Hewlett-Packard’s $1.2 billion acquisition of Palm is beginning to trickle down to the hardware and software level, with the upcoming release of the Palm Pre 2 on Verizon Wireless. While HP and Verizon have declined to offer exact pricing and a launch date, sample copies of the Palm Pre 2 are beginning to circulate at tech shows and other venues. The improvements to the Palm Pre indicate that HP is serious about combating Research In Motion’s BlackBerry, Microsoft’s upcoming Windows Phone 7, the Apple iPhone and the ever-expanding family of Google Android devices. The Palm Pre 2 includes both a slide-out physical QWERTY keyboard and a 3.1-inch multitouch display. In terms of operating systems, HP WebOS 2.0 is supposedly faster than the original Palm WebOS, and boasts a high degree of integration with services such as Facebook and Microsoft Exchange. The Palm Pre 2 certainly feels more streamlined and "solid" than its predecessor, which received mostly positive reviews for its design but complaints from a subset of users over supposedly shoddy manufacture& i.e., the "Oreo effect," where the sliding mechanism would partially unhinge. Will the revived Palm Pre succeed in a crowded marketplace? That remains to be seen. But HP will reportedly port WebOS onto other form factors, such as tablet PCs. – …