HP has officially unveiled its first mobile handset since it acquired Palm, in the form of the Palm Pre 2. By doing so, it has also submitted a new mobile operating system to global scrutiny and mercy, in the form of webOS 2.0. A GSM version is due to launch in France by the end of the week, with a CDMA version following on Verizon Wireless in the United States a short while later. No prices have been revealed yet.
In form factor, the Palm Pre 2 is near indistinguishable from its predecessors, the Palm Pre and Pre Plus. A vertical slider phone, the Palm Pre 2 has a QWERTY keyboard and a 3.1-inch capacitive touchscreen with a resolution of 320×480. Instead of a plastic screen however, Palm Pre 2 owners will get a glass screen.
Internal hardware definitely looks like it will make up for the lack of design innovation, with a 1GHz processor, 512MB of RAM, and 16GB of internal storage. Still no card slot. Replacing the 3MP camera comes a new 5MP one, and the Palm Pre 2 will also support Adobe Flash 10.1.
[RELATED_ARTICLE]Owners of Palm Pre and Palm Pre Plus handsets will be glad to know that HP says webOS 2.0 will be available as an upgrade soon enough, with what seems like all the new features, including more efficient multi-tasking, quick search in the form of Just Type and Quick Actions, and more. On the next page, find a full list of new features that webOS 2.0 brings to the table, as well as a walkthrough video. Check out the full specifications of the Palm Pre 2 below, along with some more images.
| 2G Network | GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900 |
| 3G Network | HSDPA |
| Dimensions | 100.7 x 59.6 x 16.9 mm |
| Weight | 145 g |
| Display | 3.1-inch (320 x 480 pixel), TFT capacitive touchscreen, 16M colours |
| Camera | 5 MP, 2592×1944 pixels, LED flash and geo-tagging |
| CPU | 1 GHz processor |
| OS | HP webOS 2.0 |
| Storage | 16 GB internal (non upgradeable) |
| Memory | 512MB RAM |
| Connectivity | W-Fi 802.11 b/g, Bluetooth 2.1 with A2DP, microUSB 2.0, |
| GPS | And A-GPS support |
| Java | MIDP 2.1 |
| GPRS | Yes |
| EDGE | Yes |
| 3G | HSDPA |
| Video support | MP4/H.264/H.263 formats |
| Audio support | MP3/WAV/eAAC formats, speakerphone |
| Battery | Standard battery, Li-Ion |
| Stand-by | Up to 350 h |
| Talk time | Up to 5 h 30 min |
| Colours | Black |
Read on to know more about webOS 2.0, and see a walkthrough video of the operating system…
webOS 2.0 offers more developer-friendly APIs, performance tweaks, a new background services model based on node.js, a new database structure called db8, and hardware accelerated transitions, apart from the below features:
Here's a short video walkthrough of webOS 2.0
