The Palm Pre is no iPhone killer, but it may give the Blackberry a run for its money. The iPhone 3G S and the Palm Pre are in a dead heat when comparing features and price. While the iPhone offers more multi-media features and a greater ecosystem of applications offered through iTunes, the Palm Pre is truly multi-tasking and offers greater messaging features. The iPhone offers more storage capacity with the 16 GB iPhone costing the same $199 as the 8 GB Palm Pre while the 8 GB iPhone only costs $99 and the 32 GB iPhone costs only $100 more than the Palm Pre. However, the Palm Pre offers a much cheaper data plan through Sprint at $90 a month compared with the $149.00 a month AT&T plan.In the end, the choice between the two comes down to user preferences and priorities. The iPhone is a win if you are looking for a good multi-media playback device. The Palm Pre, as was also the case with the Blackberry, will appeal to those users more concerned with email and messaging services.
So the real question is how the Palm Pre stacks up against the Blackberry. The Blackberry Curve and Pearl offer a tried and true platform with a superior OS and cheaper plans offered by multiple carriers, so the Palm Pre has a lot of catching up to do. However, by incorporating a lot of iPhone-like features such as a touch screen, and focusing heavily on messaging, social website interactions, and cloud computing, the Palm Pre has set its sites on filling the void between the iPhone and the Blackberry. As it stands now, the Palm Pre remains a third player on the smart phone front, but if Blackberry falters (as it did with its Storm) and fails to keep up (BB needs to come up with a touch-screen, multi-media rich phone that works), the Palm Pre may just capture the number two spot.
