Palm makes comeback with small smartphone clone

In the United States, Palm comes with a remarkable new gadget: a small Android smartphone that aims to use next to your actual smartphone. Although it is not actually a real smartphone, but only a ‘mini-clone’ of your actual device.

Palm may be a familiar name for some. In the nineties, before the smartphone existed, Palm was one of the largest PDAs (personal digital assistants). The company later also made smartphones and developed its own operating system webOS. In 2010, Palm was taken over by HP, but this has never been a great success.

Today Palm is a completely different company, a start-up from San Francisco that only uses the nám Palm and pays for it. current owner, the Chinese TCL. The new Palm wants to tap into a new market with its first product and is supported by various investors, including the famous basketball player Steph Curry.

The device that is now being introduced is an Android 8.1 running device that costs $ 349 and only available from provider Verizon. In order to use it, you must have a subscription with Verizon in combination with a smartphone (iPhone or Android). The Palm is not intended as a replacement for that smartphone, but to be used alongside, just like an Apple Watch.

The Palm is much smaller than the huge smartphones that are common today. The device (96.6 x 50.6 x 7.4 mm) has a 3.3 inch HD screen and is slightly smaller than the first iPhone from 2007, which had a 3.5 inch screen. Thanks to these small dimensions, you can easily put the Palm in your pocket, to carry your arm or to hang around your neck while you’re doing some exercise.

With the Palm you can do almost anything you can with a normal smartphone . You can just make calls, receive and send messages, listen to Spotify, watch videos and take photos – at the back there is a 12 megapixel camera (with flash) and at the front an 8 megapixel selfie camera. You can even use any Android app that you want.

You would say that it is indeed a full-fledged smartphone, but that is not the case. Telephone calls and messages are sent by Verizon to the Palm via a service called ‘Number Share’. If you are called on your ‘real’ smartphone, the Palm also rings. So you do not need an extra phone number and you do not have to have your ‘real’ smartphone with you if you use the Palm.

If you have an Android smartphone, you also get access to all apps on the Palm. have bought.
Another advantage of the Palm is that the battery lasts a long time, according to Palm a whole day when the so-called ‘Life Mode’ (wireless connections are switched off when the screen is off) is switched on. In addition, the device is water and dust resistant.

Sounds pretty nice, but there is a big ‘but’: you have to pay Verizon 10 dollars a month to use the Palm. In addition to the $ 349 for the device itself, you also lose an additional $ 120 per year on top of your normal subscription. The question is whether many people will be willing to pay these costs.

The full specifications of the Palm can be found on the official website of Palm.