palm-pre-1palm-pre-3

This week, my 1st generation iPhone began to really freak out. This got me realizing that the phone I bought on the second day of availability in 2007 was getting old, and two years was fast approaching. It’s time to begin the phone search for my next device. After having an iPhone, my expectations are understandably high, and I rarely see a phone worth looking at… until I saw the Palm Pre video at CES. Developed by some of the same people who were once at Apple, developing the iPhone, it seems to be the only phone on the market that will be able to truly have a chance to measure up to the iPhone.

The Palm Pre will offer more connectivity to your information, which is scattered across programs and the internet, than any phone on the market. Its ‘contacts’ will list automatically grab avatars, phone #s and addresses from Facebook, email address from Gmail and put them into the same contact entry along with the information you enter. Conversations are fluid, automatically moving from text to email to IM as your friends move. The phone has optional wireless charging, you read that right. These features scratch the surface… more info/photos after the jump.

The Pre’s operating system, called webOS, is brand new and exclusive to Palm. It’s an alternative to the iPhone interface, without being Microsoft. It is incredibly elegant, and allows the user to transition from activity to activity much easier than the iPhone. Instead of operating like a filing cabinet, open something, close it, open something else… webOS operates like a deck of cards, allowing you to slide from program to program without losing your place.

What stops me from committing? Well, the phone isn’t out yet, it should be before the end of June. Touchscreen devices are something you have to touch to know if it can work for you. I’m used to my iPhone touchscreen and trying the Blackberry Storm just didn’t feel right, this may not either. The physical keys can be love/hate, just like the virtual iPhone keys. It begins as a Sprint exclusive (bad move). Applications will not be as plentiful as they are with Apple.

Either way, this phone will give iPhone buyers a reason to think twice, even if the soon to be released 3rd generation iPhone will be super-duper awesome. Visit Palm’s Pre site for TONS of information, photos and videos showing the elegant software and slick hardware.

palm-pre-2palm-pre-4palm-pre-5palm-pre-6palm-pre-7

Posted by

Ricky Salsberry is an interactive designer working in Chicago and the editor of The Donut Project. In his spare time he reads/rants about technology, watches hockey, wrecks his bike, and designs some more.