There was quite a bit of chatter this week covering reviews of the Pre Plus, reaction to the Verizon Pre Plus "Mom" ads, run-up to what may come at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona and some PALM analyst movements. So let’s talk Palm!

Palm’s stock closed out the week at $9.99. There was a bit of uplifting news starting with Citi raising its rating to Hold from Sell. Another firm, Wedbush Morgan Securities initiated coverage of the shares with a Neutral rating and price target of $10.50.

The last bit of uplifting news was talk about the Pre possibly arriving at AT&T in May. Citibank’s analyst believes that more insight into carrier interest for Palm’s webOS devices may come out during the Mobile World Congress (Our own Dieter Bohn is attending and will be providing reports and insights).

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Now that we’ve taken the full tour of other smartphones and seen everybody else’s reaction to webOS, it’s time for me to chime in with a few finishing thoughts on webOS for the Smartphone Round Robin.

Obviously I’m not going to ‘review’ anything here – in addition to my colleagues’ excellent overviews, we already have a full Palm Pre Review, Palm Pre Plus Review, Pixi Review, Pixi Plus Review, and Guide to webOS here on PreCentral. Instead I want to focus in on one particular issue that’s been weighing on my mind for the past few months – multitasking on webOS.

I’ve said this a few times and after taking a tour of the other major smartphone platforms out there I think this more strongly than ever: no other smartphone platform has as elegant or intuitive multitasking as webOS.

Read on for my final thoughts there and also to see the winner of the Smartphone Round Robin contest for PreCentral!

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It’s time to round up what my colleagues at SPE had to say about webOS for the Smartphone Round Robin. After the break, their take, my take on their take, and then your take (in the form of comments, naturally). Later this week: we’ll announce the Round Robin winners!

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After representing Windows Mobile for two years running the Smartphone Round Robin, this year I’m taking at a look at it from a webOS user’s perspective. Windows Mobile (which can be found on Windows Phone) has had a rough year wherein the big launch was 6.5, which was a minor update to 6.1, which itself was a minor update to 6.0, which some have argued was more like Windows Mobile 5.5 than anything… you get the picture, Windows Mobile hasn’t seen much in the way of huge OS updates for a long time now.

So where’s the action at? It’s at HTC, who has churned out what is probably the coolest single piece of smartphone hardware of the past year and who has also developed this thing called ‘Sense’ that’s less a theme or skin and more a symbiotic app suite that replaces as much of the look and feel of Windows Mobile as humanly possible.

We’ll delve into all that and more, after the break!

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It’s the penultimate week of the Smartphone Round Robin and my task this week is to try to understand where Windows Mobile / Windows Phone is at these days.  I’m seeking advice from Windows Mobile users over at WMExperts, so if you’re in that camp, go on and give me a shout-out there.

If you’re looking to get the final word in on the comparative looks at webOS, Rene Ritchie of The iPhone Blog has it this week and he’s looking for assistance himself.

After the break, Phil Nickinson of WMExperts walks me though the latest and greatest Windows Phones

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Stop me if you’ve heard this before: Smartphone OS available on a variety of carriers in an ever-increasing array of devices, with powerful but difficult-to-manage multitasking, a user interface that can be a little cluttered and confusing yet is highly customizable, integration with the company’s own email solution that’s second-to-none, and apps that lack polish but get the job done.

Despite what you’re thinking, I’m talking about Android and not Windows Mobile here. Both are facing similar issues but have similar appeal, though. Read on for the Smartphone Round Robin review of Android from PreCentral.net!

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RIM’s approach to the BlackBerry platform is diametrically opposed to Palm’s strategy with webOS: instead of Palm’s complete overhaul, RIM has opted for continuous and relentless incremental upgrades year after year. In my third year looking at the BlackBerry platform my basic thought is this: what we have here are better BlackBerrys. Whether or not that’s enough to sway a webOS user depends entirely on what you think of the platform.

To see what I think of the platform this year (along with an extended aside about a certain BlackBerry-only feature), read on!

(I’m (very) late with my BlackBerry Review, but that’s the way of the Smartphone Round Robin and I have to appeal to some post-CES illness. Apologies all around!)

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The competition for “most open” software platform will always be a fierce one. It all depends on what your definition of “open” is. Do that mean open and easy development, like webOS, or do you mean completely open source, like Android? Our friend Casey Chan over at sister site Android Central last week got his robot paws on webOS in the form of the Palm Pre and Palm Pixi and was tasked with giving the world his impressions of the platform from the Android point of view.

Jumping headfirst into any platform is a new experience, so thankfully we’ve got the PreCentral forums to help out both novices and experts alike. You all in the community stepped up to the plate to give Casey a crash course in webOS 101.

So what did Casey think about webOS? In truth, there’s a lot on paper that seems very similar about the two operating systems. They both support full multitasking, they both have unobtrusive notifications, the both have application stores, and they both work on capacitive multitouch screens (well, Android is a sometimes in that category). But the similarities end there, and Android does have a year’s start on the relatively fresh webOS. We don’t want to give away all of Casey’s thoughts and observations about the first efforts of Palm’s rebirth, so we’ll just give you a link to Android Central where you can check them out for yourself.

Once you’re done with that, we’re sure you’ll be on a webOS high, so we want to keep it going by giving you a webOS phone. It’s a giveaway! All you have to do to enter the contest is leave a post in a Smartphone Round Robin thread on the PreCentral forums and once this all wraps up we’ll pick a winner. As always, the rules for these contests are suggested reading. Casey has already passed off the Pre and Pixi to Kevin Michaluk of CrackBerry.com – Kevin’s going to need the ease of webOS after a week with Windows Mobile, while our own Dieter Bohn is about to get some face time with BlackBerry.

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The Smartphone Round Robin rambles into week three – and this week I’m taking a look at the BlackBerry platform. RIM has recovered from the original Storm (which we luckily didn’t need to review last year) and brought the Storm 2, which seems legitimately decent. The Bold 9700 is also in the house, which to mind is the pinnacle of BlackBerrys today.

I’m seeking help from the good people at CrackBerry.com, so keep an eye on the conversation there. Also keep an eye on our own forums for a post from CrackBerry Kevin, who has webOS this week.

After the break, my hands-on video with BlackBerry!

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In some ways, Palm and Nokia might be polar opposite companies: one is a perennial underdog who has mainly seen modest success in the US market, the other is a global giant who sells more phones than most anybody yet can’t see to gain any traction in the US. Then again, I also see the companies as very similar: both were pioneers in the smartphone space and are facing difficult times ahead, both appear to be betting the farm on new and untested Linux-based operating systems, both have straight-up loyal (if not fanatical) groups of users pulling for them. Heck, I even picked Nokia as the company I’d like to see buy Palm if Palm were for sale (they’re not).

All this has been in the back of my mind this week as I mulled over my time with the Nokia N97 Mini and the Nokia N900. I also need to thank the generous and kind Nokia Experts commenters, who have been super-helpful in getting me to look at Nokia phones in a different light.

So let’s do this: Round Robin Round Two!

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