Palm Pre : iPhone Killer ?

Perhaps the first real iPhone killer, the Palm Pre is being talked about as the hottest product of CES. Its small, light, has an intuitive touch screen, but best of all it’s got a neatly tucked in sliding full QWERTY keyboard! The lack of a keyboard is the most common complaint of iPhone critics.

The phone comes with a 3.1 inch multitouch display with a resolution of 320 x 480. It runs on Palm’s new webOS, which from a usability standpoint appears to be top-notch. It’s not at all sluggish and seamlessly floats from one app (or ‘card’ as they call it) to another. Still it remains somewhat of a mystery as reportedly the palm representatives were quite cagey about handing over the phone to people for too long. Understandable, since the phone is Palm’s ticket for a big comeback, after their sales plummeted drastically over the years.

Overall the phone looks pretty good and the slight bend the keyboard offers will definitely help in its basic function — talking. Another area where it scores over the iPhone is the camera. It’s got a 3 megapixel camera with LED flash. The touch screen has its own motion--specific commands. For instance to close an application just flick it upwards. What about independent aps? As of now there aren’t any but the webOS allows development in JavaScript, HTML and CSS. Other tidbits include incredible web integration with services such as Facebook and Microsoft exchange.

It follows a unique form of collecting info like mail, messages, chats, around a ‘person’ than a service. Currently the Pre is not available in GSM version but Palm is expected to announce a GSM/UMTS model for Europe and Asia in mid-February. We’re certainly eagerly awaiting it.