Palm pre forum

Palm has started a week-long discussion board on Facebook, where questions and comments can be sent to Matt Crowley, Palm’s Product Manager. There are several interesting questions and responses so far, including Matt chiming in on Palm’s decision to forgo expandable storage on their new handset. Check out after the break for quotes from Matt on expandable storage and more. The decision to not give the Pre expandable memory may be more of a problem than Palm anticipates, as it is a deal-breaker to some users. As it stands, the Pre will ‘mount’ as a mass-storage USB device, allowing transfer of music/video/pictures and other media for use on the device. Matt insists that Palm’s ‘Cloud,’ and the internet in general, “is a BIG microSD card.” This may be true for contacts, calendar, YouTube and internet radio; however I don’t see many people able to store a sizable music/video library on 8GB of fixed storage for use on a commute by train or plane where connectivity isn’t necessarily available. In Palm’s defense, they have given the typical user quite a bit of fixed storage to play with. The question remains, though, will Palm introduce a higher capacity Pre or other webOS device shortly after the Pre’s release?

The discussion goes on with inquiries to the handset’s lack of IR (infrared) communication, something that has been included on Palm devices since the Palm III. Also touched on by Mr. Crowley are the points of stressing the design to make Pre one-handed operational, how their brand of ‘Synergy’ will actually work by aggregating multiple sources of contact and calendar data, and what types of third party software Palm already knows will be available.