Reviewers: Palm Pre is "powerful" iPhone competitor, but "where are the apps?"

The first reviews of Palm's hotly anticipated new smartphone are in, and—for the most part, anyway—they're raves, with reviewers calling the sleek, touchscreen handset perhaps the strongest iPhone competitor so far. But they're also calling out the Pre's Achilles heel: Its sparse selection of apps.

Wall Street Journal tech guru Walt Mossberg writes that Apple and the iPhone "will get a powerful competitor" in the Pre (set to go on sale Saturday on Sprint for $199, with a two-year contract), which he praises for its "real physical [slide-out] keyboard," "stylish software" and "beautiful industrial design" that's "much better than that of the other two main iPhone-class contenders," the T-Mobile G1 and the BlackBerry Storm. Mossberg also lauds the Pre's "elegant new take on the multitouch user interface," which lets you swipe through a series of running applications as if you were flipping through a deck of cards.

That said, the Pre's "biggest disadvantage," writes Mossberg, is its undernourished app store, which has "only about a dozen apps" versus the tens of thousands available for the iPhone. Even worse, he notes, Palm has only released development kits to "a small group of developers," so it could be awhile before Palm's "sorely lacking" app selection begins to approach iPhone levels.

Over at the New York Times, David Pogue calls the Pre "an elegant, joyous, multitouch smartphone" that is, essentially, the "iPhone remixed." The handset (which is a bit shorter than the iPhone, if a bit thicker) is "exactly the right size" and is "more comfortable as a phone" than the iPhone, while Palm's new WebOS platform is "attractive, fluid, and exciting."

However, he notes that the Pre's tiny keys make the BlackBerry's QWERTY keypad feel like "Texas by comparison" (although the "domed key shapes" and "sticky rubber key surfaces" make the keypad preferable to "typing on glass"). Also, "battery life is the Pre's heartbreaker," although Pogue notes that the Pre's battery is at least user-replaceable, unlike on the iPhone.

Finally, Edward Baig at USA Today agrees that the Pre "stacks up ell against Apple's blockbuster device, and in some ways even surpasses it." He heaps praise on the Pre's "excellent" mobile Web browser and says it has "a better camera than the iPhone" (although he admits "that's not saying much"). Baig had better luck with battery life than either Mossberg or Pogue, noting that he "got through most days without having to charge the Pre."

But as with Mossberg, Baig asks "Where are the apps?," and notes that Palm is "moving slowly in opening up the Pre platform" to third-party developers. Another bummer that Baig calls out: No visual voicemail.

So, how many of you are ready to take the leap and snap up a Pre? Worried about the lack of apps? Think it's an iPhone killer?