The Hardware Behind WebOS: Palm Pre

Palm has released a smoking new piece of hardware to accompany its long-awaited OS, and it brings many of the features hardcore smartphone users have been waiting for.

While half the buzz at Palm’s Thursday press conference focused on its hot new WebOS operating system, the rest centered on the shiny new phone Palm has cooked up to run its golden child. The Pre, as the next-gen Palm will be called, adopts the full-touch screen interface that many other modern smartphones have tended towards as of late, but also boasts a QWERTY keyboard and other surprises.

The shiny black shell of the phone has a rounded, almost cobblestone-shape look to it that Palm claims is “inspired by nature.” Though the company hasn’t yet revealed exact dimensions, a slide from the release presentation showed the phone looking slightly smaller than competitors like the iPhone from the front, but we also suspect it’s significantly beefier from the side.

The full QWERTY keyboard contributes to that extra depth, no doubt. It slides vertically out the bottom of the phone, angling out toward the user to give the phone a curved shape to fit the face when open.

Despite the interior keyboard, the exterior 3.1-inch LCD with multi-touch capability and 320 x 480 resolution undoubtedly remains the highlight of the phone. Almost all functions besides text input are controlled by the screen and an additional touch strip below, which Palm calls a gesture pad. It can be be used to perform simple navigation moves, like flicks forward and back, without smudging the screen.

Other, more pedestrian specs include EvDO Rev. A Internet access, 802.11b/g Wi-Fi, 8GB of storage, GPS, and an 3.0-megapixel camera with LED flash.