Reception
When showcased in 2009 January, five months prelaunch, the Pre received positive reviews, winning CNET's Best in Show, Best in Category: Cell Phones & Smartphones, and People's Voice for CES 2009.
The Palm Pre suffered from numerous quality issues. The slider mechanism felt loose and could cause wiggle, an issue that became known as the "Oreo Twist" by users. Palm aimed to address the issue with the Pre Plus, making the slider mechanism stronger. The curved plastic screen seemed delicate, sometimes cracking from being in a pocket, and there were reports of faulty headphone jacks. On the Palm Pre Plus characters sometimes appeared twice when typing, although the user has only hit the key once. Many reviews noted the poor build quality of the phones. In Engadget's second open letter to Palm, they cited "hardware issues which plagued the Pre, with no outward acknowledgment or rush to correct." They added, "We've seen countless reports, read too many blog posts to recall, and heard all sorts of horror stories about broken sliders, power buttons that stop functioning, the "Oreo cookie" effect, and more. Hell, even our first review unit broke!"
Overall sales were modest from the outset. Users expressed intense concern about the slow pace of webOS upgrade releases and the absence of substantially improved hardware. Comments were critical of the lengthy delay in releasing the promised Flash application, dysfunctional document handling such as PDF files, speculation of what could be underlying the technological or business reasons for the slow release of the webOS 2 upgrade for existing phones, and a concern that when eventually released the webOS 2 upgrade would be incompatible with PalmOS emulation. Media opinion in 2010 December was not enthusiastic. While it was the fastest-selling cell phone in Sprint's history, the Pre has been described as Palm's swan song since the sales were not enough to keep the company afloat, leading to its acquisition by HP.
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