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posted by mrpg on Wednesday October 17 2018, @04:44AM   Printer-friendly
from the walkers dept.

Submitted via IRC for BoyceMagooglyMonkey

Palm rises from the dead as a zombie brand, launches tiny smartphone

If you recall, Palm, creator of the Palm Pilot and WebOS, bombed out of the smartphone market and was purchased by HP. Palm died at HP after a short run of tablets and smartphones, and eventually Chinese smartphone company TCL snatched up the rights to the Palm brand in 2014, and things have been quiet since then. You might know TCL from running that other smartphone zombie brand, Blackberry.

Today, TCL's Palm presents itself as actual new company with new co-founders, a new logo, and an office in San Francisco. The company is launching the, uh, "Palm" phone (Do we call it the Palm Palm?) and it's taking the "Palm" name literally, with a device small enough to fit in the palm of your hand. The Palm Palm has a practically microscopic 3.3-inch display, and it measures just 96.6mm tall by 50.6mm wide, which is close to the size of a credit card. Palm is pitching the Palm as a "companion" device to your main smartphone, allowing you to leave your big phone behind and bring the Palm in a wallet, on a lanyard, or in any tiny pocket.

This tiny phone also comes with a really tiny spec sheet. You're getting a 3.3-inch 1280×720 display with a respectable 445ppi. This is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 435 SoC (that's eight Cortex A53 cores, usually at 1.4GHz) 3GB of RAM, and an 800mAh battery. There's 32GB of storage, a 12MP rear camera, 8MP front camera, IP68 dust and water resistance, USB-C, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS, and LTE.


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  • (Score: 2) by Arik on Thursday October 18 2018, @03:59AM (3 children)

    by Arik (4543) on Thursday October 18 2018, @03:59AM (#750305) Journal
    I'm pining for my old phone so bad. I kept it working till there were no more towers it could talk to. It's in a box somewhere.

    I looked at the newer dumb phones. Really didn't find anything impressive. I don't like flip phones, but I'd take one if only I could find one with good knobby buttons - but nah, they're all identical, and perfectly flat. I don't want a slider at all, even on a palm the qwerty keypad was too fiddly for my taste and they're usually even smaller, and much more cheaply constructed. T9 with good buttons - not flat, not identical - that's what I'm looking for.

    So I have a "smart" phone I've crippled and converted to T9. The 'keys' have no tactile presence at all, of course, but neither do the flat keys on the last few flip phones I looked at, and at least mine are twice the size so they're easier to see.

    I'm not saying there isn't something useful out there, I just haven't found it yet. What model is your flip phone?
    --
    If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
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  • (Score: 2) by Reziac on Thursday October 18 2018, @04:57AM (2 children)

    by Reziac (2489) on Thursday October 18 2018, @04:57AM (#750333) Homepage

    Samsung Gusto 3. You could probably find a dumber one, but you'd have to hit it with a hammer a few times to catch up. Locked to Verizon, but for the price I didn't care, and that's the best deal and carrier here anyway. Had it about 5 years and the battery is finally getting tired, but a new one was $5 (Samsung-branded at that). Holds signal a little better than the LG flipphone I had before; a little thinner on features, but no big loss (other than to still have number blocking would have been nice).

    Couple months ago Ting had one in their store -- under $50 !! -- that I'm sorry I didn't grab (and didn't save specs for, grrr) -- a smart flipphone -- form factor a little larger (I think the touchscreen was 3.5", so not by much), ran Android-recent, and had real buttons. Unlocked and did GSM and CDMA. Meant to go back and check but by the time I remembered the store had moved on.

    --
    And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
    • (Score: 2) by Arik on Thursday October 18 2018, @02:32PM (1 child)

      by Arik (4543) on Thursday October 18 2018, @02:32PM (#750457) Journal
      "Samsung Gusto 3."

      Looked up the manual, does look better than the ones I saw recently. Keys appear to have slight relief - not as much as I'd like but they don't look to be perfectly flat at least, and there is at least a subtle distinction in shape between right, left and center, so it looks like it could be usable. I might have to talk to my carrier again.

      Thanks!
      --
      If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
      • (Score: 2) by Reziac on Friday October 19 2018, @01:58AM

        by Reziac (2489) on Friday October 19 2018, @01:58AM (#750759) Homepage

        Welcome. Yeah, the keys have enough definition to feel easily with a bare finger, maybe not with gloves. The 5 key has two little points that stick up, making it hard to miss. The rocker thingee (silver square) sticks up enough to be obvious. Got out my old LG to compare and the Samsung is definitely better that way, by quite a lot.

        --
        And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.