The Pre plus has a nice design that is rather bulky. With a large display coming in at a formidable size of 3.1″ with a resolution of 320 x 480 pixels which won’t be displaying any blu-ray quality video, but it certainly gets the job done and aids in their fight for a more prolonged battery life. From there the device slides up (In a more curved fashion I might add, resembling perhaps some of the older home phones in design) to expose a full QWERTY keyboard that is optimal for texts and emails. With a minimalist exterior to keep the phone looking clean, efficient, and productive, the top of the device is where you will find the power button, heaphone jack, and vibrate switch. On both the right and left sides of the handset you will find the sound toggle and charging port.

Carriers: Palm	Retail Price: $
Manufactured by:	Contact Price: $

Pros: Upgraded keyboard that is far more tactile and less spongy, doubling of the RAM (for you mass window openers), it’s now on Verizon, and it’s success may justify a future iPhone/Nexus One competitor

Cons: It is essentially the same phone as the Pre. If you didn’t mind the keyboard, and don’t need 10 windows open, it’s not much of a Plus for you. If you didn’t like the Pre, you won’t like the Pre Plus.

The Pre plus has a nice design that is rather bulky. With a large display coming in at a formidable size of 3.1″ with a resolution of 320 x 480 pixels which won’t be displaying any blu-ray quality video, but it certainly gets the job done and aids in their fight for a more prolonged battery life. From there the device slides up (In a more curved fashion I might add, resembling perhaps some of the older home phones in design) to expose a full QWERTY keyboard that is optimal for texts and emails. With a minimalist exterior to keep the phone looking clean, efficient, and productive, the top of the device is where you will find the power button, heaphone jack, and vibrate switch. On both the right and left sides of the handset you will find the sound toggle and charging port. On the bottom left hand corner of the device is where you will find the microphone located. The navigational gesture area of the original Pre has been replaced with the input option that was first introduced on the Pixi and is obviously becoming a more popular design with it’s repeated implementation. Located on the back of the device is the 3 megapixel camera with the LED flash and speaker. The battery cover includes the ability to work with the optional touchstone charging dock. As previously stated, before the upgrade to the memory on the plus version of the phone has brought the storage up to 16 GB, which is twice the amount of the first Pre that only had 8GB. The Pre Plus has a sleek and well designed aesthetic appeal that seems to be taking a step in the right direction for the future of the Palm future releases.

Using the Pre plus is where webOS comes into play, and where you will start to see some advantages the device brings to the table over other handsets. The Pre Plus offers a innovative search option which allows users to initiate a search in the search query. After this is performed the feature automatically searches programs and contacts. If the device doesn’t match anything in the text to the device, the Pre Plus has the ability to search via Google, Google Maps, Wiki, and Twitter. Considering this is a new feature right now the Pre Plus only search options are programs and contacts, but webOS developers promise more are in the works.

You will find that menus on the device are clean and organized. There are tally marks found on the bottom left of the display to show the user what menu page their are currently on. Like the iPhone or Nexus One, a flick to the right or left brings the user to other pages. The most commonly used applications will be found on your first page or your homescreen. You can move around downloaded apps from the first menu, to other pages if you want.

Messaging is where the Pre Plus stands out. Thread messaging (displaying both sides of the conversation on one screen simultaneously and chronologically) is to one of the many features that helps make the Pre stand out in messaging. You will also find IM clients, the integration of messaging mediums was implemented into the device perfectly. Its good to see Palm can do something right, and make it really stand out from the competition.

Pulling from all angles of the spectrum here, the Palm Pre Plus is in a tough market in terms of competition. The sleek design and simplicity certainly appeal to some, but the improvements to webOS are the deal maker here. The addition of threaded messaging is huge as they are one of the few that have utilized this feature. While the battery life may not be as long as some hoped for, it is capable of remaining charged in stand-by for up to 350 hours and the 5 hours of talk time is pretty standard among smart phones. The Pre Plus may not come with the long line of hype that Apple and Android are producing, or the reputation for business RIM(BlackBerry) has, but they’re making quite the attempt with raw functionality and ease of use along with a vibrant display and top notch messaging features.

The new release from Palm that brought to the market the Pre plus and Pixi plus was a giant leap for Palms mobile handset business. It seems webOS is catching on slowly, but it is making its way up the chart. Since the release of the Plus version users will have better overall mobile experiences on their cell phone device. Being offered on one of the more reliable carriers in the US should help Palms cause, lets hope there won’t be to much friction along the way to becoming a real competitor in this space becoming more and more occupied with bottom tier affordable devices or the extreme opposite of top end smartphones such as the iPhone and Nexus One. It will be interesting to see where Palm goes from here, and if they can continue their growth when faced with all the competition.