With Palm’s stock plummeting almost by the day, it was a rather bold move to introduce a new smart phone to take on the iPhone and the Blackberry. But Palm’s hail mary pass to introduce the new Palm Pre has yielded the coveted BEST OF CES: BEST IN SHOW award. It also won the Best Cellphone category. And it’s got everyone talking about it. So much so that Palm’s stock has risen 38% since the announcement. Nice job for a company that was on the verge of closing it’s doors.

As elegant as the iPhone but with the added feature of a slide down full keyboard, the Pre also comes with a brand new operating system and user interface. Other features include a 3 MP camera, USB 2.0, GPS, Wi-Fi & EV-DO, Bluetooth 2.1 with stereo support), 8GB of storage, and 3.5mm headphone jack, and high-speed USB 2.0. Additionally, the Pre helps multitasking with a new “shuffle the deck” application that allows users to scroll through applications without closing them and jump between them. Very nice. And the browser is getting rave reviews for speed and presentation of websites just as you would see them on your desktop browser. With so much functionality, it’s easy to see why Palm has waited until they could get it right and make such a splash at CES.

Other winners include: Best Auto Gadget going to Gracenote, an application which has your favorite bands and singers talking to you and recommending their favorite music; Best PC went to the Sony P Series with Sony also picking up Best camera and video for the wifi capable Cyber-Shot DSC-G3; TomTom wins best GPS; Nyko gets best gaming accessory for “The Wand” for Wii; Samsung’s P3 is best MP3; The HT-X710T gets best home audio while Echostar smashes a Slingbox and DVR together to create the HD DVR 922 and win Best Home Theater award. Finally, best TV went to the Internet capable , THx certified Panasonic TH-50PZ800U.

Hat Tip – C’Net