BGR has posted first Palm Pre review on their website. BGR loves the touchscreen on Pre and rates it just behind the iPhone’s glass capacitive touchscreen. However BGR wasn’t impressed by Palm’s hardware. They didn’t like the QWERTY keyboard and felt that hardware design is not Palm’s strong frontier. BGR says the Pre feels good in you hand, but the actual build quality really leaves a lot to be desired. However they were really impressed by the wonderful size of the handset, as it was perfect in both pocket and hand.

Software is where the Pre really shined in the BGR review. According to the website the WebOS is off to a great start. Most aspects of the software worked perfectly well. The browser rendered pages properly and pretty quickly, but it was not as refined as the Safari browser on iPhone. BGR’s conclusion for Pre is:

“The OS is great. There’s no ifs ands or buts; it’s really refreshing to see something that’s brand new with a UI unlike anything else out there. The only problem with this is, Palm’s never been a hardware company that anyone’s really cared about. They have been the furthest thing from innovative since circa-2003 – their hardware has always been second rate at beast and it doesn’t seem to be changing now. Couple that with the nation’s underdog carrier at a $299 price-point (before rebate), and we’re not sure how many people are going to be lined up overnight, yet we’re pretty confident once people are able to play a real unit themselves, there will be more than a lot of happy Palm Pre customers.”