This morning at CES 2009, Palm announced the phone that they expect will take them into the next generation - the Palm pre. It’s a small, rounded black handset with a trackball, and the specs read like a dream as far as we’re concerned. We are talking about a 3.1-inch 320x480 touchscreen with multi-touch support and a gesture area, the newest OMAP processor from TI, 8 GB of storage space, EVDO Rev. A, 802.11b/g, GPS, Bluetooth 2.1, 3 megapixel camera with LED flash, and stereo A2DP. Are you thinking iPhone killer yet? Palm says that the Palm pre has “laptop like performance” since the processor is so fast.

The pre also featues a slide out portrait keyboard, which they say is all very ergonomic. The other thing we love about it? It’s a phone with a USB 2.0 MicroUSB connector. Was that too much to ask for after all this time? The phone can also be recognized as a Mass Storage device. Apple, we hope you’re listening.

Even better? Palm announced a feature called Touchstone. In normal terms, that means that the pre supports wireless charging. How cool does that sound?

If you want to get your hands on a Palm pre when they launch, you’ll need to be a Sprint customer, as the phone launches there exclusively. As far as a date goes, the best we were able to get out of them is that it will launch at some point in the first half of 2009, “as soon as possible.” Oh, and no price was announced either. I know, right?

To see more on the device, check out our Palm pre photo gallery.