The HP Pre 3 is a touchscreen

Touchscreen

A touchscreen is an electronic visual display that can detect the presence and location of a touch within the display area. The term generally refers to touching the display of the device with a finger or hand. Touchscreens can also sense other passive objects, such as a stylus...

 slider smartphone

Smartphone

A smartphone is a high-end mobile phone built on a mobile computing platform, with more advanced computing ability and connectivity than a contemporary feature phone. The first smartphones were devices that mainly combined the functions of a personal digital assistant and a mobile phone or camera...

 manufactured by Hewlett-Packard

Hewlett-Packard

Hewlett-Packard Company or HP is an American multinational information technology corporation headquartered in Palo Alto, California, USA that provides products, technologies, softwares, solutions and services to consumers, small- and medium-sized businesses and large enterprises, including...

. On February 9, 2011, the phone was announced by HP at a webOS special event held at the Fort Mason Center, San Francisco alongside the HP Veer

HP Veer

The Veer is a smartphone announced by HP on February 9, 2011. The device uses webOS, is powered by a Snapdragon processor, and has a 2.6-inch screen. The smartphone is notable for its credit card-sized dimensions...

 and Touchpad

HP TouchPad

The HP TouchPad is a tablet computer which was developed and designed by Hewlett-Packard. The HP TouchPad was launched on July 1, 2011, in the United States; July 15 in Canada, United Kingdom, France, Germany; and August 15 in Australia....

. It was commercially released in the United Kingdom on August 17 2011. It is conceptually the successor to the Palm Prē 2

Palm Pre 2

The Palm Pre 2 is a multimedia smartphone designed and marketed by Palm, Inc., and Hewlett-Packard with a multi-touch screen and a sliding keyboard. The smartphone is the third to use Palm's Linux based mobile operating system, webOS...

 and earlier Prē

Palm Pre

The Palm Pre is a multimedia smartphone designed and marketed by Palm with a multi-touch screen and a sliding keyboard. The smartphone was the first to use Palm's Linux based mobile operating system, webOS...

 and Prē Plus models.

The device also supports a new HP Touchstone Touch-to-Share proximity-based sharing feature, which allows compatible devices to instantly exchange data, media, and information (via Bluetooth

Bluetooth

Bluetooth is a proprietary open wireless technology standard for exchanging data over short distances from fixed and mobile devices, creating personal area networks with high levels of security...

). The Pre 3 has 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi, 512 MB of RAM, 8 GB internal storage, Bluetooth v2.1, and a 1230 mAh battery. A 16 GB model was released but only available in America.

The Pre 3 was released on August 17 in the United Kingdom. On 18 August, HP announced that it would be discontinuing all WebOS devices.

Screen and Input

The HP Pre³ features a 3.58-inch multi-touch

Multi-touch

In computing, multi-touch refers to a touch sensing surface's ability to recognize the presence of two or more points of contact with the surface...

, capacitive touchscreen with a resolution of 800-by-480 pixels. The Pre³ has three physical buttons for input, including the volume up/down buttons in the side, and the power button in the top. For navigating through the OS, the Pre³ has a "gesture area", where you can swipe up to enter the card like multitasking view, swipe from right to left to go back in an application, swipe from left to right to go forward, or optionally swipe completely to the right or left to switch applications. Modifier keys combined with gestures enable text selection and cursor positioning, while command shortcuts are triggered by holding a tap in the gesture area while pressing a key on the keyboard.

Connectivity

The Pre³ supports Bluetooth 2.1, 802.11b/g/n Wifi, and HSPA+, as well as GSM, EvDO, and CDMA (depending on the service provider). Along with the HP TouchPad

HP TouchPad

The HP TouchPad is a tablet computer which was developed and designed by Hewlett-Packard. The HP TouchPad was launched on July 1, 2011, in the United States; July 15 in Canada, United Kingdom, France, Germany; and August 15 in Australia....

, the Pre³ supports a new technology called Touch to Share. Touch to Share lets you share URLs, phone calls, and text messages between the TouchPad and the HP Pre³ by tapping the phone on the TouchPad's sensor. For example, a web site being browsed on the TouchPad can be transferred to the Pre's browser by tapping the two devices together.

UMTS frequency bands supported

Pre3 model	countries	UMTS frequency bands supported	model officially released?
AT&T Mobility	USA	850, 1900, 2100 MHz	no
Europe unlocked model	France, Germany, United Kingdom	900, 1900, 2100 MHz	yes
Verizon	USA	900, 2100 MHz	no

Audio and Output

The Pre³ has a mono loud speaker, as well as dual mic noise cancellation.

Camera

The Pre³ features a 5 mega pixel camera with auto focus, LED Flash, capable of 720p video recording. This phone also has a front-facing VGA camera for video calling with the integrated Skype application.

Availability

The Pre³ was sold by the Carphone Warehouse. In the US, GSM models were sold direct to HP employees at $75 each, up to 12 per employee. They are AT&T branded, but unsupported by either AT&T or HP/Palm, though they have received an OTA update (from 2.2.0 to 2.2.3) and webOS Doctor 2.2.3 is available for download from HP, either through the user's Palm Profile.