Palm Pre: everything you ever wanted to know
By Joshua Topolsky 
posted January 13th 2009 11:59PM
posted January 13th 2009 11:59PM
Note: This post originally went up just a few days after the Pre had been announced. We've gotten answers to some lingering questions we had, and have updated parts of the article with additional information.
What's the hardware like?
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.
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.
The screen itself is a sensitive capacitive touchscreen, which seems 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 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.
Along the left side of the phone are volume buttons, and up top there's (thankfully) a 3.5mm headphone jack and ringer on / off switch. On the backside of the device is a large speaker -- not a huge difference from previous Palm phones.
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.
Around back there's a 3 megapixel camera with an LED flash which reps say can snap continuously without saving (a nice touch), and the back (as well as the battery) is removable -- a point Palm made sure to note in its presser.
While we were told at a meeting with the company that the Pre would sport a microSD slot, apparently someone got their wires seriously crossed. The device won't have expandable storage -- which is kind of a disappointment.
The phone has an AGPS chip, and looks like it will come with dedicated navigation software on-board (if Palm's official UI pics are any indication).
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 -- the first to be released -- will not be a global phone, meaning it can't be used on GSM networks overseas.
What's the software like?
This is a harder question to answer, because there are so many new ideas that Palm is implementing in its webOS, the operating system it's developed based on Linux.
There are a few main ideas at play in the UI, and we'll try to cover them as extensively as we can. Given that we only had a brief time to really give it a workout (and the fact that the software isn't finished), we expect to see and hear a lot more than we know now.
The UI itself is absurdly slick -- certainly on par with the iPhone's interface and HTC's TouchFlo 3D. There are smooth zooms, transitions, and fades in and out of content, and there's little noticeable lag or stutter when moving through actions. Fonts are tastefully chosen, and the icons are akin to OS X's or Vista, with soft shadows underneath and lots of dimension.
Using the interface is mainly accomplished with swipes along the screen and by pushing the center button. A quick swipe up with your thumb slides a launcher (essentially a prettied up traditional Palm app screen) over your current state. What's notable is that you never leave the application you're in to do this. It goes up, then it goes away. Unlike the iPhone (which is really its nearest competitor), webOS provides true multitasking, allowing you to switch between active apps. You don't have to close and reopen, just shuffle through your programs. If you switch to another app, the UI scales back the program you're in down to that deck of "cards," then zooms up the new selection. By pressing the center button on the phone, you zoom out all of your cards, and can swipe through them to find what you're looking for. The content inside of the cards isn't just a snapshot like tabs in Mobile Safari -- they're live applications that can be flipped and manipulated. You can also rearrange the cards in any order by touching and holding, then sliding them around. Gestures can also be used to move back and forward in a document or webpage (swipe left or right), and there's a gesture used to bring up a quick launcher "wave" over top of whatever application you're in.
The gestures are useful, but not immediately natural. There will be a learning curve with this device, but Palm is clearly looking for what makes sense to them -- they've tried to implement components of the old OS in the new one (like having quick access to your most used apps and not bogging things down with lots of dropdown menus), and at a glance seem to have succeeded.
Besides the input and design, there are core ideas that are new to mobile OSs at play here. The first is something that Palm calls Synergy, which allows you to pull together contacts and calendars from lots of different sources, but without altering or merging that data. Synergy will grab the same contact from Facebook, Gmail, and Outlook, then combine those into a "stack" of info for that person on your phone. It looks for duped data, so you don't get doubles of phone numbers or names. It's essentially a contact aggregator, and if they can pull this off, it will end a lot of headaches for a lot of people. It looks like it will do the same for calendars, and it's also pooling IM services together, allowing for modes where you can keep a threaded conversation going with someone over SMS, AIM, GTalk, and other services. It's heady stuff, and only time (and use) will tell if this does what they say it will -- but right now it looks like a terrifically unique and innovative way to handle a myriad of data.
Notifications on the device are handled similarly to the G1, so when you get an SMS or have a calendar event, webOS scales back your app a little bit and brings up a dialog at the bottom of the screen (whereas Android adds them in a "curtain" up top). Palm insisted that this lets you have control over how and when you respond to alerts, rather than having to "dismiss" pop-ups. We like how Android implements this -- we'll see if Palm's variation is as effective.
The OS also has a rich search function which pulls up a dialog when you begin typing something on the keyboard. Like Mac OS's Spotlight, it uses a universal search to pull applications and content, but switches to a web search if you can't find what you're looking for. Right now the phone defaults to Google, Google Maps, and Wikipedia.
While we can't run through every app, we can say that the browser is Webkit based, seems snappier than other Webkit browsers we've used on mobile devices, and a Flash plugin is supposed to be available for the phone by the end of the year.
What may be most astounding at the core of the OS, however, is the way apps are to be crafted. All of the applications for the phone will be coded in standard CSS, XML, and JavaScript, meaning the learning curve for creating content and programs on the phone will be almost nonexistent for developers who know their way around coding for sites. Additionally, Palm says developers will have access to all the software layers, allow system calls and custom content to be loaded into things like notifications. Of course, the nature of the SDK (which will be available to anyone) means that things like 3D games will be hard (if not impossible) to pull off, which could be a big blow to a burgeoning developer community, considering how well games have done in the App Store. We wouldn't be surprised if Palm ultimately relented and gave developers deeper access.
There's way, way more to talk about in the UI and OS design, but we'll save that for when we can take a longer look at the device and its interface. The long and short of it is this: the Palm Pre and webOS are the first real challengers to the iPhone's innovative approach to a mobile UI and data management. Oh, and yes, it has copy and paste functions (triggered by holding down your thumb on the gesture area and selecting your text with another finger).
Cloud services, syncing (added May 25th, 2009)
Palm seems to be striking a bit of a balance between the iPhone and Android when it comes to services, offering a centralized Apple-style push notifications system for developers, Synergy for pulling / merging contacts, email and calendar data from services like Google, Facebook and Microsoft Exchange, and a "Palm Profile" for backing up phone settings and apps. The Palm Profile, which is tied to a user-provided email address and can be setup on the phone on first boot also helps with OTA updates and App Catalog downloads.
Thanks to phone's reliance on the cloud, users can also send a "kill pill" to wipe the phone by logging into their Palm Profile online. Palm won't be offering a desktop syncing app, but there will be a PC-based "Data Transfer Assistant" for getting data off of an old Palm OS device and onto the Pre. There's been no word on how multimedia syncing is supposed to work, but hopefully the Pre will operate in some sort of mass storage mode when plugged into the computer -- both for loading on music and movies, but also for pulling off purchased media like Amazon MP3s.
Cost, release date (added May 25th, 2009)
After almost half a year of speculation, Palm finally confirmed the release date and price for the handset: June 6th, for $200. That's the price with a 2-year contract, and is after a $100 mail-in rebate, though some retailers like Best Buy will offer the phone at rebate-free for $200. Out of contract the price has been pegged at $549 by sales reps, though that hasn't been "officially" confirmed by Palm.
Unfortunately, word of expected Pre shortages mean that folks looking to get one within the first week or so might want to look into that age-old rite of gadget lust: lining up for it. Retailers at launch include Sprint stores, Best Buy, Radio Shack and select Wal-Mart stores.
Developer support, third-party apps (added May 25th, 2009)
As far as developer support is concerned, Palm has effusively stated that it wants to engage the community and stoke the fires of app development. Given that webOS is based around really simple tenets of web coding, it shouldn't be hard to get in the game and start experimenting for most people, and seasoned devs will probably sink their teeth into it wholeheartedly.
So far we've seen good things from the small group of third-party developers that Palm has let at its SDK early, and the company is adding new developers to the SDK on an ongoing basis. Until the device launches and we get a look at Palm's App Store-like App Catalog flush with webOS apps, it'll be hard to tell how much developers can squeeze out of the device beyond simple XML and JavaScript coding -- but we're really optimistic that the phone will be able to handle virtually anything devs throw at it, especially considering that DataViz is prepping a full-on Office document editor and a SlingPlayer client is said to be in the works. The good news is that Palm claims that it won't be issuing any mysterious takedowns or requests a la Apple -- we'll see how that holds up.
In even better news -- especially for longtime Palm users with extensive app collections -- the company is also allowing legacy Palm OS apps run via emulation in the Palm Pre Classic emulator, which can even handle 3D gaming and should provide a nice stopgap for any still-lacking functionality in webOS at launch.
Wrap up
There's still a lot we don't know about the Pre, and with a device this new, you can never truly understand what the experience will be like until you put it through the test of an average day's work. That said, Palm has made enormous strides with webOS and the Pre, both putting the brand back on the map, and offering a lust-worthy device that delivers on a big stack of promises. If they can keep the quality as high or higher than what we've already seen we think the smartphone game just got a whole lot more interesting.
Further reading
There are plenty more tidbits we aren't able to touch on here, so you can track our ongoing, comprehensive Palm Pre coverage here, or check out some particular morsels below:
Leaked Palm Pre Gesture Guide lets you get some finger-flicking practice in early
Plethora of Palm Pre interface videos emerge from leaked emulator
Palm Pre tasks, memos, browser on display, automatic backup confirmed
Palm Pre to run $549 off-contract
Palm Pre on June 6th for $200: It's official!
New Pre Classic emulator video shows off 3D gaming prowess
Pre Sprint Navigation app demoed on video
Palm Pre Classic emulator demoed on video
Pandora, Amazon, other third-party apps demoed on Palm Pre
Palm announces webOS SDK availability, Palm OS emulation for Pre, new cloud services
In case you missed 'Late Night with Jimmy Fallon' last night
Palm confirms games are in development for Pre, drops a few other tidbits
Palm Pre's Touchstone charger requires matte, soft-touch battery cover
Palm joins Adobe's Open Screen Project, Pre to support Flash
GSM Palm Pre spotted with Vodafone SIM card
Apple vs. Palm: the in-depth analysis
WANT. soooo bad. This phone is probably the main reason I will stick with Sprint. I have a Treo 650 and I'm way past due for an upgrade.
i echo that.... this phone is the only reason i'm considering staying with sprint.
But i hope it comes out soon. The guy at the sprint store says he thinks late summer or fall even. 2nd half of the year?
hmmmm
i have a G1, i like it, but the UI for this phone looks ridiculously awesome...the phone however...another story. i think it should have been a landscape slider and not portrait slider. landscape would allow bigger keys. maybe the second iteration of this phone will be better design wise. (unlike the G2...)
I wish it had a slightly larger screen. I think The Almighty Apple might be in for some comp and we all knew it was coming sooner or later. I wonder if you can get insurance on it
From what I read on Wired, it sounds like Apple may be devoting the bulk of its upgrade in the 2.x iPhone to better gaming capacities.
Brand expert John Tantillo named Apple last week's 'brand winner' (Microsoft was named the loser), specifically citing the fact that Apple, unlike Microsoft, pays attention to its Target Market and what it wants.
I don't doubt that improved options for gamers may fit into an interest of some consumers (although I think that serious gamers would prefer playing at home, with a large TV screen, for hours on end..) - but If Apple does move in this direction and put such a strong focus on gaming, they will be losing sight of their much broader and more diverse target market and focusing instead on the target market of the gaming industry. This would definitely leave them wide open to competition from an alternative product such as the Pre--if Sprint does a better job listening to its customers. (A good option for Apple would be to develop a separate gaming line/version of the iPhone--for which it would be very easily to consistently push new versions.)
Tantillo actually had a post a while back on women as consumers of electronics--and how companies such as Best Buy had ignored these consumers and had started to mend their ways. Apple would be wise not to make the same sorts of mistakes.
Why do people keep thinking that iPhone, G1 and even Palm Pre are smartphones? Where`s the smart part, the PC-functionality part? Any Windows Mobile device is a smartphone, but definitely not the iPhone!
Anybody know who the camera supplier for PRE?
What an ugly phone....
I just thought it would have a video camera. Not just a regular camera. Why does no one talk about that?
I absolutely hate the commentator's on engadget. This site must have the most pessimistic visitors on earth. In almost every article you have pages of negative comments below. It's always the same thing. "This product looks good, but only if you are a moron. It doesn't have memory abc and does not have cpu abcd, and it's without that one thing! So this thing sucks and don't waste your money".
Perhaps Engadget would be best advised to just provide a few negative templates for everyone on here to use?
You can't really compare this to iPhone, because the people creating them are totally different. We all know the iPhone is limited, big deal, all these dumbasses dreaming of 8mp cameras and 100gig storage like I've seen on some websites just give up, even the idea of copy paste, landscape SMS...yes it can be done, the platform is powerful enough, but iPhone is about a simple experience, not to say it isn't richly presented, but it's simple, and I guess implementing too many features so soon would clutter it up. There's just no making people happy, iPhone does what it does well, it's Steve Jobs vision. If you don't like that fine, buy another phone, but people who buy then complain I don't understand, surely you'd just buy something else. I bet a lot of people hating on iPhone thought it was a world ender before it came out or until something better came along. Palm are different, they are to be fair a failing company and this is their saviour, it seems a lot of hard work has gone into this device and I'm excited, it does what it's designed to do extremely well, and there's the difference, Apples iPhone is a vision, it's not MEANT to be a hyperphone with more functionality than you can get your head around, and the Pre is a clean workhorse phone with a simple intuitive interface trying to capture buisness, productivity, and to some extent consumer Market share. No one phone is better than the other, they may appear similar bit their intentions are worlds apart, and people just don't get that. But that's not to be said some companies don't 'knock off' no one can honestly say that there are companies out there rolling out more touchscreen phones than you can shake a stick at because they are inspired or original. Credit should be given where credit is due, for what it does iPhone is amazing, and for what Pre is going to do it's amazing. That's just a fact some people can't deal with ie. trollers and fanboys.
that's the smartest thing i read so far.:)
I would be so pleased if people stopped claiming each new smartphone as an 'iPhone killer'. There are simply so many Apple zealots and poseurs out there that there's no chance that the iPhone will be 'killed' anytime soon. If ever.
That phone had people lining up around the block for its release, people who had never used an iPhone, had no concept of its limitations, couldn't possibly know whether or not it could even receive a decent phone signal, but were prepared to camp out for days to lock themselves into a ridiculously long, restrictive, expensive contract with a carrier they didn't want to be with, all because they wanted the bragging rights to an 'Apple iPhone'. And history has proven two things.
First that the iPhone was a roaring success. And secondly, that it was flawed in so many ways that if it had any other logo on it other than that Apple one, the 'faithfull' wouldn't have touched it with a 10 ft barge pole. But they shut off their cognitive reasoning and the rest is history.
So, it's safe to say, when a product's time is right, then it will be a success, regardless of its faults. I expect the same thing to happen with the Pre. But at least the Pre should have a much less flawed launch than that piece of rubbish that was the original iPhone.
And may Palm and the Pre prosper. By the looks of what I've seen so far, they truly deserve it.
Hear that Apple? They deserve it.
share your opinions at http://www.PalmPreForum.org
anybody know if this has a stylus? Really used to using one with epocrates software. Thanks.
i want
On 24 Feb 09, a Sprint rep said the Palm Pre's release date is slated for 15 Mar 09. They didn't know the expected price, but guestimated around $500 due to the power packed features of the phone. I told them that if the price of the phone is not at least equivalent to, or lower then the price of the IPhone, then palm could keep that "Golden Goose". The features and style appear to be great, but if Palm is going to force people to take out a second mortgage just to purchase the phone, then they are making a big mistake in this economic environment, because the banks aren't lending and the money trees in the back yard aren't producing.
Even if Palm offered the phone for $250 - $299, with a 2-year contract, they will still make a good profit within a year and put Apple (IPhone) on notice. I hope they learned from the mistake Sony made with the PS3's initial cost of $700-$800, which backfired in their face and caused more people to purchase a lower priced XBOX360 instead.
P.S. - I can not mention the rep's name. I think the release date is a secret, and I don't want them to get fired. There's enough of that going on already.
Anonymous tipster,
bwarehouse2@gmail.com
Not sluggish? Look, I like the pre and am excited to see it's coming.. I'll probably buy one when it's available on Verizon, but you can't say it's not sluggish. The video above took a few seconds to open the contacts database and the calendar app took more than 5 seconds to open and paint the screen with appointments. You went to another app while it was still refreshing. Waiting for an app to load and open is frustratingly painful as it appears above....
I personally own an HTC Touch, and am very happy with it over the iphone. I am getting a little upset now that Im seeing the UI features of this Palm Pre, I shouldve waited for my first touch phone for this one!!! This thing looks so slick, the new WebOS, from all the pictures Ive seen seems to take the cake when It comes to the Mobile OS! Great work. Hope Apple doesnt rip it to shreds with its multi touch patents :(
if Apple does find patent infractions then it should be able to protect them. So should Palm on any other device. Hey this is America, not China, we respect intellectual property.
Speaking of, suppose the Pre becomes a success; how long to you give it till some shady enterprise in China comes out with a rip off version? Palm Pre to the "Pine Tre"
I am super excited to see that someone is working on an OS at par with Apple's, BUT having some multitasking abilities. I am sick of closing and reopening application to read a single SMS...
it's about time! I mean having palm back in the market creates a stronger competitive market. No longer is about blackberry vs iphone (in my opinion) and palm can re enter the ring and throw a good hook.
judging by the videos, I am impressed with OS. Really impressed actually because that is a real step up compared to all other smart phones.
I am curious about it's functionality though in comparison to a blackberry. And though I might make some upset...I don't consider an iphone to be a smart phone. I consider it to be more of an entertainment phone. Sorry.
But seeing palm back in the game with this type of OS will definitely set new standards for other developers to follow as far as growing in the smartphone industry. Being able to just switch through applications without opening and closing and re-opening is a seller for me in my book compared to my curve. However I feel hat the keyboard should have slide sideways.
The other thing to consider is the keys itself. I'm not sure how everyone else feels but when I tested the centro...I despised the keyboard. The keys were so small and I found it frustrating. I like touch screen phones but not for typing and typing is essential for any smartphone. If a business type tries to handle documents and messages, if he can't type easily, it's going to be a major turn off.
Just my 2 cents.
Palm is in serious trouble. The market cap of the company is less than 1 billion, they have 200 million in cash while they lost 600 million last year. Their stock is down 98% in a decade. These are harsh facts. Palm's CEO knows these facts only too well.
Palm has to succeed on every level for this product - creating demand, keeping marketing costs low, producing a cost effective product on low initial volume (since they don't have the luxury of cash to realize volume purchasing discounts), marketing, timely delivery, no demand shortfalls, no over-production. They NEED to nail everything!
As a software developer, I invested a fair amount of time developing products for the Palm V. Total waste of resources! I never recouped my expenses.
Many developers will take a 'wait and see' look at the Pre, particularly in this environment. Could palm pick a worse time for product launch? Web apps only? WTF? I am certain that the underlying OS is no where near ready to be opened up to the public.
I wish them luck, but unfortunately they have a real uphill battle ahead of them. They could easily burn through all of their cash just fighting legal battles.
I just don't see how they are going to do it, and based on where they are today I just don't have any faith in the company. At one point in time, I did.
iphone is nice... but AT&T's plans are horrible and overpriced by 50%.
Does this device have "Push to Talk" feature?
Just switched over to Sprint 3 weeks ago. Had a first gen iPhone with ATT, didn't feel like paying $85 a month for my cell bill. Anyways, I picked up a LG Lotus with my 2 year contract, nice phone, clearly nothing in comparison to the iPhone. Just got off the phone with Sprint Tech Support, I asked if my current plan: Family Everything Messaging Plan with Data Plan added to my line only ($15), would work with the pre when it gets released. They said Yes, I wouldn't have to change to Everything Data or other plans. He said the only problem would be if there were a mail in rebate that required a different plan. Granted I'll have to pay full price for this when it comes out, but it's not like I didn't do it with the iPhone almost 2 years ago, right?
does anybody knows which phone company will carry this phone? Sprint??..because i saw somewhere that the phone was spotted with vodafone sim card.
does this phone use a SIM CARD??
this phone looks cool..can't wait to get my hand on it.
it is very sexy.
Palm please add a Micro SD slot. I love the MicroSD because it allows me to share tons of stuff very easily. It has changed sharing large chunks of information and that is a great thing. RSGOcojoe
iPhone 4G Rumor Prediction
http://taranfx.com/blog/?cat=142 ... this could be the future.
I think the Palm Pre has 3G internet connectivity. Will I be able to connect my computer to the internet through this phone?
Jim
sprint really betting big time with the pre, but they didn't do so well with the instinct when spent $200 million on promoting it.
Sprint is famous for spending big bucks on advertisements, but i seriously hope they will do well, at least folks at http://www.PalmPreForum.org spent sleepless nights try to find out the lastest and greatest info about the PRE