Palm’s Spectacular Hail Mary: Pre Smartphone and WebOS Operating System

I’m going to have lots more to say about the demo of Palm’s upcoming Pre smartphone and WebOS that just ended here at CES in Las Vegas in a bit–but for now I’ll just link you to Ryan Block’s coverage at GDGT and share some photos I took. The device looks very impressive and the OS looks exceptional, and neither is an iPhone knockoff. It’s very dangerous to get too excited about a product based on a demo–and Palm is only saying the Pre will ship in the first half of this year (on Sprint). But this is by far the most impressive Palm demo I’ve seen since I first saw the original PalmPilot in 1995. If the Pre lives up to its unveiling today, it’s not hard to imagine being a huge hit and the beginning of a mobile platform that matters as much as the original Palm OS did in its day.

Photos after the jump…