The Palm Pre looks like a splendid new Smartphone

Amid all the iPhone madness, equal time for the Palm Pre, please.

The Palm Pre Smartphone--released last weekend and running a brand-new fast and versatile operating system, WebOS--has been received most enthusiastically in nearly all quarters. BBC News has thoughtfully rounded up several reviews so you can see for yourself.

Reviewers particularly liked the Pre's real keyboard, which that other phone still lacks. The cool QUERTY keyboard slides out gracefully so as not to interfere with the Pre's attractive and ergonomically sound curve design. Another feature unique to the Pre is its ability to multitask--you don't have to close one app to open another.

But. A big disadvantage of the Palm Pre is those apps. The you-know-what phone has a giant online store with thousands of them. The Pre's online app store has only a few for now, %^(. But let's be optimistic, %^). Surely developers will rush in to fill the gap, and software updates are expected to add spiffy features in the next few months.

However--and for me this is a huge however--there are thousands and thousands and thousands of apps that run happily on previous Palms. When the Pre was announced earlier this year, long-time Palm-lovers like me were devastated to be told that existing Palm apps would not run on the new WebOS.

Happily, Palm saw the wisdom of making a place for those of us who kept the Palm faith through the lean years. It's appropriately called Classic and makes it possible for most existing Palm OS apps run on the Pre, only faster. Even PIM databases like Contacts, Tasks, and Calendar. $29.99 and available through the Pre Apps Catalog too.

I can't share my Pre experiences with you because I haven't had any. I use the nifty Palm Centro and my current contract won't run out until next fall. Plenty of time for Palm to shake the bugs out of the Pre and issue some software updates--and for the App Catalog to fatten up.