Palm Pre hype at fever pitch

The Palm Pre anticipation and hype have reached a peak.

It’s not just the Pre’s release date that’s the subject of much speculation, although there’s a wealth of posts on the matter. There’s also much hand wringing and crystal ball gazing on the Web about the day Sprint and Palm will announce the release date of the device, when Best Buy ads will start running and the training Sprint employees have received to date. (No word on whether or not CEO Ed Colligan’s house has been staked out yet.)

Several videos of the Pre’s “unboxing” have hit YouTube. Gadget unboxing videos are always amusing (and incredibly boring) yet receive an undue amount of attention leading up to a product launch. Still the Pre unboxing videos on YouTube have set the early adopters (some of whom I gather have yet to leave their parents basement) abuzz.

Kudos to Palm for its seemingly successful viral marketing efforts. Tech marketers and those in other industries could tear a few pages out of the company’s ‘how to build buzz from scratch’ playbook.

It’s backed up by a seemingly solid product. From what I’ve seen of the Pre, the speculation, if not the excitement, is at least somewhat warranted. I was given the opportunity to watch a 45-minute one-on-one product demo last week in downtown Toronto courtesy of the Palm Canada folks.

It seems to live up to Palm’s promises. I say ‘seems’ as Matt Crowley, the affable product manager who flew up to Toronto from Palm’s Sunnyvale, Calif. headquarters to help introduce the device to Canadians, was clearly uncomfortable when I lifted the Pre off the Touchstone charging device to give it a test drive. (Bell Mobility has said it will launch the Pre in Canada sometime in the second half of the year). In other words, I wasn’t able to test it for an extended period of time

However, the Pre did what it was told in the few minutes I handled it. In other words, I was able to surf the wireless Web with relative ease while the touchscreen handled my hands, which were shaking thanks to the many cups of joe I inhaled that morning, with aplomb. And ya, it’s as sleek as it looks.

But much is still left to the gadget geeks imagination. Nonetheless, those that saw the Pre introduction video at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in January won’t be surprised by what’s inside.

The device has a Mac-like system tray (sorry Palm for the characterization but it’s true) found at the bottom of the screen; 8GB of storage, a 3MP camera as well as the card application system, a slideout QWERTY keyboard and perhaps most notably the webOS among many many other features.

Now it’s in the hands of the operators, specifically Bell and Sprint, who will soon crank up the sales and marketing machines with hopes of turning the Pre into their versions of the iPhone. (Both operators have exclusive in-country distribution rights.)

This won’t be an easy task at least for Sprint. The No. 4 U.S. wireless service provider has endured its fair share of criticism for allegedly poor customer service (I’ve never been a Sprint user) and poor coverage.

The momentum Palm has gathered to date with the Pre will come to a grinding halt if the ghosts of Sprint’s past come back to haunt the leading edge customers it’s trying to court.