It’s tough to remember sometimes but the Palm Pre is actually a phone.  Using the phone isn’t particularly difficult but there are a few tricks to learn.  Read on for more.

Quick Dialing

There are a number of methods for dialing numbers quickly.  The quickest way to dial a contact you call a lot is to assign a speed dial key to the contact.  From contact entry tap the menu and choose Set Speed Dial.  Tap the number you want to associate the with the speed dial and then scroll through until you find the entry you want to assign.  You’d think you could just press the key you want but as of 1.0.4 you can’t.

The second method to quickly start dialing a number is to just begin typing a number key while in card view or the launcher.  You don’t need to press Orange .  Until you type a non-number key you will have the option to dial the number you’ve typed.

Thirdly, you can begin typing a contact’s name into the universal search and then tap the contact when you see it.

Lastly, as long as you haven’t dialed any numbers you can click the contacts icon in the upper right of the dialpad in the Phone app.

Redial

If you need to redial the last number you dialed you can easily bring it up again by tapping the dial icon  .  Your last number will appear ready to dial.  Just tap the icon again to place the call.

Number Recognition

The Pre (usually) recognizes phone numbers in Web pages, e-mails and in other text fields.  If the phone recognizes the phone number it will turn into a link which you can click to launch the Phone app.  Once the app is launched, click the dial icon .

There’s a lot of good information at Palm’s making and receiving calls page.