Palm Pre Phone and Palm webOS Mobile Platform Announced for Sprint
Palm surprised CES 2009 by introducing the new Palm Pre phone and a new mobile platform called Palm webOS, which has been built from the ground up using industry-standard technologies including CSS, XHTML and JavaScript. The Palm Pre smartphone and its unique multi-touch features will arrive to take on Apple's iPhone in the first half of 2009, when it will be available exclusively from Sprint.
Palm webOS is a brand-new kind of platform, invented exclusively for mobile use. webOS recognizes that you want your people, calendars and information to move with you, wherever you are, wirelessly, as opposed to being bound to a personal computer. Palm webOS is the first mobile platform to automatically bring your information from the many places it resides – on your phone, at your work or on the web – into one simple, integrated view.
USA Today tech writer Ed Baig gets a Palm Pre phone demo from Palm CEO Ed Colligan in the video below.
Palm Pre smartphone features and specs include:
* High-speed connectivity (EVDO Rev. A or UMTS HSDPA)
* Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g(6)
* Integrated GPS(7)
* Large 3.1-inch touch screen with a vibrant 24-bit color 320x480 resolution HVGA display
* Gesture area, which enables simple, intuitive gestures for navigation
* Slide-out QWERTY keyboard
* Email, including Outlook EAS (for access to corporate Microsoft Exchange servers), as well as personal email support (POP3, IMAP)
* Robust messaging support (IM, SMS and MMS capabilities)
* High-performance, desktop-class web browser
* Great multimedia experience and performance (pictures, video playback, music), featuring a 3-megapixel camera with LED flash and extended depth of field, and a standard 3.5mm headset jack
* Bluetooth® 2.1 + EDR with A2DP stereo Bluetooth support
* 8GB of internal user storage (~7.4GB user available)
* USB mass storage mode
* MicroUSB connector with USB 2.0 Hi-Speed
* Proximity sensor, which automatically disables the touch screen and turns off the display whenever you put the phone up to your ear
* Light sensor, which dims the display if the ambient light is dark, such as at night or in a movie theater, to reduce power usage
* Accelerometer, which automatically orients web pages and photos to your perspective
* Ringer switch, which easily silences the device with one touch
* Removable, rechargeable battery
* Dimensions: 59.57mm (W) x 100.53mm (L, closed) x 16.95mm (D) [2.35 inches (W) x 3.96 inches (L, closed) x 0.67 inches (D)]
* Weight: ~135 grams [4.76 ounces]
