I got the Pre on launch day and was impressed by how smooth it was, in just a few minutes of use. I had seen several videos building up to the launch, but until you use it for yourself, you remain skeptical.

I gave the Pre a pretty high rating at 9.4 and there is a reason. WebOS is the real star and you have already heard this ad nauseum: "once we get more apps..." Yes, once it gets more apps, it will be amazing. For what it has now, I am more than satisfied and use several of the apps everyday: tweed, pandora, fandango, where, sudoku, sprint nav (actually, very nicely designed). Apps are integrated nicely, for instance when I look up a restaurant on Where, I can call, get directions or add it to contacts with the push of a button. The camera is fast and I used MMS about 20 times today. The inclusion of screen capture is nice and adds yet another option for easy wallpaper changes. The universal search is also nicely done and you can just start typing to look for a contact, app or search on google, wikipedia or twitter. There is much more to come and every indication is that Palm is being proactive and 3rd party developers will be a key in the success of WebOS.

As for the hardware, a lot of people have shot it down as shoddy and cheap. I have to disagree. You get used to the QWERTY pretty quickly (and I came from a Touch Pro, arguably the best physical QWERTY), the music sounds relatively nice on the speaker, standard headphone jack is always a big winner and there's not too many other buttons (which I felt my last 2 HTC phones had). I haven't had any issue with mine, but if and when I do, I can just take it Sprint to switch it out for a new one.

In short, I love the Pre and WebOS. I'm not going to compare it to the iPhone, but between the two, I would pick the Pre, no contest. Even if AT&T had decent reception in my area (they don't) and reliable 3G (they don't), I would pick the Pre. Add to the fact that I am paying 110 for 3 lines with 1500 minutes, unlimited text and data and it's a very easy choice.