CES: Palm Pre targets iPhone and BlackBerry smartphones

by Stevie Smith - Jan 9 2009, 11:55

With industry ‘newb’ Apple Inc. laying down a successful template of design and function when it comes to cutting-edge smartphones, the new Palm Pre arrives as the latest touch-screen device that appears ready to ape the iPhone.

Officially granted its moment in the spotlight at this week’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, the Palm Pre is being angled as a realistic platform rival to leading smartphone offerings from both Apple (iPhone) and Research In Motion (BlackBerry). So what does the Pre bring to the mobile party?

Built on Palm’s long-awaited webOS operating system, the Pre comes equipped with a generous 3.1-inch multi-touch display screen (320x480), a full slide-out QWERTY keyboard, 8GBs of onboard data storage, and online cloud computing.

Other contributing elements packed into the Pre include a gesture-based user interface, a 3.0 mega pixel camera, an onboard accelerometer, built-in GPS capabilities, integrated Web browser, Bluetooth 2.1+EDR, A2DP wireless stereo, and connectivity through both Wi-Fi and HSDPA.

Clearly confident of the Pre’s market chances, Palm CEO Ed Corrigan enthused during a CES presentation that the versatile handset “will redefine how people use smartphones.”

The proprietary webOS platform has been in development at Palm for years and is compatible with the likes of CSS, xHTML and JavaScript, which the California-based gadget company claims will see the OS shattering “traditional barriers to mobile application development.”

The Palm Pre is expected to launch on U.S. network Sprint before the close of Q2, 2009. Palm has not yet offered up any pricing details.

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