Palm debuts Palm Pre, WebOS platform

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

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’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.

Smartphone Showdown: 3 QWERTYs and a Touchscreen

As a response to one of my readers’ request, I'm pitting the latest smartphones in the market against each other to see which one really stands out in this elite group. Actually, I'm also quite curious ourselves to find out which is the best among the bunch as each one has a unique feature to offer that the others don’t have.

As you can see in the table, there isn’t one phone that clearly dominated in all the categories. Take for example the Nokia E71. It does win in the camera, size and weight divisions, but it has the smallest display in the group with the best one goint to the 3G iPhone. While the iPhone may also be considered a winner in terms of internal memory, all the others support memory expansion which makes their total memory flexible although I doubt there’s an SD card available now that’ll match the iPhone’s 16GB capacity. On the user interface side, QWERTY is still the most efficient way of entering long messages and composing e-mail, which makes the iPhone the blacksheep of the group albeit its highly advanced touchscreen. However, the Palm Treo Pro manages to incorporate both a touch screen interface and a QWERTY keypad into its design offering users a taste of both worlds.

As far as the OS is concerned, that is a matter of preference. While the Mac OS X mobile version is relatively new in the market, it is fast gaining popularity and many developers are now releasing apps for the iPhone. Both Windows Mobile and S60 have been around for sometime now and they have their own respective community of developers. The Blackberry, on the other hand, also has its share of software developers though they’re quite limited and not so visible as opposed to the others. Nonetheless, all of their respective mobile OS are equally capable and can get the job done at hand. It all boils down to how much you would like to expand its capabilities through 3rd party applications and additional software.

Clearly, there’s no one way to call this competition and it will all rely on what you need. If it’s a simple internet mobile device, the 3G iPhone is what we would recommend simply because the mobile Safari is unmatched in terms of performance. If it’s a serious business phone you’re after, you can’t go wrong with the Blackberry Bold, but considering its limited availability worldwide, I’d say its better to get the Nokia E71 or Palm Treo Pro instead though the latter is yet to be released. If you want an all-around performing device, the Nokia E71 gets my vote. However, if availability is a major concern, you’ll narrow down the playing field to the iPhone and the Nokia E71 as both the BlackBerry Bold and Palm Treo Pro are not yet out in the local Philippine market.

But hey, this is just my opinion, how about you guys; which one’s the best smartphone among the group for you?

Palm Treo Pro: Beautiful Inside and Out

Yeah, today’s the big launch for the 3G iPhone locally, but let’s veer away from all the Apple festivities for a moment and look at what Palm has in store for use.

The Palm Treo Pro is the latest smartphone from Palm; and just by looking at it, one can see that the Treo is back with a vengeance. It sports a new plush look and is now thinner, and smaller than its predecessor without cutting back on functionality. It’s got 3.5G connectivity, a 2-megapixel camera, Wi-Fi, a touch screen display, GPS, a very reliable 1500 mAh battery, and runs on Windows Mobile 6.1.

Gizmodo is lucky enough to get one for a hands-on review and according to them; it is definitely a step up from its ancestors. They keypad is similar to the Centro, but a bit bigger. The display is bright and crisp, while 3G internet and call quality is superb. Best of all, Palm has decided to offer this baby minus a carrier (read: unlocked) unlike the iPhone.

Availability and price, unfortunately, isn’t available yet; but we are certainly keeping our eyes peeled on this one.