HP Pre 3 is nearly too big to hold in hands-on video
We just about manage to wrap our hands around the goliath that is the HP Pre 3 for this hands-on video. Hit play to get a sense of just how ginormous it is.
- Association of Online Publisher Award winner for Best use of Video
The HP Veer was far too small and fiddly for our big, chubby Crave fingers to caress, so we had to switch to its much bigger brother, the HP Pre 3. This handset is quite monstrously sized and has both a large touchscreen and a slide out keyboard -- plenty for us to poke and prod in this hands-on video.
The HP Pre 3 follows on from the Palm Pre 2 -- the Palm name was dropped like a hot motherboard after HP bought the company -- and has the biggest screen and keyboard of the entire Pre family.
The keyboard is well proportioned and while some people may find typing on the rubbery keys a little awkward, we found it fairly easy to get used to. The 3.6-inch screen acts as both a touchscreen and keyboard, making the Pre 3 reminiscent of the BlackBerry Torch.
The Pre 3 is running webOS rather than the more popular Android or Windows Phone 7, for example. The operating system is neat and user-friendly and features 'cards' that show your currently running apps.
Running webOS, however, means you won't have access to anything like the same number of apps that Android or iPhone users have. There are currently only 8,000 apps available for webOS, as opposed to the 300,000 or so available on iOS. Still, the 1.4GHz processor found inside the Pre 3 should mean that the ones that are available work like a charm.
If being the odd one out at the mobile operating system party is your thing, don't get too excited for a while, as this thing isn't released in the US until the summer and we will probably have to wait longer still for a UK release.
For more info on the HP Pre 3, check out our full preview here.