Palm is back! Palm launched its Pre as its latest entry to the smartphone market. The renowned PDA maker has finally come up with something to follow up its successful Treo series. More surprisingly, the company also created a completely original operating system called webOS. Finally, we just might have a worthy challenger to Apple’s iPhone.
The hardware

While the, final version of the hardware is yet to be released, Palm has gone to great lengths to bring its industrial design up to date, and they’ve landed a winner. The phone has a bit of a curve to its body both in the back and around the sides,. It’s slightly smaller than an iPhone when closed, slightly larger when open, and roughly the same width.Unlike the iPhone, Pre uses a slide-down QWERTY keyboard from underneath the screen in a portrait arrangement, Along the left side of the phone are volume buttons, and up top there’s a standard 3.5mm headphone jack and ringer on / off switch.A MicroUSB port lets your charge the phone or work with files for the device, though Palm is also excited over its Touchstone, an inductive charger that lets you just place the phone atop it for power.
Around back there’s a 3 megapixel camera with an LED flash which reps say can snap continuously without saving (a nice touch), and the back (as well as the battery) is removable. The first models may come with Bluetooth 2.1, Rev. A and 802.11b/g Evolution Data-Optimized ( EV-DO) or 3G GSM.

The software
Palm is implementing numerous programs in its webOS, but as far as facts are concerned, the operating system it’s developed is based on Linux.The user interface is impressive and at par with iPhone’s interface and HTC’s TouchFlo 3D. However, unlike the others, webOS provides true multitasking, allowing the user to switch between active apps. You don’t have to close and reopen, just shuffle through your programs. If you switch to another app, the UI scales back the program you’re in down to that deck of “cards,” then zooms up the new selection. All of the applications for the phone will be coded in standard CSS, XML, and JavaScript, which can be a walk in the park for its developers.

The release of the phone is slated for the “first half of 2009.
Palm has stated that it will make a concentrated effort to engage the community and bring the best of app development.

The Verdict

A lot we don’t know yet about the Pre, and with a device this new, you can never truly understand what the experience will be like until you put it through the test of an average day’s work. That said, Palm has made enormous strides with webOS and the Pre, both putting the brand back on the map. For now,only one thing is for certain: The smartphone game just got a whole lot more interesting.