farbot.com

Engadget and CNet have weighed in with rather detailed Palm Pre reviews and both give the Pre very high marks for its primary innovations that had been talked up to date: multitasking and notifications.

Oftentimes in reviews for new gadgets it's not just what they are saying about the device but how they say it in the context of what it is up against. For the Pre, context means the iPhone and it seems to pass with flying colors. All of this praise isn't universal, especially from Engadget -- they do say the software needs a bit of work, and they hold out the rather naive hope or implication that Palm will be patching it frequently to clean these things up. Come on now, Engadget. Haven't you learned to take a device at what it ships with today versus what the promises are for the future?

I'm very excited about the device's success with reviewers so far, and I look forward to it getting the kinks worked out before it hits other carriers in 2010. This will be a defining time for Palm. If they can patch things up quickly and effectively and deal swiftly and decisively with any problems that come up with such a new product, and if they can deliver an SDK quickly that developers enjoy, it could very well be the device that saves their corporate neck, and one I would love to have on hand.