Palm: lack of microSD slot on the Pre purely a "design" decision

Palm Product Manager Matt Crowley is holding a week-long Q&A session about the Pre on Facebook, and some pretty interesting discussions are taking place. Most interestingly, so far, is Crowley's answer when questioned about the (for many) cringe-inducing lack of a microSD slot on the company's much-hyped device in-the-making: "Design was the highest goal on the Palm Pre project. The phone has to look and function great in the hand and up against the face on a call. The decision to include or not include expandable storage is an easy one when design is the highest priority. The physical size of the device would have been compromised if we added another physical component to Pre. Just a millimeter can seriously impact the curvature of the design in a way that minimizes the design intent. We wanted to maintain a slick curved slider design without building out too much thickness. When you look at the two parts of the product and see how thin they really are, you may be amazed that we were able to fit everything in. And yes, all the stuff does fit." Now, we're pretty into the design of the Pre, but this kind of strikes us as a lame answer. Regardless, you can toss your own questions into the ring until January 28th.

[Via Palm Infocenter]