Palm Pre Takes on the iPhone, to Launch on Sprint

Palm today unveiled the Pre smartphone, a touch screen phone that it hopes will win back customers from rivals like Nokia and Apple.

The Pre has a 3.1-inch 24-bit color touch screen display for simple, intuitive gestures for navigation. It features a proximity sensor that disables the screen when users put the phone up to their ear. A light sensor dims the LCD if the ambient light is dark to reduce power usage, while an accelerometer automatically orients webpages and photos for landscape or portrait view.

A full QWERTY keyboard slides out for convenient text messaging. A built-in 3.0-megapixel camera with LED flash and extended depth of field snaps photos and video. Other features include EV-DO Rev. A high-speed Internet, 802.11 b/g Wi-Fi, GPS, Stereo Bluetooth and 8GB of built-in flash storage. It has a micro-USB plug, 3.5mm headphone jack and an innovative wireless charger.

Overhauling its mobile operating system, Palm also debuted the new Palm webOS, created under the watch of former Apple executive Jon Rubenstein, who helped create the iPod.

With webOS, multiple applications can be opened and run at the same time, so users can flip from one to another. The platform also introduces Palm Synergy, a feature that brings information from the many places to the Pre in one integrated view. Synergy also groups conversations with the same person in a chat-style view, even if it started in IM and replied with text messaging.

Palm has been staking its future on the launch of the new operating system and device, which it has been developing since 2007. The Pre will be exclusively offered by Sprint in the first half of 2009, and will be followed by a world-ready UMTS version for other regions. Sprint's pricing for the phone has not yet been determined.

- Palm Pre Specs

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Palm Pre Takes on the iPhone, to Launch on Sprint