Palm Pre

If you would have asked me one week ago, I would have said that Palm was a sad company on the brink of collapse that had somehow become irrelevant in a market that they once held 90% market share.

That was before I watched the CES product launch of the new Pre phone. Wow!

Here's my summary: They not only caught up to the other major smart phone offerings (iPhone, BlackBerry, Android), they surpassed them. The operating system is really, really cool. Don't believe me? Watch the launch.

The best features:

1. Synergy: Unified contact list and Calendar from all your disparate sources...without affecting the sources. This isn't a scaled down version of a desktop application; it's better than a desktop application.
   
2. True multitasking: You don't have to close or shut down what you are doing to do something else.
3. One search: It pulls up everything relevent to your search and when it runs out of "local" options, it turns to the internet.
4. The notification system is very cool.
5. Seamless switching between IM and SMS for a continuing conversation.
   
6. A real keyboard. Sorry, Apple the virtual keyboard has limitations.
7. Inductive charging (no cables required)

Palm is going to have to get this product out FAST because now that they've shown their hand (intentional pun based on their Cards feature) the other major players can copy and respond to their innovations. Obviously, their going to need a very strong third party application community to support this, but I'm optimistic that there are a lot of nerds out there with some nostalgic fondness for Palm.

Here's Engadget's rather glowing review.