We’re No Longer Pre-Palm Pre, It’s Out Today!

FREE From Only £35 a Month        

The Palm Pre is perhaps the one phone to be released in these post-iPhone days to be worthy of the ‘iPhone killer’ tag, a credit bestowed on many different handsets from the BlackBerry Storm to the G1.  Since its release in the USA back in June, the Pre has found its way into the palms of around a million users, so what is it likely to do in the UK, now the big day has arrived?

Like the iPhone, and the main reason the Pre has the ability to ‘kill’ it, the Pre has a beautifully designed operating system - complex but not difficult to learn, versatile without being bewildering and good-looking to boot.  Named webOS, we took a detailed look at what to expect a while back, but essentially you’ll be working from a home screen supported by a Cards system to keep check of all the open applications, and making use of Palm Synergy, a clever innovation which pulls together information on all your contacts from multiple sources and puts them on a single page.

Pressing the virtual buttons with your finger results in a pool-like ripple on screen and the responsiveness is glorious, easily matching Apple’s silky smooth operation, while flicking Cards away to close them and swiping notifications on and off screen soon becomes second nature, making the Pre very easy to live with.

To input text or numbers you’ll have to  slide out a QWERTY keyboard, which may be the make-or-break for this phone for some people.  It is rather cramped and the keys are extra tiny in comparison to the QWERTY-masters BlackBerry produce, so anyone who is irritated by pressing two keys when they’re aiming for one on a small keypad would be well advised to try it out first.  This was also a complaint raised concerning the iPhone’s virtual keyboard, but after a period of adjustment most were typing as quickly as they would one a regular phone, so patience will probably be the key here too.

With the slider closed the Palm Pre looks fantastic thanks to a simple, clutter free front panel and curvy edges.  Cupping it on your hand just feels right, something that never occurred with the slippery iPhone, in fact, even with the keyboard extended the Pre still looks good!

So, the looks and the OS impress so far, but what about the specification?  It’s a 3G phone with HSDPA, Wi-Fi, GPS and v2.1 Bluetooth, while the capacitive touchscreen is 3.1″ in size and displays a resolution of 320×480.  There’s a 3.2 megapixel camera with an LED flash on the rear, 8GB of internal storage, a 3,5mm jack plug, the QWERTY keyboard and an accelerometer.  Finally, inside is an ARM Cortex A8 processor which is strong enough to endow the Pre with impressive multi-tasking abilities.  Perhaps the only disappointment is the lack of a card slot to increase the storage capacity of the phone.

The only downsides relate to things outside of the handset - the iTunes syncing is a back-and-forth annoyance between Palm and Apple, likely to continue ad infinitum,  and at the time of launch the App Catalog is hardly bursting at the seems with applications to download.

Will the Pre stand over a fallen iPhone in the UK market?  Well, that’s down to you, but know that the Palm Pre is a superb smartphone and webOS a very usable operating system, making it a very solid purchase and one very few people will regret.