By Gadjo Cardenas Sevilla
Palm’s been busy readying updated versions of their Pre and Pixi smartphones as well as announcing an expanded SDK that’s centered on gaming at the recently concluded CES (Consumer Electronics Show). Palm’s had a tough time competing with the iPhone, Android devices and other smartphones.
Unveiled for the US market under the Verizon network were the Palm Pre Plus and the Palm Pixi Plus. The Pre Plus loses the small scrolling button that was present in the original Palm Pre and a better keyboard as well as 16GB of memory, double that of the old Palm Pre. It seems that the overall build of the Palm Pre Plus has been improved, most specially the keyboard and slider mechanism which was the weak link of the Palm Pre.
Palm Pre Plus: Better the second time around
Early reviews were positive specially when running 3D games such as EA’s Need for Speed Undercover that makes use of the accelerometers and the touch controls. Palm also demoed WebOS 1.4 which integrates Adobe’s Flash plug-in as well as a new video recording feature which is very similar to that of the Apple iPhone’s. The video recording feature manages VGA quality video at 30 frames per second and there is also a built-in capability to edit the videos on the device.
Videos can be fired off to Facebook as well as YouTube as well as MMS and e-mail.
Palm Pixi Plus: WebOS on a budgetThe Palm Pixi (pictured above), which isn’t sold in Canada, is more of an entry-level smartphone which packs WebOS into a small package and a candy bar form factor. Users of the Palm Treo will take a liking to its keyboard-ready form-factor as well as its small size. The Palm Pixi Plus now has Wi-Fi as well as some cosmetic covers which work with the TouchStone inductive charger.
We’re really hoping that the Palm Pre Plus and the Palm Pixi Plus spar more interest in Palm, WebOS is a fantastic mobile operating system with great potential it would be a waste to see all this innovation vanish because of lack of interest.
