During HP’s “Think Beyond” event, in addition to revealing the HP Veer, the company unveiled the latest and greatest from the new webOS Global Business Unit, which was in charge of both hardware and software engineering under their management. The devices they showed off would be the refined Pre 3 and the bulky yet powerful HP TouchPad.
The Pre 3 was for all intents and purposes, the best display of what HP’s resources could do for Palm and the G.B.U. It had a chance to both sway public opinion and make webOS competitive again from a hardware perspective, something that really hadn’t been seen since the launch of the original Pre. Sadly though, the device only saw release in the UK for the span of an entire day before HP announced the end of webOS hardware development. This made the Pre 3 both the most powerful, but also among the rarest of webOS smartphones (outside of the unreleased Windsornot & Mako concept phones). the Pre 3 was never officially released in the U.S., yet was sold through the HP store in California before being put on sites like Amazon and eBay to be sold off. The device was made for ATT and for Verizon, yet the latter device is a far less common variant.
2010 was a special year for webOS. It would mark the release of the Pre and Pixi Plus, alongside something special. That something special, would be the Pre successor and the very last smartphone to ever be released, under the “Palm” branding.
The Pre 2, code named “Roadrunner” first appeared in August of 2010, as a rumor but launched in November as a unlocked developer device in the U.S. and finally an actual carrier launch on Verizon in February of 2011. Continue reading The Pre 2 & HP Veer in 2014→
CES 2009: Palm Inc., noted pioneer of the smartphone revealed it’s ‘comeback’ device, swiftly labelled by critics as, “The iphone killer”. The Palm Pre launched to immense fanfare and positive press. Palm was known for it’s light-weight and effective Palm OS. The new webOS seemed to meet even the highest hopes with it’s intuitive, connected, gesture-based interface. The ‘river stone’ styled Pre with a slide out portrait keyboard and later it’s sister phone, the candybar form factor Pixi, had an optional back plate that enabled inductive charging on the ‘Touchstone’ dock which would become a staple of the brand. Continue reading The Pre & Pixi in 2014→
