The New PALM PRE

The Buzz is all about the new OS !

To say Palm has struggled to keep up with the smartphone big boys is like saying the UK’s economy is going through a rough patch.

But the maker of the classic Pilot and Treo handsets is nothing if not a tryer, and the new Pre looks every inch a contender for the iPhone’s crown.

Shiny new OS

The curvy Pre isn’t just a shiny new piece of hardware – Palm has also come up with a flashy new OS, making it a real bundle of hurt for smartphone pretenders like the BlackBerry Storm and T-Mobile G1.

With a 3.1in touchscreen, 3G, GPS, 3MP camera, and slide-out QWERTY keyboard, it’s certainly got a strong feature arsenal. But where it’ll really live or die is on the quality and power of that new operating system.

Classic Palm DNA

As you’ll see from our hands-on video and report, early samples are running unfinished versions of the new WebOS, so we’ll refrain from giving a final verdict on the user experience. But it seems to have captured the simplicity of early Palms, and that’s got us excited.


The OS has all the eye candy that makes the iPhone such a joy to use, and it’s clever too. All your online calendars – whether they’re on Facebook, Google or Outlook – are pulled together in one place thanks to Palm’s Synergy tech, and the same convenience applies to messaging, letting you group together conversations with ease.

Multi-tasker

It’s built for multi-tasking too – we saw it running several applications simultaneously without breaking into sweat – and all apps can be minimized as cards on your desktop, like the Sony Ericsson Xperia X1’s tile system.

But it’s impossible to ignore the iPhone’s influence on the Pre – it has the same tilt sensors, multi-touch controls and full web browsing, though the 3.1in screen is much more cramped.

Keyboard concern
Unlike the iPhone, the Pre has a 3MP camera with flash, removable battery, copy-and-paste function and, of course, full QWERTY keyboard, which is easy to type on but perhaps a little small and cramped for extended use.

We’ll bring you our final verdict as soon as we get a full sample, but the Pre certainly looks like a real smartphone contender. See for yourself in our hands-on video and CES blog preview.