Daily Marauder

DROP IT LIKE ITS HOT: THE PALM PRE

On Friday, a day after Palm presented their newest smart phone dubbed the Palm Pre to the press, I got a hands-on demo of the device.  Initially, when I heard all of the noise surrounding the newest Palm, I didn’t quite understand the draw.  Touch screen, beautiful screen, proprietary operating system, blah blah blah

But then, I saw it in action.

As a proud card carrying member of the iPhone club, I pride myself on being ahead of the curve in mobile device land.  Well, this little gleaming slickster, might give me a bit of competition with the Palm users.

Here’s the dilly.

Design

• It’s curvy like Kim Kardashian. As you can see from the picture above, the device slides open to produce a curved interface. Not only does this orientation reduce glare, it actually fits the contours of your face more importantly.  Sweet.
• 3.1” touch screen which is just a smidge smaller than the 3.5” Apple screen.
• 1 button on the outside of the device which acts as the home button

Usability

• Sports its own proprietary operating system with lovable little title webOS.  Who names these things?  The operating system empowers the interesting features below.
• The device works off of gestures taking the touch screen usability of the iPhone to the next level.  Slide your finger across the bottom of the screen to go back to the previous screen.  Slide your finger up to produce the navigation bar.  Yah, you really need to see it to understand.  Check out the video above.

• (Image above) Contact and calendar synchronization: The Palm Pre collects information from Facebook, Google and Exchange combining information from multiple sources in one contact.  Your client changes his contact number in Facebook?  Your Palm Pre automatically updates that for you.  Hotness.

• (Image above) The browser brings up web pages in the computer-ready way you’re used to.
• The iPhone accelerometer is pretty damn sensitive.  This one is a little less so meaning that it won’t switch as much orientations as much when you’re not ready for it.
• If you’ve used an iPhone, you know that notifications such as an SMS message demand attention upon reception.  It’s like when your two-year old demands your attention while you’re on the phone.  You must either reply or close immediately.  The Palm Pre, in comparison, brings up a notification on the bottom half of the screen.  Swipe the notification away and the alert will still be posted within your text messages showing that you need to deal with it later.

• (Image Above) The messaging applications combines text messaging and instant chat conversations with one contact in one screen aggregating the convo from multiple angles.  Brilliant.
• Users can buy DRM-free songs on the device through the Amazon store.
• The phone charges via phone dock.  Just place the phone on the dock and instant charge.  No wires.  Ahhhhh.

My only con so far is the lack of video camera…but then again, with an iPhone, I’m used to going without there. In essence, this device is about simplifying your messy life, not adding more nice-to-have features.

A little more of this:

Photo Credit: Caroline Giegerich

And a little less of this:

Photo Credit: Caroline Giegerich

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