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We’ve been lucky enough to have two hands-on sessions (that’s two sessions, not one session with two hands on… never mind) with Palm’s new flagship phone since it launched in the UK last week, and both have been nothing short of impressive. Released in the US back in June, some of the initial buzz surrounding the handset seems to have subsided somewhat, whilst O2’s initial sales of the iPhone-challenger have, unofficially, been underwhelming. Nevertheless, as a veteran of two Treo mobile handsets and a Tungsten T3 (yes, it was me, I bought it), aside from being an iPhone 3G owner now, I was very excited finally to get my hands on Palm’s latest, and perhaps last, shot at the mobile phone top spot, and put it through its paces.

First Impressions of the Pre

First impressions are that it feels very solid in the Palm (sorry) of the hand and its smooth contours are reminiscent of a smooth pebble – or, less poetically, an oversized Minstrel (other chocolate snacks are available). Whilst the screen is sumptuous, it’s not quite as large at the iPhone family’s, but the colours are so sharp and the screen so crisp that it’s not a worry for commuters catching up on the previous night’s Strictly Come Dine with Me Factor.

Palm Pre - It's Pretty Damn Pretty

In use, the capacitive touchscreen is beautifully prod, stroke and gesturable, and moving between screens with a deft finger swish is intuitive and generally responsive. However, when lots of applications are open, I did find that sometimes the OS (no less than Palm’s brand-new webOS) was a little slow to act but, frankly, since Apple upgraded iPhone’s software to all-singing-all-dancing 3.0, my iPhone 3G feels just as annoyingly sluggish at times. The camera, on the other hand, is just about passable with a simple but harsh flash trumping the iPhone, but a lack of video mode is a miss.

The Pre’s integrated keyboard, one of the main deviations from Apple’s fruit, feels good and solid, as does the sliding mechanism, and may win-over many who were unconvinced by the iPhone’s virtual keyboard. Whilst the Pre’s keys are on the small-side, I’m sure within no-time they’ll become second nature, resulting in speedier and more reliable email bashing than the iPhone’s touchscreen tapper.

It’s great, but who’s it for?

Undoubtedly, the Palm Pre is an stunning piece of technical engineering and a device which, for once, also gets big brownie points for aesthetics: to our minds it’s the closest any manufacturer has come to matching Apple in both substance and style. However, where Palm may ultimately fall over is their positioning of the Pre: is it a practical business phone, or a must-have style icon? Clearly, Blackberry have played hard in the business market, and have been clear winners now for what seems like a decade; Apple, on the other hand, have pitched their iDevices at an altogether younger, more style conscious youth generation for whom music, movies and gaming are super important. The Pre seems to fit into the middle – technically, it could be perfectly capable of filling both our leisure and business time, but Palm’s marketing (what there has been of it: comparatively little compared to RIM and the Jobs-wagon) seems very much to step on the toes of both Blackberry and Apple. Palm’s devices have always had a fervent and vocal, but at best niche following – if they’re to succeed playing with the big boys, they’ll need to up their game, target their market and raise their profile.

1G Palm Pre

But back to the tech to finish: something to remember here is that what we’re seeing is first-gen kit – after all, first-gen iPhones were flawed with obvious omissions – and I just can’t wait to see what Palm’s engineers have since been working on squeezing into their Palm Pre 2G. Hmn, now that’s quite a catchy name isn’t it…