These days when talking about different kinds of cellphones one cannot ignore the ever popular iPhone from Apple. It revolutionized cell phones at the time and we can see the waves of influence in the current generations of phones trying to live up to the iPhone. HTC, Samsung and even RIM have been trying to compete with the iPhone, but it seems they cannot make a product that can beat it. In comes the Pre.
Palm is known for their Personal Digital Assistants on the market and is a big player in the mobile devices market. It’s no surprise they would crack a shot at touchscreens, but everyone was blown away by the results. Launched at CES, the Palm Pre is a touchscreen mobile media device running an original operating system named WebOS, which is based off of Linux. Winner of 3 CNET Best of CES awards, the Palm Pre is a contender that should be taken seriously.
The Pre is similar to the iPhone in size and width, however has many differences. The phone has a keyboard which slides out of the bottom of the phone and the phone itself has a curve to its body. The Pre also surprised people with a new add-on called the Touchestone, which is an inductive charger for the phone. You put the phone ontop of the stones surface and it starts to charge.
The software is quite different from the iPhone, with Palms own webOS, but there are a number of nifty features. Generally, the interface is very well made, with no lag or stutter when navigating the phone. The Pre has uses thumbswipes and gestures to navigate to some parts of the phone. It also features true multitasking, where unlike the iPhone you can switch to different apps and come back to them. The Pre also features something called Synergy, which is basically a contact management system. Pre takes your information from different websites, like Facebook or Twitter, and organizes it for each contact.
The price has not yet been released, but it is ranging in the $150 – $400 area and is supposed to release in the first half of 2009. There have been some controversies however from the Pres biggest competitor; Apple.
When the iPhone released Steve Jobs introduced the multitouch with a slide that said, “Patented!”. The Pre is said to have similar gesture and multitouch commands to the iPhone. Tim Cook released a comment saying,
“if others rip off our intellectual property, we will go after them” which many believed to be directed to Palms new phone. Apple’s patents on multitouch and other properties of the iPhone are long and full of jargon, but Engadget did a great job of looking at all the different aspects of this battle. You can view it here: Apple vs. Pre.
The Palm Pre is gearing up to be a great phone that incorporates many aspects that consumers want, along with the latest hardware and great software. Don’t take my word on it though, there is much more to read about the Pre and it’s marvelous features on the internet. Engadget has a nice article summing up all the features of the Pre here.
It’s hard to describe how a phone looks software wise, but Palm has recently released a video called, Meet Pre showing some of the features it has.
