Smartphone Wars: Palm Pre versus iPhone versus BlackBerry Storm 2 versus HTC Hero and the winner is...(5)

For instance, iPhone scores over Palm Pre in terms of onboard memory. Unlike Palm Pre, which comes shipped with 8GB memory as standard, iPhone 3GS (the latest model of iPhone) comes in two variant - 16GB and 32GB. This is a big plus for iPhone as both the phones lack a memory card slot to expand on its built-in storage.

Moreover, while Palm Pre has only a 3.1-megapixel camera (with fixed focus) and LED flash, the newer iPhone viz. iPhone 3GS is also equipped with 3.15-megapixel camera but with auto-focus and video recording capability (at 30 fps).

Besides, the apps available with Palm Pre are much less when compared to those of iPhone. While Apple Inc. offers iPhone users access to its legendary AppStore where the users can find over 90,000 games and applications, both for free and a small cost, Palm Pre has only about 100 in its apps store (though it includes some cool apps like Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, WeatherBug Elite and Checkers Pro priced between 99 cents and $9.95).

And, never mind that iTunes syncing sometimes doesn't work on Palm Pre, the media apps themselves leave much to be desired. For instance, rather than picking up from where one stopped, the Pre would always restart a podcast from the beginning each time one quits and relaunched the music player. And, though Palm Pre has plenty of onscreen real estate for controlling media, it only has small rewind, play and fast forward buttons at the bottom of the touchscreen and no playhead to drag to a certain point in a podcast.

Also, Palm Pre's web browser, though light years ahead of Windows Mobile and BlackBerry, is just slightly behind the iPhone. It is a little sluggish when scrolling while the smaller screen makes reading pages a bit harder.

Other letdowns include:

* The menu for each app is located in the top left corner of the screen, and is incredibly easy to miss (in both sense of the phrase);

* When importing your data, you have to enter in your details for contacts, calendar and email separately - it does not recognise a Google account and import all three services at one time;

* While the main screen and menu feel smooth, once a few apps are open the device can be slow to react. A faster processor is recommended;