Newbie test drives Pre, Pixi, & iPhone, picks iPhone

Question

I took a friend of mine shopping for a new cell phone.  She had played with my Pre a bit, and she was coming from a Blackberry Pearl.  It was interesting to see what worked for her and what didn't.
I thought she was sold on the Pixi when we left the house, after comparing the phones via the web, but this didn't last.  When we got to the mall, we played with Android phones, with the Pixi, and with the iPhone.
The Android phones were confusing and cluttered and she quickly ruled them out.
She wasn't attracted to the Pre form factor, for whatever reason.  It may be because her finger nails were too long (about a quarter inch) to type on the top row of the Pre keyboard.  It had come down to the Pixi and the iPhone.
After a bit of explaining, she managed to be able to close applications on the Pixi, and really liked how that worked. I don't think she ever distinguished between backgrounding and closing apps though -- she would just keep flicking until the app disappeared.  I suspect it was a bit frustrating for her to have to keep "repeating" the gesture.  And somehow the Pixi landed in a wierd state where graphical elements were overlapping when they shouldn't have been, and I had to help her return to a screen that made sense again.  This did not help the Pixi.  She was also making a lot of mistakes typing on the keyboard, and that frustrated her.
We hit the Apple store last.  She loved the look of the new white iPhone.  She found typing on it to be much less frustrating, and while she did make mistakes, she declared it a lot easier to use, probably because of the keypress balloons.  She did keep trying to background the apps with a flick of the finger, so that webOS gesture must be really intuitive. Neither of us knew how to close apps on the thing, but she quickly figured out that you just press the bottom button.  When she did that, she looked up at me and said, "See?  Easy!  That's the way I like it."
So she bought the iPhone, despite the greater cost.
To summarize, here is why she chose the iPhone over the Pre and Pixi:
(1) Her nails prevented her from easily typing on the top row of the Pre keyboard.
(2) The iPhone's form was more aesthetically appealing to her than the Pixi's.
(3) She never distinguished backgrounding from closing apps, and this frustrated her.
(4) The iPhone's virtual keyboard was somehow easier for her, perhaps because the balloons gave her more confidence in her typing.
As she explained it, "I need a phone that's really easy to use."
... Just wanted to share this with the Palm folks to help them improve things in the future.
~joe
Post relates to: Pre p100eww (Sprint)

Answer 1

It was a while ago that I posted that message.  Just FYI, I switched from the Pre on Sprint to the Pixi on Verizon.  Monthly bill is more expensive, but I get a better signal at my house.
I love the Pixi.  I find it easier to type on.  The keyboard is different and I can type with both thumbs at once.  I had trouble doing that on the Pre because it took at least one thumb to hold the phone.
webOS is a better OS than the iPhone.  I get text message and email notices no matter what app I'm in.  I can pull up contacts while talking on the phone, can pull up a map to give someone directions while talking, can take notes while I'm talking to the person on speaker phone.  It is the OS of the future, but it lags in apps.  I also use an iPod Touch (iPhone minus phone) for certain apps that I can't get on webOS.  
Pixi is free on Verizon right now, I believe.  Plus, you can use it as a hotspot to give a laptop (or iPod Touch or iPad) Internet access from anywhere your phone as Internet access -- that's free on Verizon too.
Also, HP recently bought Palm, so we shouldn't have to worry any more about Palm going under or not having the resources to invest in webOS.
I transfered my contacts from my old Centro to the old Palm Desktop and then downloaded a special app from Palm that transfers from the old Palm Desktop to webOS.  I also bought The Missing Sync for the Palm to keep contacts synced with my Mac.
HTH.
~joe