Palm Pre Touchstone Kit

Summary: This is the kind of cool product design that has made that other smartphone manufacturer so famous.

The bottom of the Touchstone has a high-friction semi-sticky surface. Where ever you put it on your desk, it's going to stay there. That's key because it lets you just plop the phone down on it and also interact with the touchscreen without the unit sliding around.

The magnetic effect is very strong and attracts only to a specific area on the back of the phone. This means you can just stick the phone down in almost any position and - between gravity and the magnetism - it will slide into the perfect position: just the right angle and height to float above the desk and be easily used. It's amazing the first time you experience it.

Naturally, the phone recognizes when it is being charged. They could have just had a little lightning bolt appear on the battery symbol and left it at that. Instead they added software features that make the Touchstone more of a dock, not just a charger. When the phone attaches to the Touchstone, you'll see a "battery charging" notice appear. If the screen is off, a digital clock appears along with the unlock icon. The clock display dims to much less than the normal brightness, which is a nice touch. Sure, we all have clocks and watches, but this is nice since you're going to have the phone in a convenient viewing position anyway.

Finally, since the phone is sitting in an ideal position to use as a speaker phone that's what it does - automatically! Touch the screen to answer an incoming call and you're in speakerphone mode without doing anything else. Pick up the phone and it reverts immediately to headset mode - again without doing anything. This is slick and more convenient then you might realize until you try it.

I already thought my Pre was the best phone I've ever owned - and I've been using smartphones since the first Kyocera Palm phone (1995?) replaced my 1992 Palm Pilot right up through the Treo 700 that the Pre replaced. The Touchstone just makes an already awesome phone even more enjoyable to live with.