The iPhone seems to have a good, strong hold on the touchscreen Smartphone market, but the only way from the top is down, and now Palm have released their version of what they believe to be the latest iPhone killer.� The Palm Pre is set to be released to supposedly revolutionise the methodology of the touchscreen Smartphone as Palm originally did back when the company was leading the market with its original Palm handsets.

The Pre is said to have 8GB of storage and will come with a multi-touch feature that is always helpful when you want to touch two things on the screen for example.� As Palm themselves say, the Pre “will redefine how people use Smartphones” but let’s be honest, so far it sounds just like an iPhone.�

But apparently it is nothing like the iPhone – Palm is saying it’s the best Smartphone since sliced bread.� And if Palm’s shares have anything to say about it, they’re saying that it is the best thing in the Smartphone market.� Palm’s shares have plummeted hard since� the final quarter of 2007, falling by around 75 per cent.� However, with the announcement of this release the price of the shares has taken a massive leap again, rising by 35 per cent.� Clearly, the market feels that this little Pre is going to revolutionise the world of Smartphones, too.

The phone also has a full QWERTY keypad that slides down from behind the face of the handset, a nice little feature, although one reserved for those of you out there with pins for fingers.� This is where the Pre starts to pass the iPhone in terms of technology because along with the QWERTY pad, the Pre is kitted out with a 3 MP camera, while the iPhone suffers with its poor 2 MP camera.� The rest is fairly similar to the iPhone, as the Pre supports a 3.5 mm headphone jack, 3G connectivity and WiFi.

A nice feature that the Pre gives its users is the ‘Cards’ system, where one press of a button brings up all the open windows on the handset and allows the user to flick through the windows and select the one they want to see.� It has been done before on both Windows and Mac computers, but it is an interesting feature to slap on a phone and could be quite helpful when flicking through email and MP3s.

Maybe Palm has released this iPhone threat because they have on board an executive chairman that they pinched from Apple.� Jon Rubinstein found his way to Palm from Apple after having an apparently big hand in making the iPod player such a legend.� Now Rubinstein is applying his skills at Palm in the same unique way.

“The opportunity is to take all of that information wherever it is and put it all in one place - in your hands,” said Rubinstein.� “The next wave is likely mobile devices and Palm’s DNA is mobile and always has been.”

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