A Worthy iPhone Opponent – the Palm Pre
Palm Inc. launched its Palm Pre multimedia smartphone in June this year using a new Linux-based operating system called WebOS. Having received positive critical reviews and winning some awards, the new mobile phone has cutting edge features that make it a versatile all-in-one package as a multimedia smartphone. It’s at once an imaging phone, a multimedia player, a GPS navigator and an Internet client with local WiFi connectivity.
Outstanding Features
The outstanding QWERTY touchscreen handset that is the Palm Pre would not win awards if not for the following remarkable features that set it apart from typical touchscreen smartphones out there.
• The Palm Pre’s uses a 600 MHz Texas Instruments OMAP 3430 (ARM Cortex A8 + PowerVR SGX) CPU engine that’s underclocked to 500 MHz.
• The Pre sports a striking 3.1-inch capacitive touchscreen with 24-bit color depth on a HVGA (half-size VGA) resolution. No need for a stylus like the iPhone as the screen can accommodate finger touches to navigate through the handset functions. There’s gesture area below the display with LED underlighting for additional commands using your finger.
• It’s a QWERTY slider as well that provides the ease of using the keyboard for testing and emailing. Unlike other touchscreen, the pre does not have virtual keyboards on the screen.
• The handset features three input sensors for responding to its surroundings. There’s an accelerometer that automatically shifts from landscape to portrait as the handset is tilted accordingly. There is an ambient light sensor for automatically adjusting the display’s brightness. And there’s a proximity sensor that disregards touchscreen inputs when the handset is held to your face in a call.
• There’s an integrated 3.2 megapixel camera with LED flash.
• There’s a super-generous 8 GB of internal memory but nothing else with which to expand it. There could be a new version to be released soon with a microSD slot.
• The Pre is among the first smartphones to have wireless charging that makes use of electromagnetic induction from a wireless charging block called a Touchstone Charger. Just put the handset on top of it and it gets charged. You can still use a microUSB cable for charging though.
• There’s Bluetooth 2.1 +EDR for fast wireless data connectivity and with A2DP support for wireless stereo headsets.
• Standard 3.5mm headphone jack is supported.
• A-GPS is provided with turn-by-turn navigation support.
An iPhone-like Challenge
It looks like the iPhone has a serious contender in the Palm Pre. Not that Palm wants to, but it looks like the Palm Pre has the looks on its user interface that’s undoubtedly inspired by the iPhone. It uses the Web OS platform that’s unique to Palm but with a home screen that looks like a page from iPhone. It even has a menu icon that take the same elegant approach of showing just what you need which is what iPhone does. The obvious conclusion points to an effort to take some iPhone market for its own. With a few downsides on the Palm Pre, we think that iPhone now faces a real challenge from it.
