spaces. In other words – be a little flamboyant when you use your phone, it just might get you noticed and get you swag.

Palm says that these roving bands of accessory-gifters could appear in any country. We suppose these ‘random acts of wow’ could be pretty sparse, given the wide net.  If only Palm had a way of tracking down webOS users in the wild to help improve those odds (We KID! We joke!).

Thanks to everybody who sent this in!

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So how is Palm Pre Plus battery life holding up? The official specs state that Palm Pre Plus can let you talk straight for 5 hours and standby for 12.5 days (300 hours). Not too bad for a smartphone that let you run multiple applications at the same time. But in reality you talk and [...]

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My top five Palm Pre Accessories are very straightforward – I like to cover the basics first. Our Palm Pre Accessories forum have been very active with accessory talk and I figured I’d chime in with my top picks. Far be it from me to dictate what you should get for your Pre, but what I’m listing here are the five things that, for me, are essential for my Pre experience.

Let’s see what we’ve got, shall we?

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We all know that the Palm Pre is one of the coolest phones when paired with the Touchstone charger. Specially when you have them both inside a car. But until now, the downside was the inability to use a protective case on the Pre while charging on the Touchstone.

The Touchstone charges the Pre’s battery wirelessly, [...]

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Heavy Palm Pre users will have discovered that the smartphone’s battery life can prove insufficient for a full day’s use, especially when you’re receiving push email and using juice-thirsty features like GPS and 3G data.  Third-party battery manufacturer Seidio had already promised a double-capacity pack for the Pre; now they’re offering one with a more slight [...]

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In my Review of the Palm Pre, I said that the Pre’s battery gets me through a day of moderate use, but with heavy use cuts out rather quickly. If some of what I’m hearing on Twitter and in the forums is any indication, I’ve been lucky with my results.

So yes, let’s come out and say it: battery life isn’t good on the Pre and hopefully Palm will be able to alleviate it with some software fixes (we know some are in the works). In the meantime, here are some tips and tricks for improving your battery life. We’ll start with the most important, end with one tip that may surprise you, and then offer a few accessory suggestions.

A huge thanks go out to the PreCentral.net Members who have been on this case like Columbo.

It’s all after the break!

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Palm Pre Battery-Saving Tweaks

Log out of IM

The Messaging apps keeps you logged into both AIM and Google Talk even after you dismiss the card. The IM protocol on the Palm Pre is currently afflicted with a bug that makes is suck the life out of your battery. The bug is aggravated if you have a lot of buddies. For now, unless you expect you’ll be actively using it, click the green circle at the top of your buddy list and select Offline.

Turn Bluetooth off

I’ve not seen the Pre do anything particularly nefarious with Bluetooth and battery life (seems to not make much of a dent to me), but better safe than sorry.

Move your phone

I have to admit that despite my complaints about poor coverage, there are places around with slightly worse coverage (I’m in one now). The Pre drains quickly in areas of marginal coverage — so if there’s a spot in the room with better signal, it wouldn’t kill you to be sitting there. (see below for more options).

Change your Fetch Interval for Email

I still have Gmail set to "As Items Arrive" because I’m stubborn and push Gmail is too nice to give up. Still, if push email isn’t critical to you, consider setting your fetch interval (in email preferences, under your account info) to 30 minutes or a half hour. Heck, depending on how often you get email, setting your interval to "As Items Arrive" may help your battery life. It’s something you need to play around with.

Check your screen settings

Does your brightness really need to be maxed out? Do you really think the screen needs to be on for 3 minutes before it turns off?

Hotmail? May be an issue

Folks in our forums are identifying Hotmail as a particularly nasty culprit for heat and battery issues. To be fair, this one could be as much Microsoft’s bug as Palm’s. But if hotmail isn’t essential for you, shut’er down.

Turn off GPS

If you’re not using (and not fixing to use) GPS, you can head into your location preferences and turn it off. In my testing this hasn’t made a huge ding because the Pre doesn’t have GPS on all the time, but if you’re using Google Maps a lot, it could help you.

Turn ON WiFi. No, seriously

Palm told us that the Pre was very efficient at WiFi and that we might just see better battery life with WiFi on. I haven’t done extensive testing yet, but yesterday I spent all day in a spot with absolutely terrible Sprint signal. In the morning, WiFi off and the battery drained rather quickly, down to 50% in three hours of moderate use. In the afternoon I turned WiFi on and with the same usage, it managed to keep it up to 25% four hours later. Still not great, but surprisingly better!

So: poor signal but good WiFi? Turn on WiFi. No WiFi around, turn it off.

Close apps, especially 3rd party apps

Can’t hurt! In fact, you may even want to consider deleting them (Opt + Tap in your launcher). We haven’t confirmed yet, but it’s possible some 3rd party apps may be failing to close cleanly and killing battery.

Reset the device

You never know, even built-in apps sometimes behave badly on the best of platforms.

Battery-Friendly Accessories

Spare Pre battery

Don’t be tempted by your old Centro’s battery either — we don’t recommend it. Our very own PreCentral.net Accessory Store will have the official Palm Pre battery in soon, for $39.95

Touchstone

Having a Touchstone around means you can top off more conveniently, so battery life isn’t as much of an issue. Again, our pals at the still will have them in stock within a week or two and for cheap! Touchstone Charging Kit clocks in at $49.95 and the Touchstone by it’s lonesome is $39.95.

One thing to keep in mind: the Touchstone doesn’t come with a microUSB cable or a wall charger and in my testing it does not charge when you plug it into a computer — so you’ll need a wall charger to go with it.  The kind folks at the store have created a Touchstone + Battery Cover + Wall Charger Bundle for $71.90 and if you’re looking for a second setup for your office, they have a Touchstone + Wall Charger Bundle for $66.40.

Travel Charger / USB Charger

Sometimes you just need to plug in – here’s a list of chargers and cables that have been tested to work with the Palm Pre.

Vehicle Charger

Yeah, having a way to charge the Pre in the car is going to be important.

Emergency Charger

I’m a gearhead, so there’s always something in my bag that needs charging. My favorite new addition to my bag is the Freedom Mobile Power Emergency Charger. It’s just a little 1800mAh battery pack that gets charged by mini-USB and charges via mini-USB. So it’s important to note that by itself it is not compatible with the Palm Pre. But I also carry a mini-USB to micro-USB adapter which, combined with the Freedom emergency charger, charges up the Pre just fine.

Signal booster

Before I get to step 4 (which involves a monthly fee and a compromise), I’m currently testing out a signal booster from our store, the Wilson Electronics SIGNALBOOST DT Dual-Band 800/1900 MHz Desktop Amplifier Kit. It’s essentially a repeater – you put an antenna outside your building and run a coaxial cable to a box in your office. Given that I have lots of bars outside my steel box of an office and none inside, it seems like a good solution. It’s expensive, however, so we’ll have a full review for you next week to help decide between this and the…

Airave

Sprint sells something called the Airave, which essentially is a miniature cell tower in your house that runs off your high speed internet. In theory, it’s the perfect solution. In practice, it works but not for everybody.

The reason I’m not putting an Airave at the top of this (at least above the Wilson solution) is that it just has too many compromises:

• it costs $5 a month to use
• it only works for 5 users
• it does not provide high speed EVDO data, only 1xRTT signal for voice calls.
• it comes with a GPS puck whose sole purpose is to make sure you’re only using the device in approved areas. (and yes, there are legitimate E911 reasons for this, but it still grates me)

It’s only $100 bucks initially, though, so despite all those compromises I may break down and get one for the office.

What are YOUR battery saving tips?

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It’s Saturday June 6th, and that can only mean one thing: it’s Palm Pre launch day!  We’re hearing reports from all over the internet that people are queuing up for their very own Pre, and we’re expecting to hear some first-impressions from our own My Pre forum members too.

According to the feedback coming from early [...]

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