It was only justifiable for a phenomenal product to launch with a revolutionary must-have accessory.
Pre fans, meet the Touchstone – A wireless charger for Palm’s killer Smartphone.
Wireless Electricity
Wireless energy transfer is the process whereby electrical energy is transmitted from a power source to an electrical load, without any connecting wires in an electrical grid. This is ideal in cases where a continuous charge is needed, but interconnecting wires are inconvenient or just plain ugly.
The Touchstone
The Touchstone is similar to a dock, which once plugged in to a wall socket, will wirelessly charge the users Pre without any interconnecting wires. You simply place a Pre on the Touchstone, and the strong magnets automatically align the Pre in to the correct position for charging.
This is really smart stuff – If you receive a call while charging, you simply pick the Pre up and the call will begin. You can also use all of the phones functions while it’s charging, and best of all, you have no additional wires cluttering up your desk!
The Touchstone should be available alongside the Pre’s May-June launch date.
{ 13 comments… read them below or add one }
How much is this thing going to cost?
If it’s over $100, no thanks. Still, pretty cool accessory.
Chris, I honestly have no idea. We don’t even know how much the handset is going to cost yet!
Somewhere in the region of $400-500 sim-free or $149-200 with a contract.
Wooops, sorry, I got mixed up with the posts. I thought the above comment was about the price of the actual phone!
I don’t know about this. It’s kinda cool and all, but there is still a wire connecting the touchstone to the power outlet, so it’s not a huge breakthrough. It’s still cool I guess.
ah dawg i want one of these..
MSGdigital has the Touchstone charger available on preorder for $49.99. Of course you’ll need the Pre back cover that’s made specifically for it (no cost on that yet).
Not til the Palm Pre did I really fall in love with smart phones. It’s a blackberry-iphone hybrid that is sleek as hell. Pls. I hope they sell this in Europe soon.
Touchstone works great! Much better than trying to plug in the USB charger each night. Have one at home and at work. They need to make one of these for a car’s dash, so I can charge the phone and use the GPS! Now, that would make this phone absolutely great!
Lame. This isn’t new or revolutionary; its just the same old crap repackaged by the marketing department who convinces you that its new and you need it. Its SIMPLE physics, property of induction, and sonicare has been using it on their toothbrushes for years. And it sure as hell doesn’t cost $70 to implement.
Get one! I love it! Works like a champ.
I just got one of these and I really like it, but when I put my phone on to charge the screen stays lit with just the time and my notifications and I don’t know how to turn that off…can anyone help me?
The gadget is cool, but it remains a gadget; it would be brilliant if it stored energy and released it wirelessly for a charge or two.
Any idea whether this will be ever feasible?