Just a few days ago, I was talking about accessories for my new Palm Pre. A week later, I now have two.
First up is the Palm leather side case. This is the belt clip case for the Pre. (Palm also has a leather slip case.) So far I like the case. The Pre fits snugly in the case and Palm has included a little ribbon to help lift the Pre out of the case, reducing the risk that you will drop the Pre while removing it from the case. That is a really nice touch as I had almost dropped my Treo 755p a few times while using the older Palm leather Treo case.
The second accessory that I purchased was the Palm Touchstone. This is the super cool, if not super expensive, wireless battery charging dock for the Pre. (I purchased the cheapest of the three Touchstone kits.) There where two reasons that helped chanage my mind about Touchstone.
The first is the microUSB door on the right side of the Pre. There is this tiny little piece of plastic that holds the door to the body of the Pre. I had visions of accidentally snapping that thing off the phone while I was fiddling with the USB cable to either charge up the phone or sync media of files on to the device in Drive mode or Media Sync mode.
The second reason has to due with my complaint that Palm chose to go with the glossy finish on the Pre over the matte soft touch paint that was used on the Palm Treo 750 and 755p. You see, the Touchstone requires that you use a different back plate than the stock Palm back plate that comes with the Pre. The replacement Palm back plate that ships with the Pre has that soft touch paint that I like so much. So the phone is, in my opinion, easier to hold and feels nicer too. Oh, and the matte finish doesn’t pick up fingerprints like the glossy version does.
I could have lived without the matte finish on the Pre, but I would have gone nuts if the microUSB door had broken off my Pre. If that had happened, I would have had to file an insurance claim with Sprint because it would have driven me nuts to have the port exposed.
All in all, I’m happy with my purchases, and I hope you will be too. Both accessories, the leather side case and the Touchstone charging base are available from Sprint (retail location and online) and at Palm’s online store. As I understand it, both Palm’s and Sprint’s warehouses have ample supply of both accessories at this point.