The Gadget Report 02: Palm Pre

 

Well its that time again. I am home sick today with some form of eye irritation, so I thought I would take this oppurtunity to continue my gadget blogging. Today's topic, the Palm Pre. Some of you may not know what the Pre is based upon varrying levels of cell phone knowledge. Ill give you the quick rundown, then the full blown story.

 

 

That my friends, is the Palm Pre. Here comes the quick rundown. A rundown so quick, that The Flash couldn't even catch it, ok, well he probably could, anyway. The device was announced at CES this year. A device was rumored before as well. Along with the new hardware, Palm will be bringing it's new OS to the table. They call it WebOS. It is basicly an OS founded by the use of apps written in HTML to integrate with the web better. The actual device itself is exclusive to Sprint as of now, though no release date or pricing is availible, although Palm claims the device will be out before the end of Q2.

 

Now the meat. The latest rumors about the Pre mainly involve Sprint having their employees train with the device, and differant celeberties having the device to test out. As of a couple of weeks ago Sprint employees have been rumored to be training to use the device. This of course can mean a soon release, or just a very good rumor. Another rumor is that Sprint has blocked off vacation time during the month of May. This has yet to be confirmed or denied, but if this is true, it is also pointing to the dvice being released very soon. Other release date rumors came from an employee of a company who is beta testing the device. He stated that the realease would be very soon, with no specifics.

 

Apart from release rumors their are many other interesting things about the Pre. Lets get a look at those, shall we. As stated in the last paragraph celebs are starting to get their hands on the Pre. A few have enjoyed it, one has not. The two main people who have had public statements of the device are Jimmy Kimmel, and Howard Stern. One has enjoyed it, the other, ah not so much. Mr. Kimmel had the device on his show courtasy of Engadget. They brought a device on the show and played around with it for a few minutes and he enjoyed it very much.

  Mr. Stern on the other hand, did not fancy the device. He liked the device itself, but after he found out it could not sync with his dear Lotus, he told Palm to take it back, he would stick with his Blackberry Bold.

 

Another interesting piece of information is the Apps. The Apps are placed on "cards". When you minimize and app, it places a card on the homescreen, you swipe up to close cards. One specific app that will keep old Palm OS fans happy is the Classic app. This app is an emulation of the old OS. The Pre also has a gesture bar Here are some videos of what I have been talking about.