Palm: A Minimalist Phone
Palm is a minimalist phone which is tiny and comes with the word Palm printed on the back. This new phone is introduced by a start up in San Francisco and they have obtained the rights of the name, ‘Palm’ from TCL last year.
The tiny phone will come out in November and is supposed to be an add-on to a current line. If you have a Verizon plan, then the Palm can be an add-on, whereby your phone number can be shared. It runs the Android 8.1 version and all the apps from the Google Play Store.
About Palm
The tiny phone is basically a tiny phone at just 50 X 97 mm. You can say it is as big as a credit card but thicker at 7.4mm. It weighs 62.5 grams.
With the Palm you can do all the things your big phone can do. The main reason for introducing the Palm is to get you away from being totally obsessed with your phone. The cases for it have been designed by Steph Curry and it comes with a strap for your forearm so that you can use it even when you are working out.
It was designed mainly to make the phone feel comfortable in your hand.
It comes with Gorilla Glass 3 in the front and back and is water and dust resistant.
The only button on it which is the power button offers multiple functions. By long-pressing the power button, you can launch Google Assistant.
The 800mAh battery provides sufficient power for it.
Since the Palm is so small, it comes only with a single USB-C port. There is no scope for a headphone jack or wireless charging.
It has a 3.3-inch, 445-ppi LCD display. The display is not big enough to do much work on it but suitable to check information and type on it.
The Palm comes with an 8-megapixel selfie camera and a rear 12-megapixel camera. The photos you get are not really great but passable.
It comes with the Snapdragon 435 processor paired to 3GB RAM and 32GB storage.
There is a virtual button below. If you tap it once, you go back, twice you go home and on long-press, to the multi-tasking screen.For volume control, swipe down the quick settings panel.
It has a hexagonal grid of apps that can be vertically scrolled. By long-pressing any of the icons, a pop-up of the shortcuts for that app appears.
The phone will go on sale next month for $350.
Is the Palm really worth it?
The Palm phone is not really worth it if it was not for its branding.
The new tiny Smartphone shares your number so that you spend less time on your primary smartphone and you need to pay $10 extra per month to use Verizon’s Number Share service for it to work.
There are better ways to get rid of your smartphone addictions.
You can even use a smartwatch for your workouts instead of taking your smartphone.
Instead of using a 3.3-inch screen with an unfamiliar user interface, it is better to use a real smartphone.
There does not seem to be any special feature the Palm has to offer.
