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Last year was a big year for Palm, with the Pre announced at CES in January, and the Pixi announced in the fall. We've finally got our thoughts on the Pixi, from the webOS operating system to the Touchstone charging technology and everything in between. Get the rundown after the break.

The Palm Pixi is a somewhat slower version of the Pre in a candybar form-factor. It has a slightly smaller 2.63-inch screen with a 400x320 resolution (with 18-bit color), compared to the Pre's 480x320 resolution 3.1-inch screen (with 24-bit color). You can barely notice the difference in color, but the cramped screen resolution is definitely noticeable. On the front is the aforementioned 2.63-inch screen, a hidden LED strip for navigation, and a chiclet-style QWERTY keyboard. The right side has a volume rocker, a silent/ringer switch and a micro USB port under a flip-down door while the left side of the phone is left empty. On the back you'll find a 2-megapixel camera with LED flash and two speakers. The Pixi also has 8GB of internal storage for media storage.

Speaking of that hidden LED strip, you won't notice it's there until you swipe your finger across it, and that's when a subtle light beams across it.

If you aren't familiar with the webOS, it's Palm's latest operating system (they don't use that old-fangled Palm OS anymore). It features multitasking, unlike the iPhone OS, using a system called "Cards". Bring up each application "card" by swiping up on the gesture area. Flick a card off the screen and it's closed. Unlike the Palm OS, there's no way of syncing your data to your computer. Instead, webOS uses cloud services such as Gmail, Yahoo, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Exchange ActiveSync. I honestly can't remember how many times I had issues with that crappy Palm Desktop application anyway.

Many criticize Palm for how slow webOS is, but only with time will it get better. When I received my Pixi review unit before the new year, it was sluggish and slow. Since then, Palm released two system updates, which improved the Pre's performance somewhat, but it was still considerably slow. The keyboard however, is surprisingly good for how tiny it is. Palm has used this kind of keyboard for a while, but it feels more tactile than the Pre keyboard did.

The pitfall of the Palm Pre and Pixi are the third-party apps, which I feel are very important to any mobile platform. The Palm App Catalog only has around 300 applications, while the Apple App Store has nearly 100,000. People will say that, "Oh, Palm will catch up." Yeah, maybe in five years when Apple has already dominated the market. Too bad, they already have. I do love webOS interface. It's fresh, it's new, and it's easy to develop for, but it just needs more apps, period.

During our review, we also tested the Touchstone charging kit with the Pixi. The Touchstone charger uses inductive coil technology, which generates a small oscillating electromagnetic field between the cover of the device, and the dock. It's almost magic in the way it works, no need to find the cord to charge your phone, just set it on top and it begins charging. The dock also has a cool "Micro-Suction" material on the bottom, which sticks to your desk or other surface without leaving any residue.

Call quality using the Sprint EVDO Rev. A network was good, although callers on the receiving end reported hearing a slight echo in a quiet environment. Speakerphone quality was decent, although it sounded somewhat muddled on our end. The Pixi lasts nearly a day on a single charge, however your mileage may vary depending on how many applications are running and if GPS is turned on.

The Palm Pixi is available on the Sprint network for $99.99.

As of this review, Palm has introduced the Pre Plus and the Pixi Plus, both for the Verizon Wireless network. We'll test those as soon as review units become available.

Pros

• Lightweight and slim design.
• Great QWERTY keyboard.
• Fast EVDO network.
• Touchstone inductive charging technology.

Cons

• webOS still considerably slow.
• Third-party app catalog still small.

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