Thumbs Up for new PalmPre

Remember Palm, the one-time champion of the PDA market? Various technology journalists at CES are urging fans not to the brand just yet - the company finally unveiled its long-awaited smartphone, the Palm Pre, last week at CES.

A winner of this year's CNET Best of Show award, the Pre is designed to take the best of both the Blackberry and iPhone, combining a 3.1 inch touchscreen allowing, users to pinch and expand photos and web pages, with a full QWERTY keyboard women with two-inch nails can operate.

"I think this phone's biggest appeal will be the central role the internet plays in the OS," writes Adrian Covert on gizmodo. "The way it pulls data from various web services, and melds it into its own framework is top notch... being able to text, and gChat and send IMs over AIM all from the same window is such a benefit to the user to not have to switch windows for three different apps for messaging. And obviously, you won't be talking to someone on a bunch of different messengers at once, but over a period of a week, you might have convos over these different services, and it's good to keep track of all these interactions in one place."

"The UI is incredibly well thought out and smooth," comments Joshua Topolsky over on EnGadget, noting what was on display at CES was not a final product. "Animations going in and out of apps, and all of the menus and switching are done with a grace and simplicity that we rarely see on any device... Touching the screen is responsive and precise, we never felt like it was 'glitching out' on us, and with a few exceptions everything in the OS was large enough to be tapped on the first try with our gargantuan fingers."

The Pre also offers Wi-Fi connectivity, a 3 megapixel camera, GPS capability and - like the T-Mobile G1 - integration with the Amazon Music Store for direct MP3 purchases.

"The Palm Pre and Palm Web OS isn't necessarily going to revolutionize the smartphone market, in that it doesn't offer any crazy, new features," comments Bonni Cha on CNET, "but it definitely brings a fresh look into the way you interact with a device and how it organizes information. It also brings innovation and life back to the struggling company and has certainly set the tech world abuzz. Palm's undeniably taken a beating from the media and general public, so it's good to see the company respond and take action."

• The Pre, due out during the first half of 2009 in the US, will run on a brand new WebOS designed to synch with Microsoft Outlook and other productivity software More info on the Palm US web site