The Consumer Electronics Show is a good way to introduce you new products or just to confirm the rumors circling around the web for weeks. That’s the case with Palm as the company revealed both the Pre Plus and the Pixi Plus. The first WebOS smartphone now features a new sliding technique, an improved keyboard without orange, clickier and more raised keys, and without the navigation button in the front panel. Overall it’s just a better design for the Palm Pre Plus, but the smartphone will also come packed with 16GB internal memory while the induction cover for the Palm Touchstone charger is now standard, not optional.

Let’s move on to the Palm Pixi Plus which features WiFi. That’s it. Palm considered that the Pixi doesn’t need anything more, unlike the Pre who’s design was revamped. The real deal about the two WebOS smartphones is that they’re heading to Verizon and they’ll reach the carrier as of January 25th, however, pricing details are unknown for the moment.

The secret to the success of all “four” WebOS smartphones lies in the upcoming updates to the OS. Palm promised lots of exciting features coming in the WebOS 1.4 update and if you’re curious then here’s what you will get: Adobe Flash 10 beta (very cool indeed), video recording capabilities with integrating-editing as well as video uploading to Facebook, YouTube, MMS, and emails. WebOS 1.4 will become available for download next month.

Another great feature will be provided by an application that will be found soon at the App Catalog: the Mobile Hotspot app will turn your WebOS smartphone into a WiFi routing device. The application will probably be free, but it will definitely require a data plan from Sprint or Verizon and so far the pricing details weren’t announced.

The night ended in fashion as Palm demoed what their WebOS smartphones can do and that they can compete against the iPhone in terms of gaming. Palm introduced their PDK which stands for plugin developer kit and revealed some cool games that are now available at the App Catalog. Prepare yourself to download the following games:

• EA Mobile: Need for Speed(TM) Undercover, The Sims(TM) 3, MONOPOLY(TM), Tetris(R), Sudoku, and SCRABBLE(R);
• Gameloft: Asphalt 5: Elite Racing, Let’s Golf!, The Oregon Trail, and Brain Challenge;
• Glu Mobile: Glyder 2;
• Laminar Research: X-Plane.

We don’t know if Palm will offer the same gaming experience as the iPhone, but it’s nice to know that there is a competition and that someone managed to convince games companies to develop games for a not so popular platform. Palm’s CES 2010 keynote was amazing and we’re expecting more companies to come with great news during the Las Vegas event.

Palm Pixi Plus and Palm Pre Plus Coming To Verizon

via dBusinessNews