The New Palm Pre
17 Jan 2009
One of the highlights of the CES this year was the launch of the Palm Pre, a fantastic new smartphone from the pioneers of PDAs, Palm.
This is a smartphone that's going to give all comers a run for their money, including Apple's iPhone, RIM's Blackberry and Google Android-based phones.
The Pre has been designed with an eye to perk up the miserable sales figures of Palm products in recent times and the effort shows through clearly. It's similar enough to Apple's iPhone to make it a threat, but at the same time, different enough to retain an identity of its own.
For one, it's an angular slider, which conforms comfortably to your facial contours.
The QWERTY keyboard is nearly identical to those found in the Palm Treo devices, giving a brilliant tactile feel. Users will love this, for it makes it a breeze to send long e-mails and text messages, without having to keep jabbing the screen. This will make it a hit with both sexes.
Size-wise, too, Palm has got it spot on. The Pre measures 105mm x 59.6 mm x 16.9 mm, which is pretty comparable to the iPhone and much smaller than the earlier Treo. It weighs just 135 grams.
The Pre also features an accelerometer, which twists the screen no matter which angle it is held at.
The sophisticated gesture controls really take your breath away! One long swipe from top to bottom will bring up the main menu, a short swipe in the bottom menu will present a quick bar and a full swipe from right to left flicks through your open application windows, called to 'cards'.
Last, but not the least, open the back cover and you'll discover that the Palm Pre has a removable battery. So what, you might ask. Only an iPhone owner will know the importance of being able to insert a spare battery or change a faulty one at his own convenience. That's a feature right in the face of Apple.
