Posted on 08 January 2009, at 2:23 pm, by Wayne Schulz

Palm’s keynote address is going on right now at CES 2009. So far they’ve spent some time talking about the background of Palm and a new webOS as well as introducing one new handheld – the Palm Pre. This device has a 3.1″ screen with 320 X 480 resolution, touch screen, center navigation button, EVDO Rev A, 802.11b/g, 8GB storage, GPS, Bluetooth Stereo (A2DP) as well as a slideout keyboard (portrait) AND replaceable battery. So far the device seems to match some of the mock ups that have been floating around different blogs. The phone OS looks to sport Exchange support as well as a substantial amount of integration with social media type activities – synchronization of names from different address books, etc. First carrier (exclusive) to handle the Palm Pre in the USA will be Sprint. Release date “first half of 2009″. No pricing announced as of yet.
Read live coverage via Ryan Block of GDGT
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January 8th, 2009 at 8:03 am
This is a happy day. I think Palm hit it out of the park with this one! I'm getting one ASAP.
January 8th, 2009 at 9:12 am
Can I be the first to coin the nickname – "Palm Pray"?
This could be the first device with the power to simultaneously make (or break) the financial stability of two companies…
LOTS of details need to be filled in on this. What was shown today was the sizzle. Now Palm have to deliver the steak and it can't be burnt or rare when it hits the table…
January 8th, 2009 at 9:17 am
Disappointed that Palm talked about how easy development would be for this new platform and even used Pandora and a quoted time of "3 days to convert their application" — yet they showed no third party apps despite bringing Facebook on stage do do a happy dance but no demo (maybe the app was supposed to be ready – and if so what does that say about Palm's statement about how easy the development is?)
This thing may yet fly and be great — I'm just pointing out a couple "oddities" that I noted.
January 8th, 2009 at 9:26 am
Can I be the first to coin the nickname – "Palm Pray"?
This could be the first device with the power to simultaneously make (or break) the financial stability of two companies…
LOTS of details need to be filled in on this. What was shown today was the sizzle. Now Palm MUST deliver the steak and it can't be burnt or rare when it hits the table…
January 8th, 2009 at 9:58 am
When Apple first showed the iPhone with an expected "first half" delivery, it looked like a completed product just swaiting production. This doesn't look like anything is really completed yet. I feel like I have more questions than answers at this point and I feel like I was watching more smoke and mirrors than anything completed. More of a technology demo, rather than a product demo.
I sure hope they do deliver in the end, though, because more competition could really make things interesting in this space.
That said – I was very pleased to see the cable-free charging. the interface hold some promise, but again – I need to see a lot more than they showed before I can say anything useful.
At this point, my fear is that there will be a lot of completely useless speculation by a lot of bloggers about nothing but the fact renmains – we don't know what we don't know!
January 9th, 2009 at 1:19 am
Crunchgear has a post that seems to backup your thoughts Chris
http://www.mobilecrunch.com/2009/01/08/hands-on-w...