Palm Announces Pre Smartphone and webOS

We're still here at CES covering the biggest cell phone news and Palm made a major announcement today to introduce the Palm Pre, a touchscreen smartphone with a slide-out QWERTY keyboard featuring the new Palm webOS. The Pre weighs in at 3.9 inches tall, 2.3 inches wide, and a thickness of 0.67 inches, tipping the scales at 4.67 ounces. Its touchscreen measures 3.1 inches diagonally with 320 x 480 resolution, and is capable of sensing multiple touches at once. Rounding out the hardware is 8GB of memory, Wi-Fi, GPS, Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR, an accelerometer, and both ambient light and proximity sensors.

A demo of the Palm webOS was provided, showing integration with popular web services like Facebook and Google Talk. The concept of Cards allows multiple applications to remain open at once and offers easy switching between them with simple gestures on the touchscreen or using the gesture area immediately below the screen. The concept of Synergy pulls data from multiple sources to augment your contacts and calendars and allow communication with others through multiple mediums in a streamlined fashion.

One accessory mentioned at the press conference was the Touchstone Charging Dock that charges the Pre inductively, a first for Palm and a rare trait among smartphones currently on the market. The Pre will also include the A2DP Bluetooth profile to allow the use of stereo Bluetooth headphones.

The Palm Pre will be available exclusively through Sprint at launch, expected in the first half of 2009. No pricing for the Palm Pre or its accessories has been announced yet.