Palm Pre Plus (photos)

Announced at CES 2010, the Palm Pre Plus will be available from Verizon Wireless starting January 25 for $149.99 with a two-year contract and after a $100 mail-in rebate.

The Palm Pre Plus brings a number of design improvements and enhanced features, such as double the Flash memory and RAM and 3D gaming.

Another new feature is that Pre Plus now ships with an inductive back cover, so it can be used with a Touchstone charging dock right out of the box. Unfortunately, the Touchstone dock isn't included; you will have to purchase that separately for $49.99

With the inductive back cover, the Pre Plus feels more solid in the hand and doesn't feel quite as plasticky or slick as the Sprint Palm Pre.

The Pre Plus has the same dimensions as the original Pre but weighs just a bit more at 4.89 ounces (versus 4.76 ounces). Still, it's a very compact phone that will easily slip into a pants pocket or bag.

On the Pre Plus, Palm removed the center knob that took you to the Deck of Cards view on the Pre. The function is still there but like the Palm Pixi, it's now integrated into the gesture area.

Comparatively speaking, the keyboard on the Pre Plus is small and will most likely give users with larger thumbs some initial problems. However, Palm increased the key travel space and gave the buttons a more clicky tactile feedback, so they don't feel quite as gummy or squishy as the original Pre's keyboard.

These minor changes made a huge difference when typing. We were able to compose messages faster and with less mistakes.

On top of the device, there's a 3.5mm headphone jack, the power button, and silent ringer switch.

On back, you'll find the smartphone's 3-megapixel camera and flash. There are no editing options yet but video recording and editing will be coming in February when WebOS 1.4 is released.

Despite the lack of editing options, the smartphone's camera still took great photos.