9 Simple Fixes for the Palm Pre
In my readings of Palm Pre forums and Twitter posts I noticed several common issues kept popping up, leading many people to return their Pre’s as “defective.” This is a shame, because many Pre’s are returned when in fact they don’t need to be. With just a little bit of research you’ll find the majority of the Palm Pre’s “little gremlins” can be sorted out quite easily.
Plus, rest assured because Palm seems to have listened to its customers and is making improvements to the Pre’s hardware.
Read my list of several of these common problems and their fixes after the break…
1. PRE SHUTTING OFF UNEXPECTEDLY!
This is probably the most common issue that I saw. Fortunately, it’s a very simple problem, one that can be easily fixed. It is due to a “battery wiggle” issue. A minor manufacturing “snafu” was made when the battery was designed… it’s juuuuust small enough that when the Pre is jostled, or if the slider is open or closed, the battery may come off of its contacts momentarily. This can cause the Pre’s screen to flicker, shut off, or even shut the Pre down completely. Another problem that comes from this is that this “battery cycling” actually causes the battery to wear down faster!
The solution? I’ve been telling owners to cut a small piece of double-sided foam tape and install it at the area of the phone where the top edge of battery makes contact. Others have resorted to business cards and stuff, but I don’t find that it’s ideal. Not surprisingly, Palm has addressed this issue on newer builds by … *gasp!* installing a small piece of foam in exactly the same place. (I swear when I saw that I felt like such a genius! … I know… geek is more appropriate!)
Palm also redesigned their stock battery, presumably for a better fit. (The old battery is the one on the left with the grooves, the new one is on the right.) If the above fixes don’t work for you, then you can march right up to your Sprint store and demand a new battery. I’ve been reading that they’ve been generous in exchanging them. Our Canadian friends to the north should have the newer builds, so this is hopefully a non-issue for them.
2. THE “OREO” EFFECT!
Many people have noticed that when the Pre is closed, it seems to have a little wiggle if you twist it like an Oreo (hence the name). THIS IS NORMAL: the vast majority of Pre’s do this to a negligible degree. But some report that their Pre gets little too loose for comfort. It happened to me once and I discovered an embarrasingly simple fix. See if it works for you.
First, squeeze the two halves of your Pre together, placing gentle but firm pressure at the corners (you don’t wanna crack your screen!).Next… keeping pressure, slowly open and close your Pre about once or twice.
Keep the pressure focused at the points as shown in this pic. It might help. Remember that you will always have some wiggle, and will likely need to do this fix again sometime. If results aren’t satisfactory, you could try pressing a little harder. Again, be firm, but gentle.
UPDATE: oasis9389 on the precentral.net forums has noticed that if you close your Pre from an upper left to bottom right fashion, that it has the same effect as the fix above. This is likely due to the asymmetrical design of the original rail system for the slider. I’ve read that Palm is fixing this with newer builds as well. Thanks! Final tip: don’t fiddle with your Pre after you do this maneuver. If with minimal pressure you notice your Pre is tighter, leave it alone… or you’ll go blind! :)
3) EARPIECE AND PROXIMITY SENSOR STOPPED WORKING!
After a long road trip listening to Pandora, Sprint TeleNav, and taking calls by bluetooth, I let my Palm Pre go to sleep mode, unplugged the AUX wire out of my Pre, and went up to my hotel. I tried to call my wife to let her know I had arrived safely, but to my horror I couldn’t hear anything on the other side. I also noticed the proximity sensor (the sensor that shuts off the Pre’s touchscreen so your cheek doesn’t inadvertently hit a button during a phone call) wasn’t working anymore. I did notice, however, that my speakerphone was working just fine. … And then it hit me: my Pre still thought there was a wire plugged into it!
All I’d have to do is plug/unplug any standard headphone into the jack! (Funny part was, I had left the AUX wire in my boss’ car… it wasn’t until the next day that I sheepishly asked a total stranger at the airport to borrow his headphones… after plugging/unplugging my phone, I was in business!)
So… the solution? Don’t unplug your headphones while the Pre is OFF or in sleep mode!
Others have said that if that doesn’t work to try this trick while your music player is ON. I didn’t need this trick, but maybe it’ll work for you. … It’s worth noting that this problem existed on the iPhone when it first launched. Hopefully this will be corrected by our friends at Palm, too. … But I wouldn’t mind visual voicemail, first! ; )
- Shut off your Pre. To be safe, I’d take out the battery, too.
- Take a Q-tip
- Remove some of the extra fluff
- Wet the tip with alcohol
- Insert the tip into the headset jack and clean it really well.
- Let it dry (compressed air works even better)
- Turn your Pre back on
- Go to “Device Info” in your launcher
- Open the menu and select “Interactive Tests.”
- Select “Audio” self-test. You should be done! Try it now…
4. MY KEYBOARD IS ALL CREAKY WHEN I TYPE ON IT!
I hadn’t seen this for myself until my wife got a brand-new Palm Pre. It didn’t creak out of the box but when I replaced the back-cover on it, the creaking started and wouldn’t stop no matter how I installed the backplate. Luckily, there’s a simple solution for this as well: just apply electrical tape to the inside portion of the backplate, as shown here…
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5. I CAN’T SEE MY MESSAGING CONVERSATIONS!
This problem probably occurs more commonly than it should. Essentially, this is caused by the awesome “Synergy” feature on the Pre that links profiles (Google, Facebook, Yahoo, LinkedIn) of people all together. Problem is, it can cause a glitch in the messaging app: for some reason, the Pre gets confused and can’t find the contact associated with that conversation. There’s a few solutions for this…
a) Unlink your contact.
Pretty self-explanatory. Find Mom in the contacts, delete Mom’s contact (sorry, Mom).
Reboot. Then, re-enter mom’s contact. Try an SMS or IM conversation with her again and see if it shows up in the messaging app. If all went well, it should work. If not, proceed to the final step.
c) Do a PARTIAL ERASE.
6) MY SCREEN FLICKERS / GOES BLACK WHEN I USE THE PHONE!
This is a problem I found on my wife’s brand-new Palm Pre: when I’d open the phone app, the screen would flicker on and off and wouldn’t stop until I closed the phone app. It was very worrisome, but turned out to have a very simple fix: take off the screen protector! Normally, the proximity sensor on the Palm Pre and Pixi deactivate the screen when your face comes close, to avoid accidental pushing of buttons while on a call. In my wife’s case, the screen protector was “fooling” her Pre into thinking that her face was close to the phone. After removing it, cleaning the screen really well, and replacing the screen protector, the problem never returned.
If you don’t have a screen protector, try cleaning the screen’s surface really well.
7) MY KEYBOARD STOPPED WORKING!
This happened to me one morning. Scared the hell out of me. I had just switched out the battery when this occurred. So, I powered the phone off, pulled the battery out and placed it back in, and voila! My keyboard was working again. I have no idea what caused it, but at least there’s a simple fix for it!
8 ) MY TOUCHSCREEN STOPPED WORKING!
This has not happened to me, but I have read in a couple forums that some people were able to get their phone working by doing a battery pull, just as in solution #4 above. It didn’t work for everyone, but hey it’s so simple it’s worth a shot.
9) MY POWER BUTTON STOPPED WORKING!
This is sadly a pretty common problem. Turns out the little metal clicker that lies under the Pre’s power button can get bent if pushed too hard, such as by the Pre falling on it. Luckily, the solution is simple, easy, and safe. Just follow along.
First, remove the back cover off of your Pre.
Next, using a paper clip or safety pin, gently pop out the power button. Careful… that little plastic piece may go flying if you push too fast! Easy does it. (Left)
Looking down where the power button used to be, you’ll see the contact where the plastic button pushes. You may try to *gently* lift up on the metal contact to “unbend” it. (Right)
Fold a tiny piece of paper (no more than 2-3 sheets thick) and rest it flat on top of the metal contact. Pop the power button back in. That should do it! If it doesn’t work, you may try gently lifting up on the metal contact as described above.
There. You’re done. :)
There you have it. Nine simple problems with simple fixes for the Palm Pre. I’m not claiming these fixes will work for everybody, but heck they’re so easy it’s worth a shot before running back to your Palm retailer. If you have any other simple fixes that you’d like me to feature, leave a comment!
