The Palm Pre Smart Phone

For me, 2008 was filled with new smart phones – the Apple iPhone, various models of BlackBerry (which one should I get?), and T-Mobile’s G-Phone (Google Phone). All of them feel a bit like version 1.0 and all of them seem to have features missing that the other one has.

So, I’ve held off and I’m still using my crusty trusty Palm Treo 650. But this year might have to be different, we’ll see.

The Palm Pre is Palm’s latest offering in the smartphone arena. Introduced at the 2009 International CES (Consumer Electronics Show) last week, the Pre generated quite a bit of buzz. And of course, it’s making me feel like I need a new phone.

The Palm Pre will come out on the Sprint network which is good because that’s what I’m on now. However, there seems to be no pricing information out yet except Internet buzz of $399.00.

The Apple iPhone and BlackBerry models have had huge success and the Palm Pre seems to combine features from both phones which offers the best of those two worlds.

Offering features such as a QWERTY keyboard, a full-sized touch screen, and a gesture feature that allows you to swipe your hand over an area below the touch screen helps cut down on finger printing the screen, while still offering on-screen touchables when needed.

The Palm Pre’s new WebOS is built with the Linux operating system at its core.

Below is a 11-minute video from MobileCrunch that show the features of the Palm Pre.

And here’s a YouTube video directly from CES 2009:

Here’s another take at Gizmodo – In a Nutshell: Palm Pre vs. iPhone vs. G1

I want one NOW!! Make it a good weekend.