Palm’s store is called the “App Catalog,” which works fairly well despite clearly being labeled “beta.” At the top of the App Catalog is a handful of featured apps that scroll from left to right. In the second row, there’s the most popular apps, and after that there’s a dozen or so categories, such as Most Recent, Top Rated, Lifestyle, Entertainment, News and Social Networking. When you click on an app, an informational page pops up allowing you to see the rating, screenshots, a description and reviews. By far and away, the biggest complaint is selection.

While applications seem to be one of biggest defining points for the latest smartphones—at least in the reviewer’s opinions—likely for the user, the device and user experience is more important. And, the Palm Pre does a great job, from it’s vibrant screen, to the Qwerty keypad and even just the way it fits easily in the Palm of your hand. But while the Palm Pre is an amazing phone, it will undoubtedly take you longer to get used to than the iPhone, making it perhaps better suited to intermediate phone users, who feel comfortable and like learning new hardware and software.

But with additional complexity, comes more functionality. For instance, the Palm Pre is excellent at multi-tasking. Multiple screens can be open at once: your inbox, a new email, your photos, the dial pad, and web pages. That means you can flip through the different screens like a deck of cards, easily jumping into a web page to check an address, and out to finish writing an email to a friend who needs directions.

One of the more difficult things to pick up on is the gestures. For example, the area directly below the screen that looks like empty black glass is actually critically important. It’s there, where you slide your finger from right to left in order to go “back” from within any application you are in. Likewise, when you drag your finger from that black area, up to the top of the screen, you pull up the top five default functions on the bottom of the screen, which commonly include such things as email, dialing, calendar, etc. With practice, these gestures become a breeze, but would not be intuitive without explanation. Often at times, I’m stuck in an application wondering what to do next. In Google Maps, for example, to pull up the menu where you zoom in or out, or find your location, is not completely obvious. However, Palm does a good job in helping people find most other functions—there is a short-cut. From the homepage, you can conduct a “universal search,” meaning that you just start typing. Tap out “App” and the icon for the App Catalog will appear along with a list all of the Applegates from your contacts. If nothing exists on the phone, a menu of options will appear including the option to “Google” it, or search Wikipedia.

While the apps have been limited so far, the phone offers a ton of functionality, a compact design, a beautiful screen, a hard keyboard, and a reasonable monthly voice and data plan through Sprint. As other reviewers have said: The Palm Pre is a contender. But I guess we’ll have to wait to see what Apple announces tomorrow to know for sure, and oh yeah, in four weeks when T-Mobile gets closer to launching its latest Google Android phone. My advice: If you are looking to upgrade, buy what you want now. If anything, the handset manufactures are just making the decision harder.