HP is putting its acquisition of Palm to work with the Palm Pre 2 handset, which is due out in France this Friday and headed to Verizon “in the coming months,” according to the press release.
The phone will be the first to run the webOS 2.0 interface, which sports a similar look and feel to the original but adds multitasking, HTML5 web browser with Flash 10.1 support, streamlined social networking updates from multiple accounts, and a host of other new additions.
As for the hardware itself, the Pre 2 features the same slide-up keyboard and 3.1-inch 320×480 touchscreen found on the original Pre and Pre Plus. In fact, the only huge differences between the Pre Plus and the Pre 2 appear to be that the Pre 2 has a 5-megapixel camera versus the Pre Plus’ 3-megapixel camera, and the Pre 2 has a 1GHz processor.
Both the Pre and Pre Plus feature a 600MHz processor underclocked to 500MHz, so the speed increase should theoretically be quite noticeable. Also, both the Pre and Pre Plus appear to be getting the webOS 2.0 upgrade in the coming months, so if you already own one of those devices you may be safe to wait and see how the new operating system runs on your handset.
No word on pricing or exact availability for the Pre 2 yet.
More on Techland:
HP: Phones with Palm’s webOS Interface Due ‘Early Next Year’