Last weeks biggest announcement happened to be the new smartphone introduced by Palm, the Palm Pre. The Palm Pre announcement also marked an announcement for the new Pal operating system webOS, whose applications and services reply on an always-on connection to the Internet. No one could have imagined such an amazing device from a carrier that was presumed months away from the end. In fact the Palm Pre won Best in Show as well as People’s Voice Award at CES last week.
At release Palm stated that the Pre will be initially exclusive to the Sprint network and will include connectivity for Wi-Fi b/g, Bluetooth 2.1+EDR with A2DP stereo, A-GPS and EV-DO Rev.A. There may also be a GSM version somewhere down the road but Palm and Sprint kept silent as to how long this exclusivity would last.
The Pre is smaller than the iPhone with more rounded edge and a black stone-like appearance. Even being so small the touchscreen remains on the larger size at 3.1-inches with the same 480 x 320. The full QWERTY keyboard rocks out with a nice curve to fit the contour of your face. There is little to say about the build quality of the device as Palm has only been showing pre-production handsets. The touchscreen is capacitive and flush with the front panes, there is however a bit of a gloss to the slight curved cover that may potentially cause some problems. There is also a place for gesturing with a small silver home button in the middle. Many people may not know that the gesture panel has a few tiny LEDs that glow when gestures are carried out.
Just like the Centro, the Pre’s keyboard keys use Palm’s molded-keys rather than the individual buttons. Other physical controls just volume controls and a ringer switch at the top of the device. There is a standard 3.5mm headphone jack that is located next to the switch and also a microUSB port for charging and data. There is also a limit to the internal memory that the Palm Pre can hold, that limit is 8GB. Palm says users will make the most out of could-based storage rather than physical.
The Pre packs a 3-megapixel camera with LED flash that is capable of continuous shooting for an unspecified amount of time, after you are done shooting the Pre will then save the individual shots. The navigation app that the Pre will run has no public info other than the icon and GI press shots. It is assumed that the Pre, like many other phones, is capable of geotagging photos with the geographical location in which they were taken. There is also still image, audio and video support, but Palm did not say what file formats are supported. The only thing we do know is that the Pre’s built-in accelerometer can be used to switch between orientations with the light sensor and proximity sensor that adjusts backlighting.
Perhaps the largest defining factor for the Pre is the newly developed webOS. The new operating system which Palm CEO Ed Colligan has said will be around “for the next decade” is a massive step for Palm. Unlike the other mobile operating systems webOS is web-based and requires an always-on Internet connection.
webOS is capable of multitasking with a clean interface that separates applications into separate “cards.” The interface of cards can be changed from full screen to fanned out with a touch of the home button. Each card is a live screen of what is going on inside rather than a stock screen., users can even see the status as well as manipulate the application from the “deck.” Notifications such as new messages, alerts and phone calls slide into view at the bottom of the display with a smooth transition in resizing the application that is running and will automatically disappear when ignored.
Even though this was a pre-production model we experienced a smooth clean running version of webOS. Throughout the OS Palm has incorporated beautiful icon design and transitions. The Pre is running a Texas Instruments OMAP3430 ARM-based processor, running at an unknown clock speed somewhere between 600 to 1,000MHz, which can certainly can handle multiple tasks at a single time. We have yet to experience Synergy, Palms new attempt to bring all of the different data that has been stored in various Exchange, email, IM and other accounts. Synergy is not only designed to import calendar and contact data, but also intelligently sort it to remove any duplicated records and fuse multiple entries.
Other phones may offer threaded SMS messages or other multi-platform IM applications, but the Pre brings off of the messages together so that you can continue your conversations via text message or other carious IM accounts while maintaining a single threaded list. Search is also integrated into multiple applications and services. A single search bar will search first the Pre itself, whether apps, contact entries, emails or anything else, and then the Internet. The model they had on the floor offers Google, Google Maps and Wikipedia searches, but it is highly likely that Palm will add more content providers.
The Palm comes packed with all of the smartphone apps that you would normally expect including a Webkit-based browser that performed very well in the short time that we were able to play with it. Palm promises to have an over-the-air App Catalog that allows users to use the webOS SDK (Mojo) to distribute their software. All of the programming is done in JavaScript, CSS and XML, which leaves coding for the Pre open to just about anyone who can code websites. Mojo allows developers access to all of the existing software layers including notifications and dialogs.
The Palm Pre’s accessories help to make the device, which is why Palm is leaving nothing to chance with third parties. The major peripheral Palm is offering is the Touchstone, a sleek inductive charger than will recharge your handset wirelessly. The Touchstone resembles a tube that is sliced at an angle with imbedded magnets that will grip the Pre yet leave it ready to easily be picked up if you need to. The Touchstone is said to be sold separately, but there is still no word as to what the pricing will be.
While the Pre’s pricing has not been revealed, there are several rumors flying around ranging from $149 to $399 depending on the contract agreement. Generally people are expecting that Palm will set it to be comparatively priced with the iPhone 3G 8GB version. That would stick the pricing just under $199 coupled with a mandatory data plan due to its nature. Palm has suggested that the Pre will release sometime in the first half of 2009; we suspect it will be in early June.
There is no doubt that the Pre will have a positive impact on Palm’s future, but the potential for the mobile device market in general is even more exciting. webOS promises a whole new level of integration between the could and local devices as well as multiple services that most users today are already subscribed to. Palm is bringing all of these services together in a very seamless, intelligent way. With the Pre, Palm just may make it through the next decade.
[Via SlashGear]
