Palm Pre Feature Roundup 89
With so much Pre news floating around all over the place lately, it can be hard to keep up. New features are being announced, and questions are being answered on a near daily basis. To help alleviate this problem, we’ve compiled a list of Known Pre Features, Missing Pre Features, and things we just don’t know about yet. When perusing the list (after the break), if you find anything to be missing or inaccurate, please let us know in the comments so we can keep this article as up to date as possible!
(Apologies for my bad pictures folks, hope to have my new copy of Photoshop this week!)
Updated as of 2/17/09 @ 5:00pm (Thanks for the comments all!)
Updates in italics
Known Pre Features:
-CDMA EVDO Rev A / GSM 3G (European model only)
- WiFi enabled with 802.11 b/g (no n, sadly)
- Bluetooth with A2DP stereo Bluetooth support as well
- ARM Cortex A8 processor (PowerVR SGX 530 GPU + 430MHz C64x+ DSP + ISP)
- 8gb of internal flash memory (Actually usable likely to be in the 7.4 gb range)
- 3.1 in capacitive touch screen, with 320x480 HVGA resolution
- Hardware keyboard, with buttons something along the lines of the Treo Pro
- microUSB connection slot (so it can be connected to your computer and used in Mass Storage Mode; also used for charging)
- 3.5mm headset jack (Woot!)
- 3 megapixel camera, LED Flash, no zoom but extended depth of field
- Accelerometer, Ambient light and proximity sensors
- Audio Support for MP3, AAC, AAC+, AMR, QCELP, and WAV
-Video Support for MPEG-4, H.263, H.264 (will also support standard image formats like GIF, JPEG, PNG, and BMP)
- GPS (Navigation likely to be limited based on Sprint coverage, at least initially due to TeleNav based Sprint Navigation app. However, as far as we know the GPS chip will not be locked down, so third party solutions should be available)
- MMS support (along with SMS and IM, all threaded together, though we do not know for sure what the supported IM clients will be, AIM and GTalk are confirmed)
- Flash Support (not at launch, but within the year)
- Synergy (Push support)
- Google, Facebook, Exchange, and LinkedIn at launch, but you can still connect to your Yahoo, Hotmail, etc, but it’ll likely have to be setup to check for new messages ever hour or something of the like
- Standard array of apps such as Calendar (a really awesome one though), Contacts, Messages, Notes, etc.
- Copy and Paste (take THAT iPhone)
- Tethering support (Bluetooth or USB 2.0)
- Universal Search capability (not sure how deep it actually goes though, such as the ability to locate keywords in memos or saved messages
- Optional Touchstone inductive charger (special battery cover needed)
What’s Missing (at least at launch):
- No Alarm application (to clarify, you will be able to set alarms for calendar appointments, but there is no stand-alone Alarm application).
- No Bluetooth Keyboard support
- microSD card slot
- No PalmOS emulation or backward compatability, so all the old Palm apps won’t work on the Pre
- Software Keyboard (sorry folks, you’re stuck with the hardware one for now)
- No IR support (it’s finally died…)
- Today screen (There is a pseduo-today screen, where you can see your upcoming appointments and notifications. Mark in the comments put it best: There is something sort of like this in the dash board. When you tap on the dash board to expand it the calendar shows the next appointment, email/messaging show unread messages, etc.)
-No Video out connection (bummer)
-No indicator light (that we’ve seen, though one of those lights in the gesture area might do this, but I wouldn’t count on it)
-No Audio or Video Recording (though this reported to be added post launch)
Unknown Features (we haven’t heard much, if anything about these things)
- Docs to Go support (though document VIEWING is supposed to be present at launch
- PEAP authentication support for WiFi
- SDK Availability, while this isn’t Pre specific, we still have no ETA on when this will be released, but we do know it will most likely be AFTER the device launches.
- RAM specifications
- Processor speed
- Battery life (we’ve heard a lot of rumors here, and we know it’s the Centro’s 1150 mAh battery, so I’m going to go out on a limb and say with heavy use, you’ll be charging this puppy nightly)
- YouTube support (I suspect a 3rd party solution will be available eventually)
- Visual Voicemail (not likely at launch, expect a 3rd party solution for this one too)
- Security Options are unknown at this point
- Voice dialing or recognition is unknown, but not likely
- Simultaneous voice and data usage (Increasingly unlikely on Sprint CDMA Pre, still guaranteed on European GSM version).
89 Comments
I can comfirm there most certainly is an alarm.in the Clock App.
We don't actually know the clockspeed that the Cortex A8 will be set to, as far as I know.
during one of the CES demos, the guy said they were looking into adding video recording in one of the first post-launch ROM update
I believe they've said it's only AIM and GTalk support currently though they're looking at adding more before launch
I think IMAP4 support is not known yet, though I would love to get it confirmed.
(and I hope video recording will be added soon. imo it's a mandatory feature)
Additionally, is 'No Bluetooth keyboard support' confirmed? Are the supported BT profiles known?
Unfortunately Palm specifically said at MWC today that deeper layer API for stuff like the bluetooth stack won't be available until a while after the Pre's release.
In fact, the base SDK itself isn't due until shortly after the Pre is released.
Dieter was able to get IMAP4 information today at MWC, and it looks like those 4 are the short list of support formats as of now.
Nanette, a 16GB version is speculated and highly likely at some point, but only 8 gig versions will be available at initial launch. I'd look toward Q3 or Q4 for a 16GB version to be released, but thats pure speculation at this point.
I'm not sure its been confirmed, but I'm sure the Calendar will allow you to assign MP3s as notifiers (I sure hope so anyway). There will not be an actual Alarm Clock application however, which Dieter sadly confirmed today with the Pre folks at MWC. They're looking to 3rd party developers to come through with some rockin alarm apps.
Hey Bryan, CDMA tech has advanced to the point that simultaneous voice and data is now possible, depending on the device. The Treo Pro was supposed to be the first to allow this, but since its technically not been released yet, its still unknown if it works. At least thats what we've been told...
Its only theoretically possible on an EVDO RevA device if there's been a ton of work done on Sprint's backend to allow handling calls as VOIP, passing calls off to VOIP, etc. Taking a guess just based on Sprint's financial situation, I doubt they've undergone that huge undertaking.
Because of that, I'd be with 99% certainty that there won't be simultaneous voice and data.
Here's where the information I have is from: http://www.boygeniusreport.com/2009/01/28/sprint-treo-pro-to-support-sim...
I'll move this one into the "Unknown" category.
Great feedback all, keep it up!
Hey Mark, I'll try to answer to best of my ability:
1) The Camera - From everything we've been told, there is no digital zoom but it does have Extended Depth of Field capability, so its going to be better than say, the iPhones camera, but not as good as other mobile ones (I'm thinking Omnia here).
2) Its hard to answer the GPS question yet, as we don't know how deep the SDK will allow developers to go. I doubt we will see anything right at launch, but until we see the SDK, its hard to know.
3) You *should* be able to, but I can't confirm that yet.
The Flash press release mentioned something about being available for the Pre by end of the year. This may or may not directly mean that Pre owners would get it right away. Could it mean that Palm has to tweak it to integrate into webOS (which may take more time)?? I hope not. I hope that Pre owners will get the final product by end of this year (at the latest).
Based on little hints dropped by Palm, I suspect we might see the Pre on other carriers either late this year, or early 2010. This is all purely speculation however, as we don't know how long the exlusivity contract with Sprint is.
Unfortunately we don't have anything but rumors and speculation at this point. The two most recent dates I've seen thrown around are 3/01 and 3/15, but again, thats not confirmed by Palm in anyway.
What does "GPS (limited based on Sprint coverage)" mean? 'Real' GPS doesn't depend on a phone network. Is the Pre saddled with 'fake' tower-based GPS and not a real GPS chip?
I do need to clarify that a bit more, but as far as we know, the Pre will only support Sprint Navigation at release (TelNav based), so its going to be limited to where Sprint service is available. The GPS chip itself should work everywhere (I hope).
Curious. So, does "only support Sprint Nav (TeleNav)" mean that the GPS chip is disabled? Or that you can't use the GPS chip with TeleNav? Or that you HAVE to use TeleNav with the GPS chip? :) Still kinda murky.
I think I remember a Palm employee saying in a CES demo that the music player CAN play podcasts. No word on audiobooks though...
I don't believe the Pre has microUSB host capabilities
I honestly believe there will be Asian character support. I'm willing to bet Palm had a prototype, which would probably be english-only. Once the Pre's OS gets the finishes touches and multi-language support, I'm confident we'll see Asian character support pop up