CES: Palm Lives! Introducing the multitouch, slide-out keyboard Pre smartphone

It's basically a more open iPhone with a new OS — how new is yet to be determined — a new interface, and a physical QWERTY slide-out keyboard. This is their Hail Mary — and at first glance it looks like it just might work.

Coverage at Gizmodo and gdgt.

[#1 posted by gadgetophile , January 8, 2009 12:12 PM]

Shitballs! It looks like Palm might have actually pulled one out of the bag. But what is the price!?

[#2 posted by mappo , January 8, 2009 12:22 PM]

So it's the G1 but without the open source OS? How does the screen size compare? Don't make me follow the links! :)

[#3 posted by Chris S , January 8, 2009 12:50 PM]

Honestly, I'll take "open to apps" over "open source" any day. But that's hard to judge from this announcement, since it depends on the interaction between the device vendor and the carrier.

All in all - everything they're telling me is nice.

EV-DO Rev. A, 802.11b/g, 8GB storage, GPS (autonomous?), Bluetooth stereo (A2DP). - check!

no-PC philosophy, OTA Exchange sync - check!

qwerty keyboard - check!

“laptop-like performance.” - check!

3.1-inch, 320 x 480, multi-touch display - check, BUT - does this make stylus apps not work?

Wireless inductive charger - cool! (hopefully it can still USB charge, though, say at work)

exclusive launch partner: Sprint - okaaaay. Sucks to be Canadian.

Interesting - no camera! Shows focus! (and might even be a tiny edge in the corporate market)

I'm a little concerned about things they *aren't* telling me. Palm has at least some loyal core left - will they be able to bring their apps over? Or is this platform a complete break with the past? If that is the case, then they need to rebuild their stock of apps. Given that Palm has already run apps on emulation for the last few platforms, I would have hoped this would be straight-forward. Maybe it is, but it's just not sexy enough for a CES launch. (crosses fingers)

It will also be interesting to see if Sprint/Palm allows/supports VoIP or Skype. Those are clear challenges to the telephony, but I'd want to see that possibility.

It also *sounded* like they think all the dev will happen in 'webspace'. That this *can* happen is good - but it's going to be a little limiting for some apps, especially those that need performance - some games, for example.

I'm hoping there is the possibility of a non-phone Pre. Given the rest of the connectivity, that might actually be worthwhile.

Finally - price REALLY REALLY matters. If I'm handed a price sheet that says "$249, 2 year contract" like the Centro (or - higher?) then this will be a big non-starter.

[#4 posted by The Lizardman , January 8, 2009 12:55 PM]

In a pre-CES thread I said:

"Bottom line though is that the last few years of basically being used like a beta tester when buying Palm products and then getting fuck all support when things failed out the box has soured a lot of people. I really dug my treos and still like the Palm OS but it would take something stunning for me to go back to them on the first gen of a new product - especially with android calling out to me (lets just get it on phones on some other carriers)"

Well, fuck me - it looks like they did it. I will be following this one closely. I hope that face button is a 5 way.

[#5 posted by Clay , January 8, 2009 12:57 PM]

GDGT has the best coverage so far of the most important part, the UI.

And I have to say... This is why I got an iPod Touch instead of cuffing myself for two years to the iPhone. Just in case something like this came along. I really hope this is as good as it looks.

[#6 posted by wastrel , January 8, 2009 12:59 PM]

#3, chris

there's a camera:

http://www.engadget.com/photos/live-from-palms-ces-press-conference/1268949/

3.0 menga pixels and LED flash.

New os looks sweet. It's running linux underneath so it's not just a new UI, it's a whole new architecture. I'm liking this a lot, too bad about Sprint. Waiting to hear about yeah, the rules of the road WRT applications.

[#7 posted by Halloween Jack , January 8, 2009 1:09 PM]

Nice, very nice, although I'm not really tempted to go back to Sprint.

[#8 posted by Chris S , January 8, 2009 1:14 PM]

Well - at least at 3 megapixels it has some worth.

Honestly, the openness to apps is going to make or break this. If Sprint locks it down too hard, it will be a slap in the face to the classic Palm philosophy, where you could buy direct from the developer, install it yourself. Or write it yourself, if you have the chops.

I'm also a little worried about over-doing the 'cloud'. I spend about 1.5 hours each day where I have idle time, and zero network coverage. (There is no cellphone coverage in the Toronto underground subway tunnels.) That would be a massive deal-breaker, right there. 'Cloud' is important - but 'no could' can NOT mean 'I am a brick'.

[#9 posted by MichaelFoody , January 8, 2009 1:21 PM]

This looks like a really really good phone. I'm on sprint and was debating switching to at&t and getting an iphone or sucking it up and getting the instinct. Glad this came along. Everything looks good, even when it inevitably disappoints in some areas it will probably remain one of the best phones around.

[#10 posted by The Unusual Suspect , January 8, 2009 1:25 PM]

Dammit! If I'd held out just a little longer, I wouldn't now be trying to make my new iPhone do the job of my Palm T|X.

Big congrats to Palm for actually listening - every spec seems to be just what their customers were asking them for.

Yes, openness of the OS will matter, as will suckiness of the carrier. (Which in Canada will probably turn out to be Telus, or possibly Bell Canada.)

[#11 posted by Chris S , January 8, 2009 1:43 PM]

@TUS:

It's not clear that this device can replace a T|X. It has the processor, the screen, the WiFi - the basics. Those are necessary, but not sufficient. (Multi-touch screen appears to mean 'no stylus' for apps.)

You can grab T|X apps from a hundred places. Will you still be happy if the Pre can *only* source apps that are pre-approved by Palm and Sprint? Or that all the apps you have available are developed in Javascript?

In fact, that's my biggest concern - that the "lesson learned" from Apple and the iPhone/iTouch is that end users don't need that freedom to be happy. Sorry, Palm, but I want to *own* and *admin* my device. If you haved followed in those footsteps - or even just given in to the carriers desire on this - then you will be going a direction I don't wish to share.

[#12 posted by technogeek , January 8, 2009 2:04 PM]

Does "no-PC philosophy" mean "backup only through a web server you don't control"? If so, that's a major strike against the beast; it's the single thing I like least about the G1. As the recent DRM evaporations have shown, relying on a server to be an essential part of the product fails catastrophically when the company running that server eventually loses interest.

[#13 posted by spiregrain , January 8, 2009 2:06 PM]

@CHRIS S:

It's probably way to early to say, but there is some developer information for the new "WebOS" here: http://www.palminfocenter.com/news/9666/palm-announces-the-palm-webos/

and Here: http://developer.palm.com/

It looks like you'll be able to develop apps for the thing and not just hook into some nebulous. Dataviz were announced as a parter, and they make an MS-compatible office suite for the current Palm OS.

I agree completely though, that what I like about my current Palm is that the apps and data are all right there on the device.

BUT WHERE'S THE GSM!?

[#14 posted by claud9999 , January 8, 2009 2:11 PM]

Hey, maybe Palm finally put their acquisition of Be to good use? Always liked the BeOS, and if anyone has a passion to go after Apple, it'd be these folks. Oh wait the BeOS is now not with Palm...

[#15 posted by yri , January 8, 2009 2:54 PM]

Looks nice, but I'll only buy it if it can run all my old PalmOS apps...

[#16 posted by swedub , January 8, 2009 3:44 PM]

It all depends on what actually comes out first, this or the G2 on Sprint. As I've mentioned in previous posts, the Treo 755p is the worst Palm model I have ever had (out of 5 different Palm models). I'm on my 3rd 755p BTW. I like the direction this is going but I can't wait too long. If the G2 comes out on Sprint before they release this into the wild I am finally jumping ship. I like the open app concept but I really like the open phone concept even more. Time will tell. Hurry up please!

[#17 posted by jimkirk , January 8, 2009 6:43 PM]

@3 Chris S -- They have a mini USB adapter for charging in a vehicle.

http://www.palm.com/us/products/accessories/vpc.html

I'm certainly interested in this, but I'm going to wait and see for a while.