SMARTPHONE BATTLE: MOTOROLA DROID VS PALM PRE

The Palm Pre is one of the best products to be launched in 2009. It heralded the exciting webOS platform and is considered as one of the top rivals of the Apple iPhone 3GS. However, a new device has arrived in town. The Motorola DROID is a high-end Android powered smartphone that's being sold by Verizon Wireless. This new smartphone is expected to make a big splash on the smartphone market.

I thought it would be interesting to compare these flagship phones to see how well they match up with each other. Consumers who are looking for an alternative to the iPhone or BlackBerry smartphones might find this information useful.

Design/ Form Factor: These smartphones share a few design elements such as the touchscreen display and the physical QWERTY keypad. However, the shape of both handsets differ widely. The Pre has a pebble shaped body while the DROID sports a rectangular body. The DROID is also bigger(116 x 60 x 14 mm) and heavier (169g) than the first webOS smartphone ( 101 x 60 x 17 mm and 135g).

Touchscreen Display: The DROID has a larger capacitive touchscreen display which measures at 3.7 inches and provides 480 x 854 px of resolution, accelerometer, proximity sensor and ambient light sensor. The Pre sports a 3.1-inch 24-bit color touch screen display with 320 x 480 px resolution, accelerometer, proximity sensor, ambient light sensor and more than 16 million colors.

User Interface: The Palm Pre sports the webOS UI which features cards that allows users to flip through multiple applications and open and move easily between them. the webOS user interface also offers gestures, notifications, quick launcher and Universal Search. The Motorola DROID UI is essentially the same user interface that comes with any regular, non-custom Android handset. However, the Android 2.0 Eclair provided a few subtle changes and enhancements to the UI including integration with Facebook and Twitter, for status updates and profile images through calls, messages and address book.

Price: The first webOS device is currently being sold for $149 with a contract and $550 at full price. The Motorola's Android phone for Verizon is a bit more expensive at $199 with a contract and $599 at full price.

Camera: The Pre carries a decent 3.2-megapixel camera with an LED flash that takes detailed pictures especially on the phone's high-resolution screen. However, the DROID has a more powerful shooter. It sports a 5.0-megapixel camera with 4X zoom, dual-LED flash, auto-focus and DVD-quality recording (up to 24 fps; D1 720 x 480 px resolution).

Application Store: The Palm' Pre's webOS App Catalog is starting to come into its own with more than 300 free and paid applications. However, the Android Market for the DROID is a lot more mature with more than 10,000 applications.

Memory: The Palm Pre offers 8 GB of built-in memory and lacks any sort of expandable memory. On the other hand, the DROID offers 256 MB of built-in memory which can be expanded to 32 GB via microSD cards.

Battery Life: The Pre offers up to 5 hours of 3G talk time and 300 hrs standby with its Li-Ion battery. On the other hand, Verizon's 1st Android powered-device provided up to 6.4 hours of 3G talk time and 270 hrs standby on its 1400 mAh Li-Ion battery.

Rate Plans: The unlimited cell phone plan for the DROID costs $149.99 and the $109. 99 for the average plan. The Palm Pre has cheaper plans at $99.99 for unlimited and $89.99 for the average plan.