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Palm Pre Preview

When Palm launched its Pre last week at CES, we were both blown away and pretty overwhelmed. Besides issuing new hardware, the company also demoed a completely original operating system called webOS which incorporates some pretty heady ideas about what a mobile phone can do. Now that we've had a little time to step back, we're taking a more methodic look at the device and its software, and hoping to answer some of those nagging questions you've been asking. Read on for a look at everything we know about the phone right now.

The Palm Pre is a lot smaller than I initially thought it would be. A good size comparison would be an iPod classic with a big hard drive. In terms of thickness, it's definitely not as thin as the iPhone, or even the bold, but it's an acceptable size considering it's a slider.

The Pre's Web OS UI and and UX really looks great. The Card system is really a great way to keep your information in front of you and know what you're working on. When you launch an app, you can drag it onto your phone desktop to create a new card, then when you're finished with a card for a specific app, closing it is as simple as flicking the card upwards.

The input technology that doesn't involve the screen is also top notch. Palm created the gesture bar, which is the black surface under the screen, because they found it was too hard to control a touchscreen phone with one hand, especially when trying to reach the upper part of the screen. The Gesture Bar streamlines some of the navigation so you can use the phone on the go.

There's also an accelrometer that works with apps like the web browser and photo viewer, which automatically rotates the screen depending on its orientation. It's the same as what's on many other phones, but it's worth noting that the accelerometer works quite well.

If you're working in a specific app, you can drag your finger up from the Gesture Bar to the screen, hold it for a second, and the wave dock will appear, making it easy to quick launch another app. The trackball, which feels similar to that of the G1 and Blackberry phones, provides another quick way to get around the Web OS interface.

There's also the keyboard. It pretty much looks and feels the same as previous Palm keyboards of late, which isn't spectacular, but it works well enough. When asked why they opted to go with the vertically oriented slide out keyboard, Palm had two main reasons—they didn't see much less of a difference in effectiveness when compared to a horizontal slider, and found that more people messaged holding the phone vertically. Second, they said there aren't really any other smartphones with a vertical QWERTY slider, so it makes the phone more recognizable.

The QWERTY keyboard slides out from underneath the screen in a portrait arrangement, so users of the Centro and older Treos will feel right at home (while Tilt, Fuze, Mogul, Touch Pro, and other HTC users might have a harder time making the switch). The action of the slider didn't seem to snap into place the way we were hoping -- it had to be nudged -- but Palm assured us that this wasn't the final hardware, and that would change. Like the Centro, the keypad uses Palm's "jelly" keys, which aren't nearly as clicky as something like the Bold, but protrude more than those on the G1's keyboard and felt decent enough to tap out emails on.

While we didn't see the final, final version of the hardware, Palm has gone to great lengths to bring its industrial design up to date, and they've landed a winner. The casing of the phone is made from sleek, glossy plastic, and the 3.1-inch touchscreen is flush with the face of the device, just like the iPhone or Touch Diamond. The phone has a bit of a curve to its body both in the back and around the sides, but would easily slip into a pocket. When you slide out the QWERTY keyboard, it has an almost banana-like shape to it, curving slightly to meet the contours of your hand and face. As you might expect, it feels great in the hand -- it's slightly smaller than an iPhone when closed, slightly larger when open, and roughly the same width.

While the hardware is definitely high quality, I'm not entirely blown away by the design. It looks really nice, and original, but it's a little too cutesy in shape and kind of reminds me of an oversized pebble. A slightly larger screen could have definitely been put to good use, and I really don't like the black space on the side's of the screen.

The browser is also a far cry from Blazer that was on the Treo's Garnet OS. The new browser is built on top of Webkit, just like the Android and iPhone browsers, and renders full pages in under 10 seconds. The zoom and drag/pan functionality is very much like the other browsers, both in operation and feel. There was no glitchiness and the browser was extremely responsive.

On the bottom half of the phone below the screen is a black "gesture area" used for finger and thumb swipes. In the center of that space is a small metallic ball, which looks like a movable trackball, but is actually just a button. It's used to call up one of the most important parts of the UI, the "cards," but not much else. The black space is dotted with soft LED lights that glow when you swipe your finger across it -- a nice touch.

It's another way the internet has subtly worked its way into the phone without being constricted to a specific app or browser.

The design influence of the iPhone OS is definitely apparent in Web OS. The App dock that sits at the bottom of the home screen is definitely a page out of the iPhones playbook, and for good reason—it works well. The design of the menus such as the contacts list take that same simple approach of not showing more than you absolutely see on any one page, something the iPhone perfected.

The screen itself is a sensitive capacitive touchscreen, which is as responsive (if not more) than the iPhone's display. The resolution is the same as Apple's device (480 x 320), though due to its smaller size, it has slightly higher pixel density. Colors looked bright and clear, and overall the screen was sharp and easy to read. The high gloss may cause issues in the sun, but most modern touchscreen phones seem to deal with the problem, and we expect no less from this one.

The Apps and SDK for Web OS i think will be promising. Palm will make the SDK available to anyone to use, but there will be an App Store which will be accessible on the phone only and an approval process for apps. Palm says there are always exceptions, but they will not play the role of Big Brother so much when it comes to apps. What they are mostly concerned with are the security and stability of the apps. Making sure there aren't apps that crash or provide holes for their phones to be hacked. They also say they will work close with select partners on app and give them access to deeper areas of the OS that are not available in the SDK.

A MicroUSB port lets your charge the phone or work with files for the device, though Palm is also somewhat psyched on its Touchstone, a inductive charger that lets you just place the phone atop it for power (it even snaps into place thanks to a few well-placed magnets). The Touchstone seems like it will be sold separately, but it's the first time we've seen a major phone-maker offer something like this... and it's pretty damn cool.

The phone will be released in at least two versions to start. The first, a Sprint exclusive, sports EV-DO Rev. A and 802.11b/g, as well as Bluetooth 2.1 with EDR and A2DP; the second model will get 3G GSM in place of EV-DO for sale in other parts of the world. Like the iPhone, it also touts a light sensor, proximity sensor, and accelerometer. One critical thing to note for business users and frequent flyers: the Sprint version of the phone -- likely the first to be released -- will not be a global phone, meaning it can't be used on GSM networks overseas.