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First look at the Palm Pre WebOS

James Thornton

James Thornton

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Palm has shown its gorgeous new device, the Palm Pre, at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. OnSoftware were the first journalists to get a look at the new handset and its WebOS operating system. As you can see from our exclusive pictures, the device combines both a touchscreen interface and a small, curved, slide-out keyboard. We were impressed by the lightweight and compact form of the Palm Pre, which features an on-board 3 megapixel camera.

But it was the user interface and software in the Pre that really blew us away. The touchscreen interface features a dock for quick access to favourite applications, and a separate area beneath the main interface for finger control gestures such as moving back or closing applications. The feature that really put the Palm Pre above the iPhone in my estimation was the easy way it lets you manage applications. Based around the theme of a deck of cards, each app is given its own ‘card’ which can be opened, zoomed into, minimized and closed using the touchscreen. Cycling through applications is a breeze, and it’s just like shuffling a deck of cards.

First look at the Palm Pre WebOS

Another impressive feature of the Palm Pre is its ‘synergies’, whereby you can assimilate all of your email accounts into one place, and import contacts from Facebook, GMail and the like, directly onto the device. The Web browser inside the Pre is much like Safari for iPhone, with the ability to rotate the aspect of the screen and quickly zoom into pages using finger gestures. The advantage of the Pre browser is that managing multiple pages is much easier thanks to the deck of cards system, which is extended to the browser.

Expect a video of the Pre in action later, as well as all the latest news and developments from the Mobile World Congress. More pics after the jump.

First look at the Palm Pre WebOS

First look at the Palm Pre WebOS

First look at the Palm Pre WebOS

First look at the Palm Pre WebOS

James Thornton

James Thornton

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