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Android Cellphones Hardware Technology

Palm Is Back With a Mini Companion Android Phone That's Exclusive To Verizon (droid-life.com) 101

Posted by BeauHD from the doesn't-need-saving dept.
A couple months ago, it was reported that the dearly departed mobile brand known as Palm would be making a comeback. That day has finally come. Yesterday, Palm announced The Palm, a credit card-sized Android smartphone that's supposed to act as a second phone. Droid Life reports: The Palm, which is its name, is a mini-phone with a 3.3-inch HD display that's about the size of a credit card, so it should fit nicely in your palm. It could be put on a chain or tossed in a small pocket or tucked just about anywhere, thanks to that small size. It's still a mostly fully-featured smartphone, though, with cameras and access to Android apps and your Verizon phone number and texts.

The idea here is that you have a normal phone with powerful processor and big screen that you use most of the time. But when you want to disconnect some, while not being fully disconnected, you could grab Palm instead of your other phone. It uses Verizon's NumberSync to bring your existing phone number with you, just like you would if you had an LTE smartwatch or other LTE equipped device. Some of the specs of this Verizon-exclusive phone include a Snapdragon 435 processor with 3GB RAM, 32GB storage, 12MP rear and 8MP front cameras, 800mAh battery, IP68 water and dust resistance, and Android 8.1. As Kellen notes, "It does cost $350, which is a lot for a faux phone..."

We've already seen a number of gadget fans perplexed by this device. Digital Trends goes as far as calling it "the stupidest product of the year."
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Palm Is Back With a Mini Companion Android Phone That's Exclusive To Verizon More

Palm Is Back With a Mini Companion Android Phone That's Exclusive To Verizon

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  • I ain't gonna give you no damn tree fiddy for this turd!

    • They paid Steph Curry to "design" some cases, so I imagine that's several millions of dollars they need to recoup.
      If it was priced sensibly it might be a success.

      • If it didn't cost $350 and was a bit flatter, it'd make a neat business card. or ID badge.

  • A couple months ago, it was reported that the dearly departed mobile brand known as Palm would be making a comeback. That day has finally come.

    That remains to be seen. Comeback is an awful strong term for an attempt to market a phone to people who already have one.

    Imagine GM/Saturn trying to sell a car for when you don't want to use your car. I wouldn't call it a comeback unless they actually managed to move units.

    • a car for when you don't want to use your car

      So like, a motorcycle?

      • A motorcycle actually has a purpose though and there are things you can do with a dirt bike that you wouldn't want to use a car for. There are even some people who use a motorcycle as their main or only means of transportation. That's especially true in a lot of countries outside of the U.S. and Europe where someone who might not be able to afford a car can still get a bike.

        Meanwhile, I can't see terribly many people who would actually spend money on this. It might get some favorable mentions in the pres

        • Meanwhile, I can't see terribly many people who would actually spend money on this. It might get some favorable mentions in the press, but no one is actually going to buy this thing.

          Especially at that price.

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by arth1 ( 260657 )

          If it wasn't $350, I could find use for it, like when I'm out running and don't want to carry a big phone with me, but still want to be able to make a call if I have to, do a quick map lookup, or pay with NFC. The size is not much bigger than the candybar phones of a few years ago, and those were far more handy - I currently have a "compact" phone, but it's still way bigger than is comfortable.

          • I don't own one, so I don't know this for sure, but I thought the latest crop of smart watches were supposed to be able to do all of those things. I know that some of the first ones were more tethered to the phone, but I thought Samsung (or maybe it was Apple) had a version that could operate on cell networks independently. Maybe it doesn't piggyback off of the existing subscription so you need a separate line for it unlike this device, but it seems like if they added that, then this phone has even less rea

    • Re:Comeback? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by AvitarX ( 172628 ) <me@@@brandywinehundred...org> on Tuesday October 16, 2018 @10:23PM (#57490096) Journal

      I'm apparently their target market.

      I'm cheap, and inhate big phones, but love decent screens.

      I haven't seen one, maybe it's way too small, but I suspect with the high pixel density I'd be fine faffing about and reading on it. I'm sure typing would suck, but a process I'd be happy to pay.

      If it wasn't painfully slow (no idea again, I haven't used one), I would likely use it as my main phone.

      There are no reasonably priced phones that are decent and under 5 inches (old iPhone maybe? But then I need to deal with a whole new ecosystem).

      If this was available on T-Mobile, and I could SIM swap rather than pay extra for it, I'd almost certainly buy one

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by necro81 ( 917438 )

        I'm cheap, and inhate big phones....I would likely use it as my main phone

        Yeeah, this new thing is an accessory for your existing (presumably large) phone. It shares the mobile number of your primary phone (but, for an extra fee, of course).

        If this was available on T-Mobile, and I could SIM swap rather than pay extra for it, I'd almost certainly buy one

        As far as I can tell, there is no physical SIM for your to swap. That is, there appears to be no user-accessible SIM tray. Given that it's meant to be

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Junta ( 36770 )

        I'm cheap

        $350 is a lot of cash for a phone with those capabilities now. Other phones with those specs (albeit larger screen) are right about $150 at most right now.

        I would likely use it as my main phone.

        I'm a bit confused as to exactly how, but all the coverage suggests this is not a device that is supported unless you also buy a 'real' phone to go with it. So even if it would work, you still have to spend the money on *another* device so that you can have this device. So depending on the requirements Verizon has for a qualifying 'main' phone, that al

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by AvitarX ( 172628 )

          $350 is a lot of cash for a phone with those capabilities now. Other phones with those specs (albeit larger screen) are right about $150 at most right now.

          I currently pay $150ish for phones so big that my thumb gets sore from reaching the top of the screen during 1 handed use. I'd happily pay $350 for a smaller one (assuming it worked about as well as a G series Moto or an equivalently priced BLU).

          I'm not paying the $500ish for a Sony (maybe that's an arbitrary distinction, but it just feels like too much to me).

          I'm a bit confused as to exactly how, but all the coverage suggests this is not a device that is supported unless you also buy a 'real' phone to go with it. So even if it would work, you still have to spend the money on *another* device so that you can have this device. So depending on the requirements Verizon has for a qualifying 'main' phone, that already pricey $350 becomes probably between $500 and $800.

          This is my point. I am the person that hears about this phone and doesn't think "designed for annoyance" or "useless", until I read the restrictions

          • I completely agree. I was in the middle of the check out page for an Xperia XZ2 Compact when I found out about this Palm. I am severely disappointed I cannot use it as a main phone. Unlike the rest of America, my phone is not my life. Having a smart phone is a perk and data doesn't cost much more than a regular plan these days, but if I'm going to have one I would AT LEAST like to be able to fit the damn thing in my pockets and HANDS. Not to mention not wanting to pay outlandish prices for something I minim

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by mikael ( 484 )

      Mobile phones get cracked screens, the memory chips might fry, the USB connector gets a bit wobbly and doesn't charge up. Or they get so filled up with updates that it simply isn't possible to use them any more.

      I had enough problems trying to update a Samsung Galaxy S2 that I needed to uninstall Skype in order to get the memory space to install the updates and then reinstall Skype.

  • Hi I'm 12 and what is do not disturb mode?

  • Dearly departed ? Good riddance is more like it ! (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Palm licensed hardware but did not control the OS so the end result was hardware which did not work with software.

    Sony hardware combined with Palm Desktop caused me such problems that I'd still like to strangle the people responsible. And Sony exited the market with no warning nor any support for people who had bought their Clie devices.

    I don't give a fuck whether the Palm product now has no relationship to the old Palm devices. I wouldn't use it if it was free. And that goes for Sony
    too. Fuck them both. (

    • I get the impression that it's a startup that only bought the brand name. Nothing else about the old company, good or bad, was brought in. So you're right to be wary.

  • all you need to know (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ole_timer ( 4293573 ) on Tuesday October 16, 2018 @07:16PM (#57489330)
    Digital Trends goes as far as calling it "the stupidest product of the year."

  • That is not Palm (Score:5, Informative)

    by gweihir ( 88907 ) on Tuesday October 16, 2018 @07:18PM (#57489338)

    That is some impostor that has bought the name.

  • ... when we had these things called smart phones you could use when you didn't need a more powerful computer.

  • Great Idea (Score:3)

    by execthis ( 537150 ) on Tuesday October 16, 2018 @07:27PM (#57489378)

    This is a great idea for people into fitness. I hope other carriers will offer this service and that there will be other, less expensive models available.

    • This is a great idea for people into fitness. I hope other carriers will offer this service and that there will be other, less expensive models available.

      Except that it is neither rugged nor cheap. The pathetic battery life puts a cap on it for the outdoorsy crowd too

    • Yeah, the only problems that I see with this are, first, that it's too expensive and, second, that they tie it to another phone for some stupid reason. Why can't they just sell it as a small phone? That would be great. Maybe give it a slide out keyboard, like the Xperia Mini Pro, 'cause that tiny screen would be a pain in the ass to try and type on.

      • The whole point is that it piggybacks off of your existing plan. Why would you want to pay for a second plan, not to mention deal with the hassle/overhead of maintaining a second number?

        • I don't know. Maybe you shouldn't do those things then. Maybe you should just have a single plan, for your single small phone.

  • Why not toss in a free wristband for 350 (Score:4, Insightful)

    by bobstreo ( 1320787 ) on Tuesday October 16, 2018 @07:30PM (#57489392)

    Then it would be the Apple Watch killer too. /s

    If it had an HDMI port, it may be useful as a kodi box with 3GB of memory. $350 does buy a nice shield, or a bunch of mi boxes or amazon fire boxes,,,

    At work I was already carrying 3 phones, my personal, a dedicated support phone and a lot of weeks a year, an on-call phone. I didn't pay for the phone I have now, why would I buy a toy phone.

  • Palm was purchased by HP several years ago.

    In addition, WebOS was sold to Samsung by HP.

    So we have a phone called Palm with no link to the original Palm phone with no OS that previously ran the real Palm phone.

  • But when you want to disconnect some, while not being fully disconnected, you could grab Palm instead of your other phone.

    This is why I'm not really alarmed about the fact that we've reached some climate point of no return. It's probably about time that humanity is wiped from the face of the Earth anyway. Are there really people who will pay money to be "disconnected but not disconnected"? Maybe we can address climate change by just killing those people. I know it sounds harsh, but jesus wept already.

  • It wouldn't be hard to take over the market. Just build a phone that makes an actually pretty good phone and never rings when scammers are calling. If any other features are not at the expense of those two, I'd be all over that phone. The best they can come up with is "A phone for when it's too much of an effort to lift your main phone to your head"?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AvitarX ( 172628 )

      I bet you could get a flip phone on T-Mobile.

      They block most junk calls, and the flip phones make decent phones, though I don't know if anybody answers phonecalls anymore (nobody I know does).

  • Small phones are great (Score:3)

    by gringer ( 252588 ) on Tuesday October 16, 2018 @08:00PM (#57489508)

    I'd be keen on an IP68 phone that's this size. I can't comfortably fit my current phone into my pocket; I'd really like to go back to a smaller one.

  • DigitalTrends is the stupidest product of the year (Score:5, Insightful)

    by jensend ( 71114 ) on Tuesday October 16, 2018 @08:02PM (#57489512)

    I'm sick and tired of phone review sites that seem to maintain an outsized influence on what people think is "trendy" and what people think is "boring" yet don't actually have a connection to whether the phone is a better tool or not.

    Aesthetics and screen size trump all else. Design elements for the sake of novelty (OMG A CURVED SCREEN!) are valued over basic functionality. (It's easy to find reviews that complain at length about 'dull design' because omg simple and functional is so last year.) Getting rid of the 3.5" jack really was courage, because [cool-aid reason here]. Higher numbers are always better whether they have any impact on the user experience or not. Must have 4K! (even though phone users would be hard-pressed to tell the difference from e.g. 1440p in double-blind testing.) Must have 8GB RAM because it's what the trendy flagships are doing! (even though no benchmark has ever shown any real performance advantage in realistic contemporary use.) and so on and so on. And they seem to manage to dictate to users what to buy and dictate to manufacturers what to make.

    For people who actually want to use their phone as a tool rather than as an all-consuming 24/7 Netflix and Instagram stream, it's a travesty that Android has had so little in the way of decent small phones. This is especially true for people who spend considerable time doing physical activity outdoors rather than sitting at a desk writing fawning reviews of $1200 toys.

    The Xperia Compact has been the only line with good performance and cameras, but it's gotten steadily more expensive and less compact. Plenty of people were interested in the Unihertz Jelly [kickstarter.com] and Atom [kickstarter.com] because they offered a smaller form factor, even despite the phones' clear limitations. I would be likely to buy the Atom myself if it had a quarter-HD (960x540) screen; that's 450 dpi, which is not unreasonable, while the 432x240 screen is just too low-res for many kinds of uses.

    "Palm" has ticked a lot of the right boxes with this- genuinely small, high screen area to total area ratio, HD res (1280x720), IP68 and decent impact protection. But the price point is a real problem, and it's too bad it's tied to Verizon.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Junta ( 36770 )

      I wager the result is Verizon not letting it be the device it could be: Just a small phone.

      Also all the marketing BS about it being about wellness and being a phone made to *not* work as well on purpose strikes me as marketing refusing to believe there would be a market for a small phone without a 'gimmick'.

      I wouldn't be surprised if behind this device were an engineering team thinking they were making a phone for people sick of the oversized phablet norm, who may be as disgusted as everyone else at the lim

  • The good: the size is perfect since all the other manufacturers seem to only release huge-ass phones now

    The bad: the features are just... weird. Why does it uses a face-photo-unlock feature instead of just a regular NIP? It's not like the screen is too small to display 12 buttons in a 3x4 grid.

    The costly: If it's supposed to be a phone for when you want to be "less connected" why is it trying to be a full smartphone in a tiny package? Why is there a 12 megapixels camera on the back and an 8 megapixels camer

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by arth1 ( 260657 )

      The bad: the features are just... weird. Why does it uses a face-photo-unlock feature instead of just a regular NIP? It's not like the screen is too small to display 12 buttons in a 3x4 grid.

      If part of the target audience includes physically active people, that makes sense. It's hard to unlock a phone to make a call with sweaty hands and/or gloves. It's easier to do a face unlock and then tell it to call.

  • Doesn't matter how successful Palm was... they failed which mean they didn't know what they were doing. Any new phone is just another new kid in the block. Choosing a kid to play with is just plain arrogant. Exclusive? Who gives a flying phuck!!! The world is not gonna drop AT&T and join Verizon just because Palm (a failed company) came back to make a phone only for Verizon. Doing that literally means they deny their own success by not accepting non-verizon customers.

  • Genuis (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    This is what I have been trying to achieve for years. I have my secondary dumb Nokia. The only problem is I am in NZ. People who carry their phones on them all day only want small phones. I have an Apple SE and they are not making this form factor anymore. Very Sad!

  • Not installing (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    ... while not being fully disconnected ...

    I partially disconnect by not installing Facebook/Instagram/Paypal: Not by connecting with a smaller screen.

    ... a 3.3-inch HD display ...

    I despise 5-inch and 6-inch screens: The 6-inch phone is ubiquitous to the point of being shoved into bras, and not between the breasts. My phone is not a general-computing device, even though it's built (hardware And software) that way.

    ... the size of a credit card ...

    A credit card is 2.2 inches in length, meaning this screen is 50% longer than a credit card.

    ... other phone.

    If people are carrying multiple phones and phones are getting too big fo

  • A pretty normal sized phone, just not a phablet (Score:3)

    by erice ( 13380 ) on Wednesday October 17, 2018 @12:06AM (#57490374) Homepage

    The screen is 3.3 inches. That is pretty similar to the 3.5" of a Iphone 4s. This isn't a tiny phone at all. It is modernized version of the size all smart phones used to be before they turned into battleships. It's a bit more compact owing to an edge to an edge screen making better use of the real estate than the old phones did.

  • So, basically, is back with nothing.

  • I think I'm probably the only person in the world who loved Palm's stylus writing input method, "Graffiti". It had a learning curve, but was way easier than dealing with a micro QWERTY, and you could do it without looking. If they brought Graffiti back, I'd have to try it out, otherwise it looks like little more than a novelty.

  • Stupid Product? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    An Android Smart Phone that doesn't feel like Im carrying a brick in my pocket?

    This is actually what I've been looking for.

  • Palm, the company that made the Palm Pilot is long dead. This is some random company that bought the rights to the Palm brand off of HP slapping it on some random android handset. Whatever spirit or ethos the name Palm may have originally represented is long gone.
  • For using when you don't want a full phone? It's a "faux phone"? Does it require Bluetooth and being near your phone to work? Or are they just saying all this because "real phones" are 5+ inches and cost $800+? This just seams like a (expensive) cheap phone.

  • I want it to be my only phone. Why can't I have it that way- is it missing the latest surveillance technology that's built into other smart phones? That just makes me want it more...

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • It's John's phone with a screen, which has been around for years,
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

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