CES: Palm’s keynote reveals “Pre”

Lincoln Russell 8 Jan, 2009 at 3:26pm ET Article published in Tech

At CES, Palm has delivered the keynote that it hopes will turn around its fortunes. Having managed to not spill the beans beforehand, there were high expectations for the company that once dominated the mobile market but is now outgunned by both Apple’s iPhone and RIM’s Blackberry lineup.

Palm unveiled a device named the “Pre” which includes both a touchscreen and pull-down keyboard. It runs “Palm OsWeb” which will be powered by pre-existing web development tools (primarily HTML and Javascript).

Some specs:

EvDO Rev A
Bluetooth stereo
802.11 b/g Wi-Fi
OMAP 3430 processor
8GB storage
GPS
3.1 inch display
320×480 resolution
Touchscreen extends below the display

No pricing or expected delivery date were given, but they did announce Sprint as the exclusive launch partner.

Palm says they expect “hundreds of thousands of developers” for the new platform and that it will be “”the basis for innovation for a decade to come” according to CNET’s live coverage of the keynote, where you can get a play-by-play account of what went down.

Do you think this will be enough to put Palm back on the mobile map?

Comments

8 Jan 2009 ~ 3:35pm the_technocrat hooray for IC reporting, live from CES wait
8 Jan 2009 ~ 4:25pm Snarkasm

Keebs wrote:

Do you think this will be enough to put Palm back on the mobile map?

At 320x480, not for me.
8 Jan 2009 ~ 4:37pm jared I think this is a pretty good case of too little, too late. But we shall see.
8 Jan 2009 ~ 7:17pm airbornflght the resolution is 320x480, not 240. It seems like a good unit. Their main problem will be market penetration as microsoft and especially apple have cemented themselves into position.
8 Jan 2009 ~ 9:21pm Komete The GPS is nice but I think the unit looks butt ugly. Looks like a black maxi pad with a screen. This'll just keep Palm around. Not an I-phone killer. So says little me.
9 Jan 2009 ~ 11:55am Linc

airbornflght wrote:

320x480, not 240

I don't see where anyone said 240.
9 Jan 2009 ~ 8:38pm Komete I heard some more about this phone on the radio. Aperently I'm wrong. It still is ugly, but it packs one hell of a punch. Kinda like female boxer.
31 May 2009 ~ 10:19am CrazyJoe I am looking forward to it since it'll just be out once it's time for me to upgrade. Hopefully I'll have it by the time for EPIC.
31 May 2009 ~ 1:31pm primesuspect I'm starting to see signs around town announcing availability on June 6th
31 May 2009 ~ 1:35pm CrazyJoe Yes, I'm on the employee plan though so we don't get new releases right away. Kinda dumb, but what can you do.