The HP Pre 3, styled as Pre
3 , is a
touchscreen
A touchscreen or touch screen is the assembly of both an input ('touch panel') and output ('display') device. The touch panel is normally layered on the top of an electronic visual display of an information processing system. The display is ofte ...
slider
Slider or Sliders may refer to:
Arts
* K.K. Slider, a fictional character within the ''Animal Crossing'' franchise
* '' The Slider'', a 1972 album by T. Rex
* ''Sliders'' (TV series), an American science fiction and fantasy television series
* ...
smartphone
A smartphone is a portable computer device that combines mobile telephone and computing functions into one unit. They are distinguished from feature phones by their stronger hardware capabilities and extensive mobile operating systems, whic ...
manufactured by
Hewlett-Packard. The device uses
webOS
webOS, also known as LG webOS and previously known as Open webOS, HP webOS and Palm webOS, is a Linux kernel-based multitasking operating system for smart devices such as smart TVs that has also been used as a mobile operating system. Initially ...
, is powered by a
Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, and has a 3.6-inch screen. It is conceptually the successor to the
Palm Pre 2 and earlier
Pre and
Pre Plus models.
History
The HP Pre 3 was announced on February 9, 2011, at the HP webOS "Think Beyond" event held at the Fort Mason Center in
San Francisco
San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...
alongside the
Veer
The Veer is an option running play often associated with option offenses in American football, made famous at the collegiate level by Bill Yeoman's Houston Cougars. It is currently run primarily on the high school level, with some usage at the ...
and
TouchPad
A touchpad or trackpad is a pointing device featuring a tactile sensor, a specialized surface that can translate the motion and position of a user's fingers to a relative position on the operating system that is made output to the screen. Touchp ...
. It was commercially released in the United Kingdom on August 17, 2011.
The device supports a new Touch-to-Share proximity-based sharing feature, which allows compatible devices (such as the TouchPad) to instantly exchange data, media, and information via
Bluetooth
Bluetooth is a short-range wireless technology standard that is used for exchanging data between fixed and mobile devices over short distances and building personal area networks (PANs). In the most widely used mode, transmission power is limi ...
. The Pre 3 has 802.11 a/b/g/n Wi-Fi, 512 MB of RAM, 8 GB internal storage, Bluetooth v2.1, and a 1230 mAh battery.
A 16 GB model was manufactured for AT&T and Verizon
in the United States, neither model was ever released to the general public.
The Pre 3 was released on August 17, 2011, in the United Kingdom. The next day, August 18, HP announced that it would be discontinuing all webOS devices, including the Pre 3. The phone was never officially released in the United States, although models eventually were sold through the HP employee store in California, and many of those phones ended up on eBay auctions.
Hardware
Screen and Input
The HP Pre 3 features a 3.58-inch
multi-touch,
capacitive touchscreen with a resolution of 800-by-480 pixels. The Pre 3 has three physical buttons for input, including the volume up/down buttons in the side, and the power button in the top. For navigating through the OS, the Pre 3 has a "gesture area", where you can swipe up to enter the card like multitasking view, swipe from right to left to go back in an application, swipe from left to right to go forward, or optionally swipe completely to the right or left to switch applications. Modifier keys combined with gestures enable text selection and cursor positioning, while command shortcuts are triggered by holding a tap in the gesture area while pressing a key on the keyboard.
Connectivity
The Pre 3 supports Bluetooth 2.1, 802.11a/b/g/n Wifi, and HSPA+, as well as GSM, EvDO, and CDMA (depending on the service provider). Along with the
HP TouchPad, the Pre 3 supports a new technology called Touch to Share. Touch to Share lets you share URLs, phone calls, text messages, and data for 3rd party apps between the TouchPad and the HP Pre 3 by tapping the phone on the TouchPad's sensor. For example, a web site being browsed on the TouchPad can be transferred to the Pre's browser by tapping the two devices together.
UMTS frequency bands supported
Audio and output
The Pre 3 has a mono loudspeaker, as well as dual mic noise cancellation.
Camera
The Pre 3 features a 5 mega pixel camera with auto focus, LED Flash, capable of 720p video recording. This phone also has a front-facing VGA camera for video calling with the integrated Skype application.
Availability
The Pre 3 was sold by the Carphone Warehouse in the UK on very competitive pay monthly contract terms only, and with very limited available stock. In the US, GSM models were sold direct to HP employees at $75 each, up to 12 per employee. They are AT&T branded, but unsupported by either AT&T or HP/Palm, though they have received an
over-the-air (OTA) update (from 2.2.0 to 2.2.3). In addition, an update to webOS 2.2.4 was released for update by webOS Doctor and as an OTA update.
Pre-installed applications
References
{{Palm Devices
Pre 3
WebOS
Active noise control mobile phones
Mobile phones with an integrated hardware keyboard