Hello Fellow Smartphone and wireless device enthusiasts. 

It would appear, based on the recent debut of Palm’s long awaited 2009 Palm Pre Smartphone at CES, the first real iPhone Killer is finally here.

Please enjoy the following approximately 7 minute CNET News report regarding this seemingly dazzling device published here as a Candle Shore Podcast.

Also, in this article, you will find written information regarding product specifications that I recommend you review.

Enjoy,

Episode:  Welcome Aboard Palm Pre, The New Smartphone In Town

Mark 

The Palm Pre
by Paul Miller, posted Jan 8th 2009 at 2:00PM

The new-ness is underway, and Palm just debuted its long(est) awaited all-new handset, the Palm Pre.

The curvy touchscreen handset has a 3.1-inch 320 x 480 multitouch display, with a silver center button down below and touch sensitivity all down the face — the lower part is for “gestures.”

A full QWERTY keyboard slides out from the phone in a portrait orientation, and you can flip the phone on its side for accelerometer-sensed widescreen browsing.

The phone is running Palm’s all-new webOS platform, with TI’s new OMAP CPU under the hood — which Palm claims provides laptop-style power, and which juices the phones smooth transitions, scrolling and “deck of cards” app-switching.

Other internal specs include:
EV-DO Rev. A,
802.11b/g WiFi
GPS,
Bluetooth with A2DP
8GB of built-in flash storage.

There’s a 3 megapixel camera with LED flash, mass storage-friendly microUSB plug and a good ol’ 3.5mm headphone jack, but most exciting is the wireless charger — a first for a mainstream phone.

The phone is exclusive at launch for Sprint in the first half of 2009, no word on price just yet.
PALM PRE SPECIFICATION FROM TREO CENTRAL

Here’s what we know about the specs on the Palm Pre:
1.
High-speed wireless (EV-DO Rev. A or HSDPA, depending on version)

2.
802.11b / g WiFi with WPA, WPA2, 801.1x authentication

3.
3.1-inch 24-bit color 480 x 320 display

4.
Dedicated gesture area below display
5.
Slide-out portrait QWERTY keyboard (banana slider)
6.
Integrated IM, MMS, and SMS messaging
7.
Email: Microsoft Outlook with Microsoft Direct Push Technology POP3/IMAP (Yahoo, Gmail, AOL, etc). So it does push exchange email, but the rest is not push.

8.
Built-in GPS

9.
Bluetooth 2.1 EDR with A2DP stereo Bluetooth support

10.
High-performance browser

11.
3 megapixel camera with LED flash and extended depth of field

12.
3.5mm headphone jack

13.
8GB of internal storage (~7.4GB user available)

14.
USB mass storage support

15.
Phone as laptop modem – Bluetooth tethering

16.
MicroUSB connector with USB 2.0 Hi-Speed
Proximity sensor for detecting when phone is near face

17.
Light sensor to automatically dim display

18.
Audio Formats: MPS, AAC, AAC , AMR, QCELP, WAV Video Formats: MPEG-4, H.263, H.264

19.
Image Formats: GIF, Animated GIF, JPEG, PNG, BMP

20.
Ringer mute switch

21.
Removable rechargeable battery

22.
Width: 59.5mm (2.3 inches) Height: 100.5mm (3.9 inches) Thickness: 16.95mm (0.67 inches)
Weight: 135 grams (4.76 ounces)

Not too shabby, huh?