Palm is cooking something hot for the public this first half with their newest addition to the realm of telecommunication. The Palm Pre smart phone, a new breed of Palm devices running with WebOS, is expected to hit the market with massive sales the moment it is made available to the public by early first half this year.
Let’s take a glimpse of this buddy and discover its distinct properties before it makes its way to the stores. After carefully evaluating both the hardware and software components of the smart phone, we can conclude that this is going to be the next sought-after gadget after the iPhone.
Palm Pre is running with the Linux based WebOS operating system developed by Palm for its series of smart phones with touch screen capabilities. The operating system alone makes the phone robust, fitted with programs that merge applications and functionalities within the device, and not to mention its portability to run web based applications implementing different web technologies. We’ll get into the stuffs working behind the scene later in this review.
This curved edge phone weighs 4.8 ounces and measures 59.5mm in width, 100.5mm in height and 16.95mm thick. Palm Pre houses features that every mobile phone user wants- entertainment center, GPS, basic messaging/call, Internet capabilities, digital camera, decent storage space, and multi tasking. Unlike other touch sensitive devices, Pre has multi touch functionality that senses multiple spots with in the screen and the gesture area.
The multi touch LCD screen measures 3.1” with a 320 X 480 resolution more than enough to produce crisp images through a mobile phone. A 3mega pixel camera with LED flash is perfectly suited at the back providing users with advanced digital photography from their phone. On the upper portion of the phone is a 3.5mm headphone jack compatible to most portable headphones.
And now the controversial multi touch gesture area which is claimed to be patented by Apple. Sending commands to the unit is made convenient and more, it can be done single handedly through the gesture area which is fully multi touched based similar to that of iPhone. Many feared that this multi touch gesture area may cause Palm to lose on Pre if Apple will take legal actions with regard to its patent.
So what’s powering this technology warehouse? Well, Pre is just driven by Texas Instruments’ OMAP 3430 processor, the first smart phone to endure the speed and power of the processor’s computing capabilities. It is also packed with an 8GB flash storage, about 8% or .6GB of the entire storage space is used for the phone’s built-in software applications including the OS and 7.4GB available for the user’s data, a decent storage space to fill you an entertainment room.
A built-in accelerometer automatically shifts image views from portrait to landscape and vice versa. They say that Pre has a lot in common with Apple’s iPhone, but in reality, Pre has more advance features than the iPhone. Use Pre as a modem for your laptop through a Bluetooth connection or connect to the Internet directly from your phone from a WiFi spot. Connecting the unit to your computer is possible through a MicroUSB 2.0 connector.
Like conventional phones, Palm has allocated Pre a space for a physical keyboard for input. Revealing the hidden QWERTY keyboard only takes a slight vertical slide of the phone. Other controls include a side volume controller and a top and bottom buttons used for various functionalities.
Ever heard of wireless charging? Well, Pre has such capability through the Palm’s very own Touchstone Wireless charging dock making an innovation with battery recharging. However, the Touchtone charging dock is sold separately from the unit.
On the software side, WebOS has a lot to brag. First, applications are organized through the use of “cards” or panel entries that represent the applications itself. A simple touch on the card can launch the whole application and allow users to take control over it. With this implemented, the phone can perform multiple tasks at a given time without compromising other functions or interrupting other applications. Composing emails, viewing images, or choosing which song to play can be done one at a time, but can be processed by the phone as ones.
There is more to organizing applications through Pre. To keep users in control of their electronic activities and accounts, Synergy is also embedded with the operating system. It integrates multiple electronic communication mediums and contact information like emails, social networking applications, instant messenger and calendars. The application organizes and links all contact information and presents a user with a single display consisting previously made conversations.
A Universal Search menu is also an attraction to WebOS as part of its main function. This allows a user to search the content of the phone from contact information down to text messages. For instances where the content you are trying to locate is not available through your mobile phone. Pre will help you fetch that information through the Internet with few additions to your search options. Online information is feed through a multi touch browser that supports the gesture area. Now searching from your mobile phone is made easy.
Despite all its alluring features, Pre has some limitations with its design and capabilities. Among these things include video recording. This feature will not be present with Pre, but will hopefully be fitted on its future releases using WebOS. Also, since WebOS runs on a different environment and a totally different platform, applications designed for other Palm devices may not be compatible with Pre.
Another important factor missing with Pre is the lack of a touch screen keyboard. Users may expect to do all the typing through its built-in QWERTY keyboard. In addition, any opt to increase the storage capacity of the phone may seem impossible. Users will have to stick with the built-in storage capacity for this new breed.
Currently, the phone will be bearing Sprint logo as its exclusive network carrier. However, the manufacturer is positive to develop later versions of WebOS based smart phones available for different networks including offshore. The only question left for us is, “Will Pre empowers iPhone and other smart phones?” This can be answered the moment the ball starts rolling for its dominion.
