Palm Pre Tops 100 Hottest Gadget List, Will Overtake iPhone Says Investor

The Palm Pre smartphone has emerged as the hottest gadget of the year as chosen by readers of popular UK gadget magazine, out of a list of 100 and beat the iPhone which came up at number 14.

T3 readers nominated that Palm Pre ahead of the Sony X-series Walkman, the Nokia N97 and the 21:9 Philips Cinema TV. Other regular favourites also include Sony's Ebook reader, Toshiba's forthcoming TG01 super smartphone and the Asus EEE PC S101 netbook.

The phone which was released at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas last January, has been hailed as one of the most potent rivals to Apple's iPhone 3G. But the latter still has an undisputed and unrivalled online software store that has yet to be matched anywhere.

Amongst some of the notable features of the Palm Pre are the slide out keyboard, a 3.1-inch touchscreen, the wireless charger capability (although available as an option) and the Web OS operating system which interfaces seamlessly with the web.

In another rather controversial news pitting the Pre against the iPhone, Roger McNamee, co-founder of Elevation partners, which has invested $425 million to get a 39 percent in Palm, has declared on Bloomberg that the Pre will squash the iPhone like a bug.

He was caught on record saying that "You know the beautiful thing: June 29, 2009, is the two- year anniversary of the first shipment of the iPhone?Not one of those people will still be using an iPhone a month later. Think about it. If you bought the first iPhone, you bought it because you wanted the coolest product on the market? Your two-year contract has just expired. Look around. Tell me what they're going to buy."

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