Refined Palm Pre listened closely to iPhone

if you're in the market for a smartphone, Palm's new Pre is well worth considering.

I wouldn't trade my iPhone for it, mind you. But if I didn't have an iPhone, I would think long and hard about getting a Pre instead.

Like the iPhone, it has an adaptable, easy-to-use touch-screen interface. But the Pre, which hit stores a week ago, adds a number of refinements and features the iPhone, at least for now, sorely lacks, such as the ability to run multiple applications at one time, a built-in flash for its camera and a universal search.

That said, the Pre could use some polish. I managed to crash my review unit three times in the first afternoon of playing with it, something that didn't happen when I first got my iPhone.

The Pre takes many of its cues from the iPhone. That's to be expected, not only because Apple's gadget has been a runaway success and the pacesetter for the industry, but also because many of the folks who now work at Palm, including Chairman (and newly named CEO) Jon Rubinstein, previously worked at Apple.

Like the iPhone, the Pre has a large touch-screen and just one button on its front surface. As with the Apple device, you generally interact with the Pre with your finger, starting programs by touching on-screen icons and scrolling through lists by flicking your finger up or down.

If you've used the iPhone, you'll know how to interact with the Pre. You use many of the same gestures, which in addition to flicking include pinching or double tapping to zoom in or out of Web pages or pictures.

Like the iPhone, the Pre has a tool bar with icons that launch frequently used applications. The device comes with many of the same programs preinstalled, such as a Web browser, mail reader, Google Maps and a YouTube player. And like the iPhone, you can download new ones by going to an applications store.

Keyboard addition

But the Pre adds some features that the iPhone doesn't have. The most notable one is a physical keyboard, which is hidden underneath the screen. The tactile sensation of touching actual buttons gave me greater confidence that I was hitting the right keys than I get with the virtual keyboard on my iPhone. That said, I found the keyboard cramped, and there were times I wished it had an on-screen one.

For me, though, a more compelling difference was that the Pre can run multiple applications at one time and allow users to easily switch between them.

The operating system represents each individual application as if it were a playing card. Tap on the card and it will run full screen. Touch the center button under the screen, and the application will again take on the shape of a card on the phone's desktop.

You can switch to another application by flicking left and right to see other cards. And you can close an application by simply flicking it up and off the screen.

With this capability, you can listen to Internet radio from Pandora while downloading another program from Palm's application store and also read your e-mail. That's something you can't do on the iPhone. Other smartphones allow you to run multiple applications simultaneously, but switching between and closing applications is a lot easier on the Pre.

Another great innovation on the Pre is a feature called Synergy, which combines data from multiple sources. The most interesting use of this feature is in the Pre's address book. You can link your Pre to contacts stored in your company's Exchange server, your friend list in Facebook and addresses stored on a Google account. If you have a friend whose contact information is stored in more than one of those sources, Synergy will automatically combine that data into one listing.

Compelling future

The Pre is by no means perfect. First, it seems prone to crashing. And while the Pre's ability to run multiple applications is great, if you have too many running at once, each program and the phone overall start to behave very sluggishly.

But the Pre's most obvious shortcoming compared with the iPhone is the lack of applications available for it. While there are more than 35,000 programs to choose from in the iPhone's application store, Palm's comparable outlet has little more than a dozen.

That's not as big a handicap as one might think. Many of the Pre's applications rank among the most popular and useful on the iPhone, including not only Pandora and YouTube but a New York Times reader and some city guides. And the Pre has some applications that the iPhone doesn't yet, including one that will let you watch live television or give you turn-by-turn directions.

Still, when it comes to games and the full breadth and depth of choices you can find on the iPhone, the Pre has a lot of catching up to do. Fortunately for Palm, the phone is compelling enough that it and the company should have a chance to do just that.