Gadgets and Tech Reviews

Thursday, January 22, 2009

Palm debuts Palm Pre, WebOS platform

During the recently concluded CES in Las Vega, Palm finally unveiled their latest smartphone, the Palm Pre.

Palm Pre with WebOS

Taking a new approach in designing this smartphone, the Palm Pre integrates a slide-out QWERTY keypad to complement its 3.1-inch touchscreen display which is not usually common in Palm devices. It likewise features a 3-megapixel camera with flash, HSDPA connectivity, Bluetooth, GPS, WiFi, Bluetooth 2.1 with A2DP and EDR, proximity and light sensor, accelerometer, 8GB internal memory, and runs on their latest mobile operating system, the WebOS.

Palm Pre

Palm’s new OS is a huge improvement in terms of visual appeal when compared to their earlier applications, but the jury is still out as to how successful as a platform it will be especially when compared to the iPhone and Android. The WebOS makes use of CSS, XHTML and JavaScript making it compatible with a wide variety of applications, and will likewise be able to connect directly to an app store that Palm will be launching soon dubbed as the App Catalog.

Sadly though, only US residents will get a chance to own one during the early part of this year. The Palm Pre will become available sometime during the first half of 2009 exclusively on Sprint. A Palm Pre GSM version for other market is expected to be released once it makes its debut in the US. Hopefully, that will happen sooner than later because the last thing Palm needs is to follow in the footsteps of the XPERIA X1 and lose whatever interest and fan base it has gained during its announcement due to a delayed release.

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