My thoughts on the Palm Pre

At CES this week Palm revealed what many believe to be their last gasp at relevancy, webOS and the Pre.  As PDA type functionality moved primarily to cell phones and notebook computers over the last few years, Palm who once ruled business with their PDA's, have slipped out of the tech world's favor.   

With a certain fruit based company changing the face of mobile phones two years ago, it seemed pretty clear that Palm was a dead company walking.  My buddy Chris tweeted upon the announcement of the Pre, that it was pretty hot.  I am usually quick to disagree with many of Chris' thoughts on crappy tech, but this time I sort of agree.  

The phone does look cool.  At first it looks a bit like some other recent touch screen wannabes like from say Meizu.  The gumdrop design is pretty cute, while looking fairly modern and cool.  The main page of the touchscreen looks great, I like the errr "dock" at the bottom, but I imagine it only adds another layer or step to get to the other apps.  That I do not necessarily like.  The power of the processor and the multitasking sound and look great.  The slide out keyboard, eh, I can take it or leave it.  Ive never particularly cared for plastic keypads and I have never had any problems with the "soft" keyboard on my current touchscreen phone, so meh.  And I think the phone looks incredibly goofy and uncomfortable when the slider is out.  

But it looks nice.  Nicer than anything from WinMo, Symbian or RIM.  I mean there is little to no chance of my every leaving my current phone.  My phone is one of the finest devices ever, and likely my favorite piece of kit ever.  But competition, good competition, is good.  And hey back in the day I really liked my Palm Pilot.  Good luck Palm.  Not too much luck though...