CES Highlights: Palm Pre

Without a doubt, the biggest news story out of CES was the announcement of the Palm Pre and Palm's new operating system, webOS. The glossy phone is Palm's answer to the iPhone. It features a slider form factor along with a 3.1" LCD with a 320x480 resolution. It also has a QWERTY keyboard and a 3-megapixel camera with an LED flash and autofocus. The phone will be a Sprint exclusive before makes its way to the GSM market (Palm wouldn't comment where it would land after Sprint.) It's expected to come out 6 months from now.


I'm honestly not impressed by the hardware. It's nothing revolutionary. It's just another slider phone with a touch screen and built-in keyboard. Sure, it has an 3.5mm jack, but there's no way to expand the unit's 8GB storage and the keyboard looks a little tight. As much as I disliked the BlackBerry Storm, at least it brought a few new features to the table. The Palm Pre, like I said, is just another phone.

What did impress me was the Pre's new OS. This is what I think will make (or break) the Pre. Palm has essentially created a new OS for the Pre. It's like the iPhone on steroids. You navigate through the OS using the Pre's "gesture area," a small area that lets you pinch, zoom, and expand windows to your heart's content. The Pre's built-in accelerometer didn't lag once. It was very smooth and like the iPhone's OS, it displays inertia, so when you slide to a new page or window, items on the screen glide or bounce around. Animations are smooth rather than rigid.

The cool thing about webOS is the way it organizes information. You can perform a search on the phone and if the word doesn't show up, a new Google page will come up asking you if you want to search the Web for that term. Similarly impressive is the way the phone can display your contacts. For example, a typical address book entry will contain updates you that contact's Facebook page, AIM messages, Google messages, and more. It makes it easier for you to be abreast of that person's information.

Palm didn't utter a word on the Pre's price. Rumor has it the price could range from as little as $149 to $399. Price is anyone's guess. But one thing is for sure, this new mobile OS will put the pressure on Android, the iPhone, and the BlackBerry. Stay tuned for an updated smartphone comparo as more information comes out.