Palm Pre

    Official Site: www.Palm.com
    Company: Palm, Inc.

Specs: 802.11b/g; GPS; 320x480; HVGA; QWERTY; IM, SMS, and MMS; 4.76 oz; Accelerom
Palm has possibly saved the company by introducing its best phone ever to the crowds at CES 2009. The Palm Pre is a slider that has a 3.1-inch LCD touchscreen, a brand-spanking-new operating system (OS) and a curvaceous body you won't be able to keep your hands off of.
The Palm Pre hits shelves this Saturday and while it fails in many aspects compared to the iPhone (the App Catalog is incomplete, auto correct is anorexic, battery life is lackluster, and it's full of bugs), it gives Apple something to think about with its Push Gmail technology. This means that e-mail goes directly to your phone as opposed to you having to tell your Pre to fetch it.

For a company that was so hot during the Palmtop craze, Palm stumbled its way into the smartphone market, to be sure. However, the company is making up for lost time with a device and an OS that are both beautiful and perfectly matched. On the physical side, there's a 3.1-inch multitouch touchscreen with a gestures area that lets you interact with content with the flick of a finger, à la iPhone. The slide-out keypad offers able thumbers a good, tactile alternative to onscreen typing. The features list includes all the usual suspects, like Wi-Fi, GPS and 3G networking, as well as a 3.5-mm headphone jack and stereo Bluetooth, a 3MP camera and 8GB of storage space, as well as a USB port.
But really, the hottest part of the new phone is the OS. Putting a legacy OS into such a pretty case would be like bolting a Yugo engine into an Audi. With WebOS, Palm is slipping into something a little more comfortable. Gestures lets you easily flip your way through contacts and open apps (as well as shuffling through them like a deck of cards). Also, Palm Pre’s WebOS seamlessly merges IM and texting into one window, which is a nice touch in today's chat-heavy world. At the bottom of the screen there’s a dynamic notification dashboard that brings up alerts and new IMs as they arrive; it also lists missed calls and running media. Essentially, WebOS on Palm Pre is a robust and very polished OS.

The Palm Pre is definitely cool. It's the right mix of features and eye candy to give the iPhone and Android guys a run for their money. The USB port opens up storage options for those who find the onboard 8GB a little anemic, and the stereo Bluetooth eliminates the need for headphone wires. Oh, and the integrated keypad is a real boon for anyone who hates typing on a screen. For a handset that has as yet to be priced and will be available exclusively from Sprint, it's not clear if this will be an iPhone killer or not. Likely, it won't be, but it might just carve out a sizable niche for Palm -- and save the company to boot.