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Best Price on the Palm Pre v. Best Price on the BlackBerry Bold

Let the games begin!

The Bold and the Pre are deadlocked in competition. Palm’s once prominent place on the peak of the PDA mountain has been severely lessened by the advent of RIM’s BlackBerry smartphone, but with the release of the Pre, Palm makes a valiant effort to reclaim their position atop the heap.

Both the Bold and the Pre have excellent designs, and weigh about the same (about 133 grams).  There is no advantage there. The style of the casing is really a matter of personal choice.

As far as the display goes, the Pre wins in sheer size because the Bold makes room for its classic BlackBerry full-QWERTY keyboard. However, the resolution is the same at 360 x 640.  When it comes to colors available, the Pre wins hands down: 16M versus the Bold’s paltry 65k.

When it comes to the keyboard, the Bold wins easily. The full QWERTY keyboard is a breeze to use. The Palm Pre has a slide-out QWERTY keyboard; however, the keys are a bit small. If you have large fingers, this might present to you. The only way to be sure is to try the keyboard out with yourself. The Bold, though, functions well no matter your finger girth.

When it comes to memory, the field is more or less even. The Pre has an internal memory capacity of 8GB, with no room for expansion. The Bold has only 1GB of internal memory; however, the Bold does make room for an 8GB memory card via an external slot. The Bold wins by 1GB. In essence, this is a tie.

The connectivity options are similar. The BlackBerry Bold works as a Quad Band 850/900/1800/1900 phone, capable of communicating over 3G HSDPA 850/1900/2100 frequency bands. The 3G speed support rises up to 3.6 MBps, plus there is also an option for GPRS, EDGE and WiFi connectivity. It also has Bluetooth A2DP support and USB Connectivity. The Palm Pre is also a Quad Band phone and has 3G HSDPA capability of the common frequency bands. There is also an additional option for GPRS, EDGE, WiFi connectivity and Bluetooth with A2DP Support, not to mention USB connectivity via micro USB.  Both have superb connection options, and both sport WiFi, which has become the required standard for all PDA smartphones.

The Web OS and the BlackBerry operating systems are both very functional and business-use friendly.  The Bold employs a 624 MHz Processor. The Pre uses the same processor as the iPhone 3GS – the ARM Cortex A8 Processor clocks at 600 MHz, with a PowerVR SGX 530 processor for handling the graphics. For graphics purposes, the Pre far outpaces the Bold. However, if you are primarily a business user, this capacity means little.

When it comes to the camera, the Palm Pre far outclasses the BlackBerry Bold. The Bold has a mere 2.0 megapixel camera with no autofocus capabilities. On the other hand, the Pre sports a 3.15 megapixel camera, boasting enhanced fixed focus and an LED flash. When it comes to taking a quick snapshot, the Bold may be sufficient. However, it does not come close to the Pre in photo quality.