The Palm Pre is set to send a wave of enthusiasm back to a brand that hasn’t seen the spotlight in many years.  With all the hype surrounding the Pre, does it have what it takes to revive the fledgling Palm brand?

In a smartphone-crazy world, the market is jammed with everything from the iPhone to Blackberrys to a plethora of Windows Mobile-based devices, so what sets the Palm Pre apart?  It’s not necessarily the physical aspects of the device, but rather the OS or “WebOS” as Palm is calling it.  The iPhone proved that the device OS itself and what it can accomplish is what consumers are after these days, it’s not as much the form factor as it is the overall feature-set and how the user can interact with those features.

In many early reviews, the WebOS, which is at the center of the hype for the Pre, lives up to what was expected- a sleek mobile OS that’s centered around the mobile web, social interaction, and third-party applications.  Beyond that, many are pleased at how Palm put everything together- from the vertically-oriented slide-out QWERTY keyboard to its “gesture pad” which provides a small touchpad below the screen for quick finger-movement shortcuts.

The WebOS incorporates many aspects that the iPhone made famous, such as an “App Dock” at the bottom of the screen to place the most used apps, but also introduces some unique features not seen anywhere else such as what Palm calls the “Card System.”  When you launch an app, you can drag it onto your phone desktop to create a new “card,” then when you’re finished with a card for a specific app, closing it is as simple as flicking the card upwards.  The Pre also features the iPhone-like accelerometer to adjust orientation accordingly, something that will obviously become a mainstay in the future.

Where the Pre might win over hardcore iPhone users is the fact that it incorporates many things the iPhone has refused to offer- such as Flash support, MMS capabilities, and copy and paste functionality.  Overall, the Pre includes everything users demand in a smartphone these days, and more.  I think it has a major chance to make a major splash in the smartphone segment this year, but it will all depend on what the end-users think once they get their hands on it for the first time.  It should be interesting to hear the initial reactions, and whether the hype surrounding the Pre was necessary.

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