1.) The touchscreen – responsive, easy to use, and convenient. The screen size itself is great, not too big or too small. Combined with the incredible OS, using the phone is a pleasure.
2.) Consolidated contacts – I’ve got all my Google contacts, phone contacts, facebook contacts, and work contacts from the Microsoft Exchange server on this phone; it’s smart enough to consolidate duplicate entries, say my profile for Joe on Google Talk with my profile for Joe Smith on the exchange server so it shows up as a single contact in my phone without me having to manually combine the data. Sleek.
3.) Consolidated chat/messaging – since I can use Google talk on my phone and use the above system to consolidate contacts I can be chatting with someone one minute on Google talk, then when they text me later, it picks up where the conversation left off, same window and everything, it seamlessly combines chatting and texting. Very cool.
4.) Multiple Windows – How could I not mention this? Being able to flick across different applications (or “cards” as they are referred to) is much more useful than I ever expected, and I don’t think I could go back to anything that doesn’t have this feature. It’s like double monitors, once you experience.
5.) Touchstone – Okay, in my mind unless you have a touchstone, you’re not getting the full “Pre Experience”; being able to just place it on the dock and leave it charging then just grab it when you leave ALMOST counters the poor battery life since you can “top it off” with such ease, no need to fuss with cables or connectors. My only complaint with the touchstone is that I wish I had about two more! That way I could have one at work, one in the living room, and one in my bedroom.

Any downside? The only real complaints I have are the battery life, which is a bit shy of being enough to last me through a full day of heavy use without interim charging. The second complaint would be the build quality – it’d be nice to have something that felt a bit more rugged and durable so it could stand up to the abuse and day-to-day rigors that accompany a business phone.

All in all, I’m very pleased with the Palm Pre and would highly recommend it, especially with the pending availability through Verizon next year.