Friday, 18 May 2012
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Palm Pre 2

The Palm Pre 2 is an update to last year's original Palm Pre, and it is the first major announcement from Palm's new owners HP, featuring the brand new webOS 2.0 operating system.

The original Pre was hailed by many people as an "iPhone killer".. but of course, it wasn't. Although the handset and operating system were pretty good, sales were very weak and Palm was eventually acquired by HP earlier this year. Many people speculated that the real prize was Palm's webOS platform and that HP might ditch the smartphone line altogether.

However, the Pre is back.. for now at least. Cosmetically very similar to the original, the biggest changes are a faster processor, better camera and the refreshed operating system.

The Pre was an impressive piece of kit when it was announced, but a lot has happened since then. The iPhone 4, HTC Desire, Motorola Milestone and Nokia N8 have all moved expectations onwards, and compared to these the Pre 2's 3.1" 320 x 480 pixel display and 5 megapixel camera seem a bit mundane.

What does set the Pre 2 apart most of all is the webOS operating system. Featuring full multitasking and a highly polished and usable interface, webOS 2.0 also comes with improved support for social networking, messaging and there's also a beta version of Adobe Flash 10.1 for rich web-based multimedia. The new 1GHz processor promises to make a very responsive operating system even better.

Palm Pre 2 The first carrier to get the Pre 2 is (somewhat surprisingly) the SFR network in France. Verizon will follow later in the US, and the Pre 2 will also be launched in Canada. We suspect that other carriers might want to see how the Pre 2 sells before committing themselves.

There will be at least two versions available - a CDMA-based handset for Verizon and one or two GSM-based devices for everyone else. The Pre 2 will doubtless feature 3.5G support in the GSM version, and it also packs 802.11b and g WiFi. One unusual feature is that you can use the Pre 2 as a WiFi router for up to 5 devices.. another unusual feature is the Touchstone wireless charging dock.

The Palm Pre 2 also has GPS, the 5 megapixel camera has flash and video capture capabilities, there's Bluetooth 2.1, 16GB of non-expandable Flash memory and a slide-out QWERTY keyboard. The whole thing weighs 145 grams and measures 101 x 60 x 17mm. Talktime on 3G is quoted as being up to 5 hours with a maximum of 14 days standby time.

Although no European carriers except SFR have announced that they are carrying the Pre 2, we expect it to be available as a SIM-free device through specialist retailers. SFR should have the Pre 2 this month.

We don't know how much the Palm Pre 2 will sell for.. existing Pre Plus units have been very heavily discounted to about €300 in order to try to shift them, the original Pre comes in even cheaper at about €250. We suspect that HP will try to pitch these at the €400 plus mark, but expect to see heavy discounts if sales are sluggish.
 
HTC Gratia

The HTC Gratia is designed to be a relatively affordable Android handset, and its functionally almost identical to the HTC Legend announced earlier this year.

The Legend wasn't exactly a great sales success. When compared to the HTC Desire, the Legend seemed overpriced considering its modest specification. Out of the two, the Legend was certainly the better looking phone.. but the Desire is the handset that HTC can't make enough of.

HTC watchers may recognise the Gratia, as this is basically the European version of the HTC Aria which was sold only in Asia. The main difference between the Gratia and the Aria is that the newer handset runs Android 2.2 rather than 2.1.

Featuring a 3.2" 320 x 480 pixel touchscreen, 3.5G support and WiFi, GPS, Bluetooth, a microSD slot, and a 5 megapixel camera, the HTC Gratia is a mid-market Android phone, the Gratia also has a 600MHz processor and 384MB of RAM. This means that the Gratia is better than the HTC Wildfire but not as good as the Desire. We would expect the price to fall somewhere between the Wildfire and Desire too.. our guess is that the Gratia should retail for about €350 SIM-free.

As is typical with HTC Android phones, the Gratia runs HTC Sense on top of the standard Android user interface, and it also comes with HTC's Friendstream application to help you keep track of your friends and manage updates on social networking sites.

We understand that the HTC Gratia should be available from November onwards in black, white and green colour schemes.
 
Nokia C5-03

The Nokia C5-03 is a low cost touchscreen phone, offering 3.5G support, WiFi and GPS in a package that should retail for about €170 before tax and subsidy.

Similar in specification to the C6-01 (and not to be confused with other "C5" Nokia phones) the C5-03 makes some compromises along the way to keep the price down.

Perhaps the most important difference between the C5-03 and C6-01 is the display. Both handsets have a 3.2" 360 x 640 pixel panel, but the C5-03 uses a cheaper resistive touchscreen rather than the capacitive one in the C6-01. Resistive panels are much less responsive than capacitive ones, something that you are more likely to notice if you use a cheap touchscreen after being used to a high-end device. You can use the C5-03 with an optional stylus though, which might suit some users.

Nokia C5-03 The operating system is the older Symbian^1 platform (the familiar S60 5th Edition used in several past Nokia touchscreens). On the back is a 5 megapixel camera with fairly basic video capture capabilities that max out at 640 x 352 pixels at 15 fps. The C5-03's camera doesn't come with a flash function either.

Internal memory is just 40MB, but Nokia do include a 2GB microSD card in the standard sales package, and the C5-03 can support cards of up to 16GB. The Nokia C5-03 is a 3.5G phone with HSDPA download speeds of up to 10.2Mbps and uploads of up to 2Mbps, plus WiFi connectivity.

The C5-03 also comes with GPS and is supplied with Ovi Maps Navigation, so it should make a pretty good personal navigation device. There's also a good quality media player, FM radio and 3.5mm audio connector.

Nokia C5-03 Software includes the usual set of Symbian S60 applications plus social networking and web mail support, and the integrated web browser should work well with the high-resolution display.

The C5-03 is a lot lighter than its more upmarket sibling, coming in at just 93 grams rather than the C6-01's 131 grams. Physically, both units are roughly the same size with the C5-03 coming in at 106 x 51 x 14mm. The C5-03's 1000 mAh battery is quoted as giving up to 4.5 hours talktime and 24 days standby time on 3G.

Compared to the C6-01, the best thing about the C5-03 is the price. Nokia are pitching the C5-03 at just €170 before sales tax and carrier subsidy, compared to €260 for the C6-01. But in our view, the C6-01 is a much better handset and is definitely worth the extra cost over the rather more basic C5-03.

Nokia say that the C5-03 should be available at the end of the year in Graphite Black, Lime Green, Petrol Blue and Aluminium Grey colour schemes.
 
HTC 7 Trophy

Heading exclusively for the Vodafone network in Europe, the HTC 7 Trophy is one of several Windows Phone 7 devices announced by HTC and rivals today.

The Trophy has a slightly bigger screen but downgraded camera compared to the HTC 7 Mozart, and it is pretty close in specification to the rival LG Optimus 7.

Inside is a 1GHz Snapdragon processor, 512MB RAM, 8GB of flash memory, 3.5G support and WiFi. The camera is a 5 megapixel unit with Flash, and the Trophy is capable of HD video recording. The Trophy also comes with GPS, plus Bluetooth and USB connectivity.

At 119 x 62 x 12mm and weighing in at 140 grams, the HTC 7 Trophy is fairly typical for a device of this type, and it should fit easily into a pocket or bag.

Launching later this month, the Trophy will join a glut of similarly specified Windows Phone 7 devices, all looking for customers. And although the radically different approach to designing an operating system may win plaudits, the relative lack of applications may put people off.
 
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