We’re just a few weeks away from the O2 launch in Europe and the first reviews are starting to trickle in. For those in the US, the GSM Palm Pre is virtually identical to the CDMA counterpart available on Sprint, albeit the GSM models have a SIM card slot. The GSM version will also run an older version of webOS, but Palm expects to bring parity to all models later this year.

The guys at Slashgear have put together a rather comprehensive review.

“There’s plenty to like about the Palm Pre. It’s a compact, attractive handset that doesn’t allow its relatively small display to get in the way of intuitive gestures and a visually-rich UI.”

Like so many, they are excited about webOS, but do question the limited storage and suggest users test drive the keyboard to determine “how well it suites their finger size”.

Times Online’s review reads more like a comparison of the Palm Pre vs the iPhone. In fact, the reviewer concludes his review stating he’ll be “hanging on to his iPhone”.

“This is the real deal, a worthy competitor for the iPhone. Beautiful, easy to use, yet able to do complex tasks, without mimicking Apple.”

The sticking point(s) for the author seems to be the storage size of the Pre and the lack of a huge App Store.

“But if you want to carry thousands of songs on your phone, the iPhone remains the better choice.”

“Its big failing is the lack of a huge “app” store.”

Apple took over a year to introduce their App Store. While Palm has been slow to add applications, the company is clearly taking steps to make it easier for developers to bring apps to the Pre. The expansion of Pre owners that will naturally occur with the release on O2 and Telefonica will certainly add to the growing list of reasons why developers will choose to create applications for webOS.

For those in the US, the GSM Palm Pre is locked to their respective carriers. We’ll have to wait for a GSM model to land in the US. Anyone looking for an AT&T model? If so, can we give it the much needed boost to 16GB?