Palm: Mini phone, maxi price, but still kind of funny
1.6.2019
Translation: machine translated
Video: Stephanie Tresch
The 1990s brand Palm is back. The Palm by Palm is set to revive the small phone. But as small as the phone is, the price is just as high. And that is likely to break Palm's back.
Palm says their new phone called Palm is about the size of a credit card. Aha. Strangest credit card in the universe. While testing the Palm, by Palm, I look for the comparison. About the size of an espresso cup? Yes, no, half the size. Somehow the device has a size that can't really be compared with anything else. In the end: The Palm with a 3.3 inch screen diagonal is small. Should be enough.
One thing up front: this thing is nothing for me. I like my big screens. I like AMOLED. I have big trouser pockets and big hands. But as a phone tester, I can tell you one thing: I haven't had this much fun with a phone for a long time.
The phone is probably not for you either. But we'll get to that. First the good stuff.
Palm Resurrected
Palm has a clear concept: a small phone that you only use when you need to. The concept is clear from A to Z, well thought out and well executed, both in terms of hardware and software. Because: Palm doesn't want you to use it.
That's where my admiration for the consistency of the phone comes in.
The battery holds 800mAh. Ridiculous? Not quite. Not only is there probably no room for a larger battery in the casing - there would probably be room for a little more - but powerful battery performance does not correspond to the philosophy of the device. Small screen and IPS? AMOLED would have been nicer. But not the Palm philosophy either.
The Palm, from Palm - is it now officially called "Palm Palm"? - is a phone that you only use when you have an urgent need to communicate. The manufacturer describes it on its website as follows:
Palm is a super small smartphone that is designed to help you focus on what really matters in life. A compact but powerful device for active lifestyles, digital minimalists, and people who live their lives outside of the screen.
Translation
Palm is a super-small smartphone that helps you focus on what's really important in life. A compact but powerful device for active lifestyles, digital minimalists and people whose lives take place away from the screen.
The speaker, on the other hand, is great. You're at home, working on something, need music. Spotify on, then full volume and that's it. It sounds extremely good, even though the speaker takes up very little space.
I like the Palm Phone, even if it does have a few rough patches.
The wasted nostalgia
The phone runs an Android version. So you can check Instagram or watch a YouTube video. Everything works, but it's not particularly sexy because it's tiny. The launcher, on the other hand, is quite sexy. Instead of the usual menu, you have circular icons on the home screen that list all the apps. I also think that the bubbles change position and size the more you use them. But I'm really not sure about that, because by the time I suspected that this might be the case, I'd already had the phone with me for too long. I can't say for sure. But maybe I've just got used to the bubbles.
If you remember the glorious 1990s, then you may also remember the Palm Pilots.
Source: Musée Bolo, Lausanne
At the bottom of the screen you had an area where you could write. As character recognition was still in its infancy back then, you had to learn a separate alphabet called "Palm Graffiti". Each letter had its own unique glyph. If you drew it on the writing pad, then with a bit of luck and skill, the Palm Pilot recognised your scribble.
Worked okay like this. Didn't catch on. It's back now. You can write and draw at the bottom of the Palm screen. I don't quite understand why that's there. You can do things like draw the first letter of the app name and the Palm will find the app for you. It's easier, faster and more intuitive with a keyboard.
Just because nostalgia is hip right now doesn't mean that valuable engineering manpower has to be wasted on such rubbish. Otherwise, the ROM - as Android versions that deviate from the basic version are called - is pretty well done. Life Mode is particularly interesting. If you activate the palm tree symbol at the top of the drawer menu, the phone deactivates all notifications for data and telephony connections when the screen is switched off. This is the mode where you live your life and are not controlled by your smartphone, and that's why it's called Life Mode. But since that's a bit of a bummer when you're listening to Spotify or watching YouTube, Palm is smart enough to allow this connection with all its features.
Speaking of nostalgia: Palm Neo has nothing to do with Palm Classic
The strange thing about Palm's nostalgia, however, is that today's Palm is never the Palm of yesteryear. Palm Neo - I'll call it that - is a completely new company.
This is what happened: Founded in 1992 by Jeff Hawkins in California, the company had its heyday in the 1990s. In 1997, the company was bought by US Robotics and placed under the control of the other subsidiary, 3Com. The company founders jumped ship in 1998 and founded Handspring. Handspring was then bought by Palm again in 2003 and was renamed PalmOne Inc. Until 2008, there was a lot of strategic activity, then the announcement that PalmOne no longer wanted to produce new hardware. But WebOS as software instead. This led to the purchase by HP in 2010. Four years later, the Chinese conglomerate TCL Communications bought the rights to Palm's name and patents.
Source: Keith Allison / flickr
TCL still owns the brand today. Back in 2015, the company announced that it would "re-create" the brand by commissioning a new team in Silicon Valley to build a new device. Whether it's the startup funded by TCL and basketball player Stephen Curry. He is even involved in the development and not just a financial backer. In return, he goes online with the following statement, which was almost certainly written by a marketing department:
As soon as I held Palm in my hand, I knew I had to be involved.
Believable.
So there can be no talk of a big comeback. After all, where TCL brought the keyboard back to smartphones with Blackberry after a few failures and hit the bull's eye, Palm has absolutely nothing to do with anything. Apart from the name, that is.
The price: neither minimalist nor reasonable
That sounds all well and good. But the Palm Palm is only minimalist in terms of technology, because it's expensive. If someone like me hands you the thing and says "Look, this is fun" and you can then press it, then the Palm Palm is fun and highly interesting on a technological level. That's why I like the phone. As someone who works professionally with smartphones and whose job it is to know every model as well as possible.
But you're probably, if nothing else, a buyer of the phone. No. Hopefully not. It's simply not worth the price. You can get a small phone with Android on it in China for about a quarter of the price. But it has Chinese spyware on it and no warranty and Android 7, at most.
I once ordered a Chinese phone. That could be something for me.
So that's it. Miklagard, maybe this phone is something for you. <p
Journalist. Author. Hacker. A storyteller searching for boundaries, secrets and taboos – putting the world to paper. Not because I can but because I can’t not.
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