Five of my favorite things about the Palm Pre

On Monday, I asked readers to tell me about their experience with the Palm Pre, and the response has been overwhelmingly positive. Not surprisingly, the Palm WebOS received most of the accolades for its multitasking abilities and integration of contacts and calendars from various accounts. Others mentioned good call quality, fast performance, and sleek user interface, and the list goes on.

It's been almost a week since I've been using the Pre and some of the newness has worn off. Yet, there are still times where I say "wow" and see where the smartphone stands out from the crowd, so I've rounded up five of my favorite things about the Pre. These are features that I personally find the most useful. Obviously, everyone has different uses and needs for their smartphone, so I'll be asking you to share your list at the end of the post but for now, here's my top five.

1. Multitasking: This is an obvious one, but really, how can you not mention the multitasking abilities of the Pre? While there are ways to switch between apps on other devices, such as Windows Mobile and Google Android smartphones, it's not as sophisticated or as easy as the Pre. Having programs running in the background while working in another and being able to easily switch between them is huge and the Pre's killer feature. It just comes down to a better user experience and smarter device management.
2. Synergy: In one of my previous blogs, one reader commented about how the name Synergy is complete marketing speak. Agreed (and it's one word that makes me particularly cringe when used in the corporate world), but damn if I don't love this feature. I always thought of myself as an organized person, but turns out, I'm not really. Over the years, I've created numerous e-mail accounts so I have contacts all over the place. The Pre helps me bring them all together in a couple of easy steps, gets rid of duplicates, and imports contacts photos.

I understand there are some who don't want this type of mass integration (I ran into this problem myself when syncing my Facebook contacts), and I think Palm needs to find a better way to filter or "unlink" contacts, but overall, I found more value in this feature than not. Plus, I think Synergy is most useful in calendar synchronization. I don't put personal appointments in my Outlook calendar so having my Google and Outlook calendars merged into one and color-coded by account has been wonderful.

Camera: Despite the lack of editing options and video recording, the Pre's 3-megapixel camera is really impressive. I've tested numerous camera phones with 3.2-megapixel cameras or higher and have been disappointed by the image quality. Either the colors are washed out or there's some orange hue or hazy effect that softens the sharpness. However, I have none of those complaints with the Pre. Images were sharp and colors were vibrant; plus there's very little shutter lag.