BARCELONA, Spain - Palm is showcasing the Pre at the Mobile World Congress. The company is displaying both the UMTS version, and the CDMA one, but access is still restricted for journalists wishing to handle it.
During the continuous presentations, spokespeople were not allowed to leave the devices unattended, or let anyone else besides them to touch them. The presentations were in-depth and clear of what one could expect from such a phone, and the corporate attendees were quite fascinated by the software and especially the keyboard.
The Palm Pre is a high-end device that sits on a business-looking design. It has a 3.1" multi-touch enabled display, and contains a QWERTY slide-out keyboard. The display has HVGA resolution (320x480 pixels).
Palm says that the Pre is engineered to feel natural in the hand and comfortably small in the pocket and that it has a smooth, rounded ergonomic design. It has a gesture area, which enables simple, intuitive gestures for navigation; a ringer switch, which easily silences the device with one touch; and a proximity sensor, which automatically disables the touchscreen and turns off the display whenever you put the phone up to your ear.
The phone also has A-GPS, Wi-Fi, a desktop-class web browser which runs on WebKit, Bluetooth, 8GB of internal memory with no further expansion option, and a 3.5mm jack for multimedia purposes.
The Pre has no on-screen keyboard, it relies on the hardware keyboard only. At the moment, there is no handwriting recognition either.
Its 3 megapixel camera contains autofocus, a LED flash, and a mirror.
The materials used are obviously glossy, which leaves numerous fingerprints on the phone. The spokesperson had to constantly wipe them before the press captured images. The look and feel of it were deemed "just right" by many who experienced the presentation and had a very short hands-on time with the phone. We have to agree with this affirmation, and add that the keys, even being small, felt better to type with than with the Nokia E71.
A software feature of the brand new Palm WebOS allows one to starting searching the web right away from the home screen, just after clicking on the center button.
The gesture pad is similar to that of the HTC Touch Diamond. In this case, it can be used for navigation functions.
The silence switch is used to silence the phone in one flick, rather than turning the device over, like in most phones which use the accelerometer (motion sensor). The Pre too has a motion sensor, which is mostly used for regulating the screen orientation.
User interface is a big challenge in this operating system. The current war in the smartphone industry dictates the winner by whoever has the most friendy and intuitive user interface. The Pre has it divided in "cards", and a quick launch menu, which gives one the feeling that everything is simply floating on the display.
Continuing with the interface, the screen is clean on home screen, and every change in screen brings up a slick transition. Motion detection also counts with gestures such as flicking and pinching. These latter movements are possible thanks to the Pre's capacitive multi-touch display, one that has caused a verbal indirect fight between Palm and Apple, who holds the patents to this technology.
Small, but important features such as reminders have been given the right attention. These are non-intrusive and have clean icons.
The Touch Dome was also shown. It charges the Pre though inductive charging. A special cover is required for this, and is not included in the packaging.
The Palm Pre is rumoured to release to market either this month or the next. The confirmed market date range is the first half of 2009.
Have you checked the Palm Pre Blog? Look at this post about the Palm Pre on the Jimmy Fallon Show, and this with the release video of the Palm Pre.
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