HP has launched the Palm Pre 2. This is a huge move by HP to keep in the Smart-phone race and the first major release by HP’s Palm unit since HP took over Palm.
Software
The design is the first to run webOS 2.0 and supports Just Type’s ability to perform commands even before launching an app, Stacks to group together apps by their associated tasks, enhanced Synergy support and Exhibition apps that work only when the phone is on a Touchstone dock. The release is also the first to support a beta of Flash 10.1.
Other features include a reworked launcher that allows adding and customizing launcher pages, favorites that appear across the entire OS, and VPN support. Quickoffice comes standard now, so owners get work with MS Office documents.
Hardware
The phone takes a large bump in performance with a 1GHz processor instead of the 500MHz the old units had. There is a new five-megapixel camera with LED flash and better depth of field. It has a 3.1-inch 480×320 display, 802.11g Wi-Fi, GPS and 16GB of internal storage. HP anticipates about 5.5 hours of 3G talk time.
Verizon is so far the only American carrier and will get it in the “coming months,” while unnamed Canadian carriers will also get the QWERTY slider.
All existing Palm phone owners should get webOS 2.0 as a free update at TBA later date.
