Palm’s Pre Has Touchscreen, Qwerty and Decent Camera

Palm has announced the specs for the Pre, the smartphone it hopes will regain market share against iPhones and Blackberrys. It’s got a touchscreen, and a qwerty keyboard and – of course – the new WebOS operating system.

With potentially its existence on the line, Palm is showing the Pre widely, though it won’t be released till later in 2009. Analysts have suggested that anything less than success for the phone in the marketplace may very well result in the implosion of the company, which has lost ground to Apple and RIM over the past few years.

Sprint Nextel has exclusive US rights to sell the Palm Pre until the end of 2009, and announced on March 12 that users of the new smartphone would have a choice of individual, family and business plans. Pricing in the US for the individual Everything Data 450, 900 and Unlimited Plans will start at $69.99 per month, according to reports. There are no announced deals in the UK.

Sprint previewed the phone at the 2009 CTIA in Las Vegas, and has now released the specs for the phone on their site.

Specs

• Operating system will be the Palm WebOS
• The 3.1-inch touchscreen will feature a 320×480 resolution HVGA display.
• The top part of the unit slides up to reveal a physical QWERTY keyboard.
• Microsoft Outlook email with Microsoft Direct Push Technology, and POP3/IMAP (Yahoo, Gmail, AOL and others).
• Messaging options: integrated IM, SMS and MMS.
  Built-in GPS
• 3-megapixel camera with LED flash and extended depth of field.
  Supported audio formats include MP3, AAC, AAC+, AMR, QCELP, and WAV.
• Supported video formats include: MPEG-4, H.263, and H.264.
  Supported image formats include: GIF, JPEG, PNG, BMP
• Wireless connectivity: WiFi 802.11 b/g with WPA, WPA2, 802.1X authentication. Bluetooth 2/1 + EDR with A2DP stereo Bluetooth support
• Memory: 8GB of user storage (approximately 7.4 GB user available), and USB mass storage support
• MicroUSB connector with USB 2.0 Hi-Speed
• 3.5mm stereo headphone jack
• Compatible with the Palm Touchstone charging dock
• Weight: 135 grams (4.76 ounces)

Dimensions

• Width: 59.5mm (2.3 inches)
• Height: 100.5mm (3.9 inches)
• Thickness: 16.95mm (0.67 inches)