The HP Pre 3, styled as Pre³ , 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 often ...

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 Hewlett-Packard Company, commonly shortened to Hewlett-Packard ( ) or HP, was an American multinational information technology company headquartered in Palo Alto, California. HP developed and provided a wide variety of hardware components ...

. 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 Snapdragon is a suite of system on a chip (SoC) semiconductor products for mobile devices designed and marketed by Qualcomm Technologies Inc. The Snapdragon's central processing unit (CPU) uses the ARM architecture. A single SoC may include mu ...

processor, and has a 3.6-inch screen. It is conceptually the successor to the

Palm Pre 2 The Palm Pre 2 , styled as palm prē 2, is a slider smartphone designed and marketed by Palm, Inc., and Hewlett-Packard with a multi-touch screen and a physical sliding keyboard. The smartphone is the third to use Palm's Linux-based mobile opera ...

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 language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, 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 List of Ca ...

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 t ...

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 In computing, multi-touch is technology that enables a surface (a touchpad or touchscreen) to recognize the presence of more than one somatosensory system, point of contact with the surface at the same time. The origins of multitouch began at CER ...

capacitive 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 often ...

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 The HP Pre 3, styled as Pre3 , is a touchscreen slider smartphone manufactured by Hewlett-Packard. The device uses webOS, is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, and has a 3.6-inch screen. It is conceptually the successor to the Palm Pre 2 ...

WebOS Active noise control mobile phones Mobile phones with an integrated hardware keyboard