One of the things we expect when any new mobile phone is launched is that hardware and software issues will be fixed in a timely manner. Sometimes how timely these sorts of things are fixed is much longer than users want. Early Palm Pre smartphones had their share of hardware issues.

One of the big uses for some early adopters of the handset was that if you closed the keyboard to forcefully the device would reset or shutdown. It appears that all Pres that were made from July on up have had some hardware fixes applied.

The Pres that are packed in the sunset box are apparently made a bit different from early models. These phones have not had the reported cracking of the screen common on some early Pre models. One easy way to tell if you have a newer device or not is by looking at the center button style you have. On newer devices, it is silver, on the early devices the button looks like a pearl.

[via PreThinking]