Palm Pre to land June 6

The Palm Pre, the secret weapon of US carrier Sprint Nextel and struggling handset vendor Palm is set to hit shelves on June 6.

Packing a slide out keyboard and touch screen interface, the Pre will be available with either HSDPA or EVDO connectivity, wifi and GPS. It boasts 8GB of storage and a 3 megapixel camera and probably a handset first in the shape of an inductive charging unit.

The inductive charging system allows the device to be set down on a separately solid tablet-ike charging dock, without the user having to worry about fitting connections together.

The device is also the first Palm gadget to run the company’s flagship webOS platform. Jumping on the cloud computing bandwagon, webOS allows consumers to pull their contact, calendars and personal information down from the internet on any device, wirelessly. A key feature of the Palm platform is synchronisation of information between multiple services, so if the same contact is listed in the user’s phonebook and on their social networking sites, both contact details are pulled into the same interface. Likewise with multiple conversation platforms such as text message and email, as well as calendars.

The OS also supports full multitasking, allowing users to keep multiple activities open and move between them as they might flip through a deck of cards. They can also close an application by flicking it off the top of the screen.

The Palm Pre will be available across the US on June 6 in Sprint stores, Best Buy, Radio Shack, select Wal-Mart stores and online for $199.99 with a two-year service agreement and after a $100 mail-in rebate.