A big theme of this year’s Hot 100 is time-worn brands redeeming themselves: Toshiba phones and Sony Walkmans in the top 10 is surprising enough but… a Palm phone? A hot product from a company that, like Vanilla Ice, was big in the 90s?
Believe it. Palm has taken the best aspects of the iPhone and BlackBerry Pearl, thrown away the things that users don’t like about those handsets and produced this year’s hottest gadget. Even more than Nokia’s N97, it’s the first true “iPhone killer”.
Its capacitive, 3.1-inch, 320×480 touchscreen matches Apple’s device for size and resolution and has a strikingly neat menu system with the lower half of the screen used as a context-sensitive “gesture area” for cycling through apps and the like.
Unlike the iPhone, it doesn’t force you to type on the touchscreen – there’s a slide-out QWERTY keyboard. Despite that, the Pre is still only 1.7cm deep and weighs just 135g.
The Pre has push email, GPS and an accelerometer. However, it then trumps the iPhone with both ambient light and proximity sensors and a three-meg camera with LED fl ash. It’s got HSDPA, Wi-Fi (G) and Bluetooth, but unlike the iPhone, the Bluetooth is A2DP and you can use it as a wireless modem for your laptop.
The file compatibility list is endless and includes essentials such as MP3, AAC, H.264 and JPEG. Add a 3.5mm headphone jack and you’ve got a very healthy spec list. The only downer is the lacklustre eight gigs of storage, with no card slot to expand it.
Remarkably though, the spec is only the beginning of the story. Palm has developed a bespoke operating system, webOS, for the Pre that not only makes for a gorgeously slick menu system but allows other applications, such as instant messaging clients, to be built into the home screen. It can also aggregate content from various calendars, contacts and even social networking sites, organising them in one place on the phone. Palm also plans to release a software development kit for anyone who wants it, hopefully ensuring strong application support.
Everything about the Pre has been thought about, worked on and buffed to a sheen. Even the Touchstone charging panel – an accessory that wirelessly docks the Pre and refuels by contact alone – is exciting. As far as we’re concerned, the Pre is the hottest, most mouth-watering piece of gadgetry on the planet today.
Its UK launch can’t come soon enough.