palm prē @ CES ‘09 (Part 1)
It’s not everyday that a major new mobile platform is announced. But that’s just what Palm, Inc. delivered at CES ‘09. From the moment Palm’s Keynote at CES ended to the first time mobiledivide had a chance to use a palm prē firsthand the overwhelming buzz was undeniable. I actually went back to Palm’s private booth the following day just to make sure I wasn’t dreaming up what I’d seen/experienced the previous day! Palm’s announcements at CES ’09 were some of the most important ones made in the mobile industry in the past two years (iPhone was originally announced at Macworld in January ’07.)
Lucky for us they also unveiled a custom built (i.e. not designed/built by HTC) mobile handset to take full advantage of their new mobile OS. The name of Palm’s new mobile platform is webOS and the first handset to utilize it is called the palm prē. mobiledivide firmly believes the combination of webOS + palm prē will truly offer a viable alternative to current iPhone/G1/Storm users seeking something different but not completely unfamiliar.
One major caveat most users who switch to a capacitive touchscreen handset usually experience is the lack of a truly tactile QWERTY keyboard. Palm was wise in deciding to include an extremely tactile physical QWERTY underneath the palm prē’s gorgeous capacitive touch display (makes the G1’s QWERTY feel like an afterthought in comparison.) The major advantage here being that you get a device that’s noticeably more pocketable than most other mobile handsets with an HVGA (480×320) capacitive touch display while not compromising either the data input or touch manipulation aspects of the phone.
Palm still has a lot to prove with the palm prē (battery life for one) but from what I’ve seen so far I’m optimistic that they’ll be able to deliver most if not all they’re promising by the time they feel their first webOS handset is ready to be released (later this Spring is the goal.)
mobiledivide was fortunate enough to interview two members of the “palm prē” team at CES ‘09. Part 1 in this series focuses on Stephanie Richardson who is part of the marketing team at Palm, Inc. Here is her take on what makes the palm prē such a compelling mobile smartphone:
Filed Under: Featured • Interviews • Previews
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Very informative, thanks!
Did you see the unified contact manager working? Is it able to identify contacts from GMail, Outlook and remove duplicates?
Yes I did and it is able to pull contact info (including pics) depending on the service you’ve added. Not exactly sure how duplicates are handled since what they showed us was still beta.
[...] Well done Serko! [...]