Gadgetory

what's up prizefight fans i'm brian tom and this is the price right you've all been waiting for it's a heavyweight title fight between the top two touchscreen smartphone Titans it's a prize fight between the Palm Pre and Apple's iPhone 3GS these phones have been duking it out on the streets launching within weeks of each other the media surrounding them has been fierce and they finally had time to be used in the real world showcasing their strengths and exposing their flaws so we're bringing in the big guns to judge this fight senior editor ken tournament senior editor Bonnie chop and myself will do the honors now we'll take all three judges scores and average them out to the nearest tenth each round the final prize fight score will be an average of all rounds using the same decimal system so let's get ready to rumble and tumble the first round is sexist the Palm Pre is a sexy beast when it's closed with its minimalist design when open the edges are a little sharp but for those who think it looks cheap with its plastic body pick it up because it's anything but that the iPhone 3GS is design is iconic and no one can match it's simple and sleek body Bonnie well she's over it and she thinks it looks blocky compared to the pre four really Bonnie I'm still making out with it beauty is in the eye of the beholder and both bones get a 4.3 we're even out of the gates next round is navigation and multitasking the pre isn't the most intuitive device out of the box and there is a small learning curve but it's multi-touch display works wonders the keyboard is very cramped so people with sausage fingers beware now the hands down killer feature of the pre that makes it so unique is its multitasking deck of cards feature you can run multiple apps at the same time and no phone can match it plus its notification system is tucked in the corner and is non intrusive the iPhones touchscreen is still the most responsive and its navigation is unrivaled it's so easy that my three-year-old niece can use it now when it comes to multitasking you can listen your music collection while working on another application but that's it the push notification system is helpful but it's just not enough and messages take up the screen the pre takes this round with a 4.7 and the iPhone gets a 4 now after averaging two rounds the pre leads by three tenths of a point round three is features both of these phones are packed with the big stuff like 3G Wi-Fi GPS and Bluetooth so we'll show you a few of the minor differences the pre comes with Sprint's navigation for turn-by-turn directions right out of the box while the iPhone has third-party options that you have to pay for you want access to the key features on the pre press the upper right hand corner to get to them on the iPhone you'll navigate through multiple menus and finally you'll find them cut copy and paste are on both phones the pre involves a combination of keys and the touchscreen doesn't really keep up with selecting text on top of that this feature only works on text that you're writing on at that time now the iPhone uses one finger it's super accurate with moving the cursor when you want to select text and it can be used wherever you see text across apps like in the browser in emails or in text messages there's no touchscreen keyboard for the free so you'll still have to slide open the keypad and hopefully that will get resolved in future updates the pre has MMS but will offer no tethering and currently there's no voice dialing the iPhone has voice dialing and is planning to get MMS and tethering abilities by the end of the summer the Palm Pre app store is still in beta and it's pretty anemic at the moment while app will spark the App Store revolution with over 65,000 apps and games you make the call but we're calling this round even and both phones get a 4.3 next up is web browsing and multimedia the pries web browser is second only to Safari with multi-touch functionality palm also says flash will be coming to the browser by the end of 2009 video playback looks great for files stored on the device streaming content from ESPN's web site looked impressive but Sprint TV was not so hot you'll have access to the Amazon mp3 store but currently you can only purchase tracks over Wi-Fi you'll also get a 3 megapixel camera with flash but there's no video capture at the moment the iPhone 3GS has had time to mature and its made for multimedia the Safari web browser is second-to-none even without Flash support and you have access to the iTunes store to purchase music videos and download podcasts directly video playback looks stellar with movie files on its larger screen and streaming ESPN content was excellent it's three megapixel camera has no flash but you can record video and then edit and upload it instantly the judges all agree here and the iPhone takes this round with a perfect 5 and the pre gets a 4 so after four rounds the iPhone takes its first leaf by one tenth of a point you know this prize bite was destined to be a nail-biter the final round that will decide it all is called quality and performance the Palm Pre had call quality that was good overall and cleaner than the iPhone but its internal performance was just not as snappy battery life is still an issue and after a few updates we were able to get around a day of juice with normal use on the Apple side call quality has never been a strong point for the iPhone and it didn't really change with the 3GS the other side of the line definitely sounded more robotic compared to the pre but it makes up for it with its speedier processor that you can feel and its battery life performs significantly better than the pre I've been able to get close to two days with normal use now this one's too close to call and all the judges agree both phones get off for this is going to be a close one so let's average out all five rounds and in a hotly contested prize fight that featured three rounds that tied we end up tied with a 4.3 now we can't walk away like this and this prize fight has to have a winner so we're going to break this down people 5 hundredths of a point so do the math for yourselves but after a five-round throwdown the iPhone 3GS is still your reigning champion and takes this prize fight winning four point three two to four point two six in the closest prize fight in CNET history this just shows everyone how great these touchscreen Titans are and ultimately it's up to you to decide which one's the winner i'm brian tom thanks for watching look at you guys next on another epic prizefight