One of the most popular features of the Palm Pre was its wireless charging. Years ahead of its time, it is still something that other phone makers have yet build into their devices as standard. Interestingly, an enterprising Lumia 800 owner has thrown his warranty to the wind and fitted a Palm Pre's wireless charging coil. As we've seen, just dismantling the Lumia 800 is difficult enough, let alone creating space for a new component and soldering it to the system.

Don't try this at home, and be ready for the emphatic but NSFW punch line.

The video raises an interesting question about whether Nokia should have adopted the same feature for current devices, or (at least) in the future. It's difficult to know whether Oli's customisation will have any unintended consequences on the Lumia 800. Still though, it does highlight the potential for having included wireless charging with the Lumia 800.

Why should Nokia go to the trouble though? One argument is that in the post-iPhone age, touch only devices are dominant and thus hardware differentiation is a rare commodity.  Nokia had some differentiation with the unique design and construction of the Lumia 800. However, more attractors would have surely helped, especially given the (erroneous) perception that Windows Phone 7 is hobbled by only supporting single core CPUs.

Wireless charging is a novel feature, but more importantly it's a great convenience feature. Couple it with this wireless sync option in Zune desktop, and Lumia phones would never have to be plugged in ever again. For many users, the potential of no more cables is highly desirable.