Basically the same black shiny hardware and design as the North American Palm Pre, the European Palm Pre, as released by Telefónica and O2, supports quadband GSM/GPRS/EDGE as well as dualband UMTS/HSDPA (but not HSUPA) at 900/2100 MHz. Running on Palm's new webOS operating system, the device also supports Bluetooth 2.1+EDR as well as WiFi b/g and features GPS as well as an ambient light, accelerometer and proximity sensor. The 3.1" HVGA (320x480) capacitive touchscreen supports multitouch for zoom but the main camera on the back, which features a LED flash, is just a 3 megapixel fixfocus camera, featuring Palm's "extended depth of field" technology for an improved picture quality.

The device comes with 8 GB of inbuilt memory (roughly  7.1 GB are user available) but this inbuilt memory can't be expanded (for instance using microSD memory cards). At a size of 59.5 x 100.5 x 16.95 mm the Palm Pre weights 135 grams. Depending on the country of purchase, the vertical slide-out keyboard supports a localized keyboard layout. In addition to the micro USB port, which is protected by a flap and is used to charge the device, the Palm Pre also features a 3.5 mm stereo headset jack on the top of the device. Palm typical is the mute switch, next to the stereo jack. Quite interesting is the fact, that the device only features one hardware button - a kind of action button - which allows to switch between running applications. There's no call send/end key nor a menu button but the device is completely used either through the touchscreen or the slide-out keyboard.

Cheers ~ Arne