I’ve been using the Palm Pre for a few days now, and I am apparently a victim of the random-shutoff bug that’s plagued early production units. The random power-off problem is caused by a loose battery that sometimes loses touch with the connector – usually a result of sliding the Palm Pre’s screen up or down.
At first I attempted to fix the problem by folding up a business card and placing it between the battery and battery cover. That didn’t help. The problem isn’t that the battery is too thin, the problem is that the battery is too short. I wedged a piece of the business card between the top of the battery (opposite from the battery connector) and the Pre’s camera. That solved the problem completely. There’s a discussion about this very problem and it’s fix here.
The loose battery/random power-down issue highlights just how important build-quality is to a smartphone’s overall user experience. So, how many of you Palm Pre owners out there feel the same way? Sound off in the poll!