Have you heard? Apparently, owning one smartphone is no longer enough. We now need a secondary phone to keep us away from the temptations of our flagship handset. At least that’s what the returning former PDA purveyor Palm wants us to believe.
Earlier this month, a new start-up with rights to the Palm brand name launched a tiny credit-card sized handset (palmset?) that shares your phone number. It was announced as a Verizon exclusive in the US, but we’re now learning Vodafone has snagged the initial rights to sell the Palm phone in the UK.
The minimalist handset, from a Silicon Valley start-up that purchased the rights to the Palm brand name, runs Android 8.1 with full access to the Google Play store, but it’ll pair neatly with your iOS phone too.
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The home screen icons sit larger on a 3.3-inch LCD screen (445ppi), with an 800mAh battery. There are 12-megapixel and 8-megapixel cameras along with the Snapdragon 435 processor, 3GB of RAM and 32GB of storage. So, effectively, the credit card-sized, 62.5g device can do anything you want it to, but the experience is such that you probably won’t want to.
We built Palm with a 12MP rear camera and 8MP front camera, so you can quickly capture that beautiful landscape or snap a quick selfie pic.twitter.com/eO7068c0Fb
— Palm (@palm) October 15, 2018
Vodafone will have a six-month exclusive on the phone, after which other UK networks will be able to jump aboard. However, that’s by no means a foregone conclusion. The British network is yet to confirm a price or release date, but Verizon is selling this for $349 (around $270) and it’s unclear whether there’s a desire for consumers to spend that much money on an auxiliary handset.
Almost a full decade ago, the new Palm Pre running the intuitive new webOS software was to lead the smartphone fightback against the emergence of the iPhone and Android. The pebble-shaped handset had a pop-up QWERTY keyboard with a neat touchscreen interface and it going to be all things to all people. Except it wasn’t. Fast forward to late 2018, and webOS runs on LG smart TVs and phones baring the name Palm are back.
The more things change…
Do you think the Palm phone is a good idea? Do we really need two smartphones? Or just a little more discipline to put down the one we have? Let us know @TrustedReviews on Twitter.
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Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
