Yesterday night, we didn’t know much of anything about Palm’s new phone based on its next-generation platform for sure. And then Palm unveiled it today at CES–and while there are stray bits and pieces of information that may still be missing–including the price–we now know an awful lot about the phone, even though it’s still months from release. Ultimately, I think this phone is going to be judged primarily on its user interface, which looked damn impressive in today’s demo. But it’s worth recording the specs, facts, and figures we know so far, and comparing them to Apple’s iPhone 3G is irresistible.

Quick summary: The Pre has tons of features in common with the iPhone, but it also has a formidable list of items the iPhone lacks, including a real keyboard, copy and paste, tethering, and a camera with 50% more megapixels. After the jump, a T-Grid comparison.

This T-Grid is a work in progress, subject to expansion and revision:

The phones Palm Pre

Apple iPhone 3G

Platform Palm’s webOS Apple’s iPhone OS Availability “First half of 2009” Now U.S. carrier Sprint AT&T Price TBD; 8GB model only $199 for 8GB model or $299 for 16GB model with two-year contract Data plan TBD, but it’ll qualify for Sprint’s $99.99 “Simply Everything” plan $30 a month for unlimited data; $5 a month extra for 200 text messages Locked? It’ll be Sprint-only Yup, to AT&T Colors Black Black (8GB and 16GB); white (16GB only) Size and weight 3.96” by 2.34” by 0.67”; 4.76 oz. 4.5″ by 2.4″by 0.48″; 4.7 oz. Screen size and resolution 3.1″; 480 by 320 3.5″; 480 by 320 Input Multi-touch touchscreen and slide-out physical keyboard Multi-touch touchscreen with on-screen keyboard Connector Micro USB iPod Dock Connector Accelerometer Yes

Yes

Headphone jack Standard 3.5mm Standard 3.5mm Bluetooth Stereo Monaural Voice dialing Not sure No Third-party apps Voice recording Not sure No Third-party apps MMS Yes No Camera 3 megapixels; LED flash; not sure if it does video 2 megapixels; no flash; no digital zoom; no video Voice CDMA

Quad-band GSM Data EVDO Rev. A HSDPA Use as tethered modem? Yes! Via Bluetooth. AT&T says it’s coming soon Wi-Fi and GPS Got ’em both Got ’em both Battery I haven’t seen any claims about battery life yet; removable 5 hours talk time; 300 hours standby; not removable Copy and paste? Absolutely Tragically, no Web browser Webkit-based browser WebKit-based Safari Web searching Yes, including Google and Wikipedia, at least Yes, via Google or Yahoo E-Mail IMAP, POP MobileMe, GMail, Yahoo Mail, AOL; other services supported through IMAP Calendar Yes, hopefully with to-do list Yes, but no to-do list Microsoft Exchange support Yes Yes Instant messaging Yes–multiple networks supported Only through third-party apps Office Apps Not sure on details, but it looks like DataViz may be providing Documents to Go for it Microsoft Office-compatible viewers, but no editing Maps Yes Yes Turn-by-turn navigation Not sure but I’d guess not, at least as a standard feature No, but may be coming from third party developer(s) Music Music player and Amazon music downloads; supports MP3, AAC, AAC+, AMR, QCELP, WAV iPod player and iTunes Store; supports MP3, AAC (with or without Fairplay), WAV, Apple Lossless, AIFF, VBR formats Video Video player; supports MPEG-4, H.263, and H.264 formats iPod player, YouTube; movies through iTunes Store; supports H.264 and MPEG4 formats Photos Yes Yes Wireless synching Not sure on all the details, but it features ambitious integration, such as putting Facebook portrait photos into your contact list Yes, through MobileMe Desktop synching Not sure on details Yes, through iTunes Application store Palm says there will be one Yes, the iTunes App Store

Any additions, corrections, or questions?

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