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Palm – The best small phone for minimalists, athletes, and kids
- raffraffraff 6y agoWell done Palm. I thought you were dead! Shake up the phone business with your waterproof spotify player. Count me in. Seriously though, most of the reasons I need a phone are covered by a tiny device. NFC pay, music, camera, phone calls, oncall alerts...
- eb0la 6y agoI was hoping this was made py Palm, Inc (sold to HP?); but It is a different company: Certificate by Letsencrypt, and the TOS say somethong about "Palm Ventures Group".
- Shank 6y agoThe Palm name has been sold time and time again. The original company and even the WebOS company are definitely not involved in the latest Palm phone: > Yep, this phone, which is called "Palm" and from the company "Palm" (so the Palm Palm?) is a newly formed zombie brand made from the ashes of the legendary Palm Inc, the very same company that created the Palm Pilot, the Palm Treo, and WebOS. After bombing out in the smartphone market circa 2010 and selling to HP, Chinese firm TCL bought the rights to Palm back in 2014 and announced plans to resurrect the company in 2015. The corpse of Palm remained still for several years, but the right combination of a full moon, or lightning strike, or something roused the company back to life just last month. [0]: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/12/palm-phone-review-fun-endearing-and-bad-at-everything/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/12/palm-phone-review-fu...
- aasasd 6y agoAfaik the olde Palm sold the software, i.e. the OS—while the hardware business remained with someone else, as if it would do any good by itself. I seem to remember the logo, even.
- scarface74 6y agoNot the hardware business - just the name.
- m0xte 6y agoI can’t see anything I’d choose in this over an iPhone SE. The smaller size doesn’t sell it. I imagine it’d be an inconvenience.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- Razengan 6y agoFrom a quick skim, it seems like just another phone?
- GordonS 6y agoIt is, except it's about the size of a credit card - that's a really appealing size for some people, either to replace their current behemoth, or as a second phone when you want something tiny.
- ibotty 6y agoThat's the one, right? https://www.gsmarena.com/palm_palm-9290.php https://www.gsmarena.com/palm_palm-9290.php
- laputan_machine 6y agoThis _looks_ really nice. I'm a fan of smaller phones, I currently own a Pixel 2, and if it was a tiny bit smaller, I think it'd be perfect. However, saying that I think the challenge with this phone might be the battery life. It comes with a free phone case with a battery pack(making the size waaay chunkier than without the case), and the specifications don't mention mAh, just 'battery life' (which from my experience is rarely accurate). According to https://www.gsmarena.com/palm_palm-pictures-9290.php https://www.gsmarena.com/palm_palm-pictures-9290.php it's only 800mAh, and from the images it's clear that they're making the screen look much larger than it actually is. Hmm. I really dig the concept though.
- chkgk 6y agoLocal music playback, probably with display switched off, is only 9.5h. For comparison, modern iPhones claim >60h just playing audio. Another indicator is that all battery life examples are for activities that typically have the display switched off. So, I guess you are right. I like the size :)
- noodlesUK 6y agoHas something happened to iPhones recently? My iPhone 8 can barely make it a full day of sparse use without being charged...
- danielheath 6y agoBatteries degrade (some faster than others, depending on usage patterns). Battery life is quoted for a new one.
- rbanffy 6y agoDon't know about iPhones, but the only way my Nokia 7 plus will do 60 hours is without radios, reading music from internal storage, and piping sound do a powered speaker.
- m0xte 6y agoYes. I can get a day and a half out of my XR easily with quite heavy usage. And the battery health is 90% after 18 months of ownership. Best phone I’ve ever had.
- butz 6y agoSadly, still on Android 8.1. If anyone is looking for small Android device with a bit more recent Android version, check out upcoming Unihertz Jelly 2 https://www.ogadget.com/x/jelly-2 https://www.ogadget.com/x/jelly-2
- cannam 6y agoHm, some interesting design decisions with the Jelly 2 there. In particular, if that comparison table is right, it's more than 16mm thick - I daresay none of us have seen anything like that since the flip-phone days. And the payoff is that you get quite a chunky battery for the size. I imagine there must be a few people here who would happily take that.
- GekkePrutser 6y agoI have the Jelly 1 and am very happy with it. Will definitely go for the Jelly 2. Thickness isn't so much an issue because the phone is so small. It usually lives in the 'coincatcher' in my pocket and I hardly notice it's there. Only issues are battery life and low specs (and no fingerprint!) but the Jelly 2 will solve that. But the Palm doesn't solve any of those issues. No fingerprint scanner. Only 800mAh battery (Jelly 2 has 2000). Much lower specs, 28nm SoC. Single SIM. Just nope.
- frabbit 6y agoI found the GPS accuracy left a bit to be desired.
- frabbit 6y agoUPDATE: according the promo video on their facebook page this one has "improved GPS". No tech details on what that means. https://www.facebook.com/getJelly/videos/3438043796208898/ https://www.facebook.com/getJelly/videos/3438043796208898/
- ourmandave 6y agoI had an original Unihertz Jelly and the battery life was just miserable. At least you could swap them. Scrolling through forums, I don't think they ever fixed that. Hopefully on the Jelly 2? Currently on a Unihertz Atom. Battery life is better but it's sealed like an iphone. The Atom starts on Android 8.1 but get regular updates and it's v9 now. Maybe Palm plans the same thing?
- Narretz 6y agoGood to see there is a market for tiny phones. That gives me hope there's a market for sub 5 inch screen phones as well. Or something not bigger as a Samsung Galaxy A3 2017.
- lcnmrn 6y agoSony should bring back XZ1 Compact form factor. I use XZ1C daily, it's perfect for everything.
- zola 6y agoAgreed, the size is perfect and I find it sturdier then Z3 Compact. Aren't there more people like us to justify compact line?
- rospaya 6y agoI'm putting off buying a new phone because nothing compares to Z3C. Compact plus good battery life isn't rare anymore, it simply doesn't exist.
- cannam 6y agoI have an XZ1 Compact. It's great, works really well, appealing design, every feature I need - decent screen, headphone jack, camera button, fingerprint reader, feels fast, battery lasts for ages. It's an almost perfect phone. Just one problem: it's too big. Not by that much, but it definitely is. It's too big to use well one-handed, and it doesn't fit comfortably in a lot of pockets, especially since the corners are pointy. The perfect phone form factor - and this must surely have been plain to anyone who ever held one - was the Nokia Lumia 620, a Windows phone with 3.8" screen and a curvy back with exchangable double-shot plastic covers. It was a bit like an iPhone 3GS in shape but lighter and with a marginally bigger screen. The phone itself was a bit crap in various ways, but how strange that we should collectively ignore the obvious rightness of this design and go on making them worse and worse for years afterwards. (I'm being flippant, but somewhere in my head I am puzzled by it all)
- nihil75 6y agoIs this a new model, or the same one that sells on EBay for 80$? (Many were made to be sold as Verizon-only "secondary device" and are now surplus). If so, reports are that the battery life is extremely short.
- rvense 6y agoYou're thinking of the Palm Pixi, I think. This is a new Android device by the looks of it.
- numpad0 6y agoSame one. Should be like 3 years old, the original plan indeed was to make it work like an Apple Watch that share the number with your main phone.
- quicklime 6y agoI think this is new, at least compared to the one they originally released. The page says that it's carrier unlocked, whereas the original one was locked to Verizon (via a primary big phone).
- jccalhoun 6y agoIt is the same one they released back in 2018 from the specs: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/12/palm-phone-review-fun-endearing-and-bad-at-everything/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/12/palm-phone-review-fu...
- hliyan 6y agoThey could afford to make this a bit thicker and more rounded. At this size, its ability to fit snugly into your palm (no pun intended) is more important than any perceived benefit of thinness. I personally believe such "egg-shaped" devices will become the dominant hand-held form factor, with tablets as supplementary devices.
- hawski 6y agoI'm eyeing Unihertz Jelly 2. It has soap form factor with 2000mAh battery, but sadly it has Mediatek SoC. https://www.ogadget.com/x/jelly-2 https://www.ogadget.com/x/jelly-2?
- onli 6y agoThe first one was not great, the display specifically. Maybe that changed? I'd wait for a review on that. That Android does not work well with a device that small should remains as an issue, but at least the gesture controls it has now could help a bit.
- cl3misch 6y agoWhat the is the drawback of a Mediatek SoC?
- DyslexicAtheist 6y agopoor security & quality. it's ok for doing hw compartmentalization (throwaway/burner) but they die like flies.
- sradman 6y agoJohn Gruber prefers the feel of the 2.31” classic width iPhones [1]: > Feel matters. And to me, the classic 4-inch display form factor shared by the iPhones 5, 5S, and now SE [1st Gen] feels the best in hand. This is obviously highly subjective, but in my mind it’s not even a close call. There are obvious reasons to prefer the larger 4.7- and 5.5-inch models, but how they feel in your hand isn’t one of them. The ultra-mobile Palm is 2” wide with a 16:9 720p screen and almost half the weight of the 1st Gen iPhone SE (63g vs 113g) but half the battery capacity. [1] https://daringfireball.net/2016/03/the_iphone_se https://daringfireball.net/2016/03/the_iphone_se
- stewbrew 6y agoIs this a Palm branded device by TCL? Who actually made this device?
- m1sta_ 6y agoLife Mode needs to allow calls, but turn everything else off. I suspect I'd buy one of these if I could play with it in person first.
- twelvechairs 6y agoIs this related to Palm Inc. (Palm Pilot PDAs) of the 90s and 2000s? [edit: Looks like the answer is yes, TCL bought the Palm brand and is funding this]
- timwaagh 6y agono (edit: yes, of course they own the rights to the name, otherwise they wouldn't be able to call it a Palm. As far as I know it's otherwise unrelated).
- qwertox 6y agoQuoting from their page: > December 11, 2018 > Meet the new Palm > Back in 1996, Palm released the PalmPilot and forever changed the mobile handheld game. Today Palm is back—same name but a whole new company. We’re a small San Francisco-based start up harnessing that same innovative spirit to help bring people out of their tech and into their lives. It looks like they bought the rights to the name.
- mofosyne 6y agoSlightly disappointing, but hopefully they be able to carry on the legacy. Even if it's only by name. Might not be too bad if they managed to hire some veterans from PalmOS
- jmtulloss 6y agoAFAIK they have not hired any Palm veterans (I worked at Palm but obviously only know a small fraction of all the people that worked there)
- neilv 6y agoWhen I saw the headline, I had a moment of hope they did something minimal, efficient, privacy-respecting, and secure, looking a lot like touchscreen PalmOS.
- agumonkey 6y agoI found a bunch of old cellphones, and the smaller form factor was really a delight (also the inherent sturdiness due to less complex design and less glass). Good on them to try. ps: also for the non young and average person, android is just a bit too deep
- shmageggy 6y agoIt's weird that for a product whose main selling point is its size that you have to scroll way down the page to get a clear image that shows its scale relative to something recognizable, and even then it's not super clear.
- tiziano88 6y agoWhen looking at the website on mobile, the first two pictures compare it to a SIM card and a credit card, respectively
- capableweb 6y agoYeah, true! If you scale your browser window to mobile-size-ish, you'll see a picture that compares it to a SIM card, that's a great comparison. The second comparison is also visible on desktop, but it's not a very obvious one, the CC size is kind of hidden, so could be better. Weird to display different pictures for mobiles than for desktop, especially when the mobile picture is way better than the animation desktop sees.
- masklinn 6y agoThe first image on desktop shows it next to a credit card[0], but the credit card is mostly hidden so it's hard to notice unless you check the text blurb (literally "About the size of a credit card.") [0] https://i.shgcdn.com/6796ca42-cd39-47de-855a-9a5bbb1aa92a/-/format/auto/-/preview/3000x3000/-/quality/lighter/ https://i.shgcdn.com/6796ca42-cd39-47de-855a-9a5bbb1aa92a/-/...
- diminish 6y ago" About the size of a credit card." Write above-the-fold.
- yellowsir 6y agolink to the image https://i.shgcdn.com/6881de34-bf19-45f8-b9bb-134a7aaa5f85/ https://i.shgcdn.com/6881de34-bf19-45f8-b9bb-134a7aaa5f85/
- rwmj 6y ago
- 11235813213455 6y agoI thought it'd have been a joke, showing nothing, since we don't need smartphones, especially kids, minimalists and people doing exercises
- nailer 6y agoMinimists still need to.meet their friends and athletes still need to measure their distance or reps.
- scarface74 6y agoYou realize you are in the minority right?
- pmontra 6y ago> OS: Android 8.1 Ops. > Security: Face unlock Hopefully not the only method. > Dimensions: 50.6 X 96.6 X 7.4mm Wonderful. > Weight: 62.5 grams More than wonderful. > GPS Workout: Up to 4 hours and 45 minutes My old Sony Xperia Compact records GPS all the day long. I used it to record a 8:00 to 20:30 bicycle ride one year ago. Sorry for the Palm.
- tobych 6y agoWhat do you mean by "Ops"?
- capableweb 6y agoAndroid 8.1 was released in August, 2017, so it's very old. Although, it did have it's latest update just one month ago, so hopefully the security would be alright, even if it doesn't have the latest features. But my guess is that the target market for Palm doesn't really care about the latest features, they care about gear that works and fits normally in a hand. So probably not a big issue really.
- Carpetsmoker 6y agoThe device was released in Oct 2018 though, so at the time it was the newest Android version (9 was just released, probably too late in the Palm dev cycle). The $280 price tag is a biggest show-stopper IMO (and according to the Palm website that's a "sale" from the $400 price tag, although I never quite trust that). I paid $70 for my basic Android device (Samsung Core A2) and that works just fine as well (with some minor caveats/limitations of Android Go, such as the screen not lighting up when there's a notification).
- fiblye 6y agoI’m guessing “oops”, in reference to Android 8 being a few years old.
- esperent 6y agoI've seen people use this word a bit recently. I assume it's a mis/alternative spelling of oops?
- nailer 6y agoI've been thinking of buying one of these, but waiting for the V2 - the battery life and large bezels on these isn't great. But if they keep the size, reduce the bezels, and bump the battery up they'll definitely have my money.
- Twisell 6y agoReally nice concept the size should rejoice people looking for a practical, streamlined and small smartphone... BUT Why on earth did they have to rippoff both original iPhone design and the watchOS appscreen??? I hope for them that Apple have learn yet that it's not worth the energy suing a small player. But still it's maddening that they can't thing of something else than such obvious copy-paste approach. Next time hire some designers to produce something more original for the love of earth!
- bayindirh 6y agoBecause back in the day, iPhone have ripped off both home screen and Today application's designs (which was a very useful third party tool which provides an overview of your day with relevant notifications) from PalmOS. In other words, design goes both ways. There's no ripoff from my point of view. If you ask me, they've applied the paradigm in a pretty neat way, which was Palm's strong point back in the day.
- scarface74 6y agoRandom Thoughts: 1. If it is shipping with Android 8 - an old version of Android. What are the chances that it will ever see any updates? 2. My wife would have been the target audience for this form factor - pre Apple Watch. Her phone is her least favorite device. She will leave it in the car in a heartbeat. She won’t think twice if she leaves at home. But now, she has a cellular Apple Watch and AirPods with a third party ear clip. She doesn’t have to carry any phone. 3. The battery life is atrocious. Even the Apple Watch has better battery life for normal day to day use. 4. I seriously doubt it has 16GB of memory - the cellular Apple Watch does. That’s more than enough for local music playback without using cellular. 5. This is the Zune of phones to me. But, yes I realize that the cheapest entry point to our setup - phone + Watch is $800 if we did get A cheaper headset. With AirPods it would be $959.
- jjeaff 6y agoThe zune of phones as in the best device made in both hardware and software quality but just too late to the game to get any traction?
- scarface74 6y agoThe Zune came out with a 30GB hard drive player when the world had moved on to flash based smaller players and three months before the iPhone The flash based Zunes similar to the Nanos came out at the same time as the second generation iPod Touch. The Zune HD came out with no apps around the end of 2009. Peak iPod - including the Touch - was 4th quarter 2008. The iPod was already losing steam and even then it was being propped up by the iPod Touch.
- unfunco 6y agoAnd it was brown.
- scarface74 6y ago<sarcasm> If you’re criticizing the Zune because it is brown, you’re a racist piece of crap. You should be Doxxed and reported to your employer </sarcasm> Yes this was a real argument made at the time.
- dvfjsdhgfv 6y agoUnfortunately it's running a system designed to profile and track users, so you can hardly call it "the best" for anyone.
- coronadisaster 6y agoThat is a pretty bad font they use, at least on my old monitors, parts of some letters are almost missing.
- 6510 6y ago2 x 3.8 inch = 5.08 x 9.652 cm
- tomxor 6y agoThis has already been solved... a true phone for "minimalists, athletes and kids": https://www.nokia.com/phones/en_gb/nokia-5310 https://www.nokia.com/phones/en_gb/nokia-5310 It's only 3cm taller, the battery will last you a week and it has no distractions, oh and it's 34 quid. More classic Nokia options here: https://www.nokia.com/phones/en_gb/classic-phones https://www.nokia.com/phones/en_gb/classic-phones I've had a Nokia 208 for 7 years, I take it rock climbing all the time, it's been crushed and battered countless times and dropped from 60m - battery only lasts a few days now so time to get a new one (a new battery not a new phone). These phones are great for sports because they are so rugged and they are cheap anyway so you can forget about them and focus on what you are doing. The stick phone form factor is also better for fitting into a pocket without restricting movement - I don't always want to take it on route but sometimes forget it's in my pocket.
- nailer 6y agoDifferent market. I want a smartphone, I just want a small one.
- tomxor 6y agoThen it's for miniaturists not minimalists.
- paulcole 6y agoThe best small car isn’t a bicycle.
- rattray 6y agoMinimalists sometimes need Google maps
- tomxor 6y agoAs a minimalist, I can't deny the utility of digital maps, it's the most useful thing smart phones provide, and I would love to add it to an otherwise dumb phone... For the same form factor and other benefits but at about twice the price the 8110 runs kaiOS which includes google maps among other things - it's a different ecosystem and you wont find all the same kinds of apps that you get on android but there are some big ones in there like whatsapp. https://www.nokia.com/phones/en_gb/nokia-8110-4g https://www.nokia.com/phones/en_gb/nokia-8110-4g I might seriously upgrade to one of these at some point, feels like a good middle ground without going full distractophone. [edit] oh and of course you get to make infinite number of references to the matrix with this phone ;P
- uaaiIbab 6y agoWhat's the point of having a small, minimalist phone if it's going to be roughly the same price as a normal phone anyway?
- josefresco 6y agoExactly. I seriously considered buying to replace my iPhone 6 but at $350 it was too costly. I would have bought two for $149 though. I also didn't like how it seemed like an Android "dead end".
- MiddleEndian 6y agoThe full price is a ripoff, but you can buy them refurbished on Amazon for cheap.
- SahAssar 6y agoThat it's small and minimalist? Personally I'd pay a huge premium for a 3-4 inch screen phone with an okay screen-to-body ratio and a somewhat privacy-friendly up-to-date OS with a browser (I don't need apps besides basic phone, sms and browser). I haven't found anything that ticks all three besides building something myself with a RPI zero, a 4g modem and a hyperpixel4.
- jankotek 6y agoI have very good experience with Elari NanoPhone. Only 30 grams and 5 days battery life. It can serve as a standalone feature phone with mp3 player. But it can also work as bluetooth headset and dialer for bigger phone. In this case it synchronizes contact list.
- 7952 6y agoI wonder if this kind of form factor would work as an action camera.
- dwighttk 6y agoPretty sure it’s pronounced PLAM
- markstos 6y agoThe best phone for kids is your old phone.
- Abishek_Muthian 6y agoI personally don't buy this premise of 'Improving your lifestyle, by including friction in our products'. Screen size is not limiting someone from not leaving Facebook, Instagram, TikTok etc. If they don't want to use it, they can uninstall it on their existing device. These kind of devices just prey upon compulsive buyers hoping 'If I buy X, my life will magically get better'. Buying such tiny screen phones at this point of time would just limit the productivity as an when needed, if that's all one needed they could dig up their 10 year old android device with 2.5" screen or better buy a current feature phone with 4G and 30 days standby time for fraction of the price. IMO, If a new smartphone manufacturer wants to enter the space with the premise of 'improving lifestyle', then perhaps they should build devices for pure Linux smartphone OS like these[1][2] where productivity is available when needed via web apps, supposed lifestyle culprit apps aren't available anyways and help build a better ecosystem. [1]https://store.pine64.org/product/pinephone-community-edition-ubports-limited-edition-linux-smartphone/ https://store.pine64.org/product/pinephone-community-edition... [2]https://postmarketos.org/blog/2020/06/15/pinephone-postmarketos-community-edition/ https://postmarketos.org/blog/2020/06/15/pinephone-postmarke... [3]https://puri.sm/products/librem-5/ https://puri.sm/products/librem-5/
- coffeefirst 6y agoI kind of agree. I’ve experimented with every gray screen/app organizing/focus blocker technique on the hype train, and in the end it’s mostly window dressing: the hard part is breaking bad habits.
- scarface74 6y agoI had some really horrible habits and distractions with my phone. Anytime that I should be focused on someone else or something else, I leave my phone at home - or in these days in another room since we don’t go out and just have my Apple Watch on me.
- smattiso 6y agoI disagree. Humans are creatures of habit and environment definitely plays into that. Change the environment and you change the habits. Take someone from the Midwest suburbs where they have to drive everywhere and move them to NYC. Instantly they will be getting their 10k steps with no problem. Get rid of all the junk food in your house, 95% of your eating problems just went away. This phone was like that for me (maybe not for you!). I was seriously addicted to the Internet, like seriously browse HN and reddit for a couple hours a day everyday. Youtube maybe a couple more. Now unless I'm working or streaming a movie I rarely even open my laptop and it just sits in a cupboard. My life has drastically improved after working to rid myself of Internet addition. It's a serious problem for many people. Getting a phone where I could remove the Web from it completely was a huge part of that.
- pjmlp 6y ago> OS: Android 8.1 Nope, thanks for the effort.
- yodelshady 6y agoI really miss my first smartphone - a Galaxy Ace 2 that I got in final year of undergraduate. The difference between "I can send this email/check this wiki page" and not is massive. No newer phone has improved on the Ace 2 for that, but they are much more distracting. Oh, and it played music to headphones. Through a simple, reliable, well-supported port that also supplied power, whilst consuming far less. That said, 3.3" is pushing it. Nor do I have any confidence of support, or - outside the US - proper 4G (it might work - I'd have to check). 65 mm wide phone with stock android please.
- dade_ 6y agoIf the Palm is the only device I have on hand, I want the camera to be very good or great and his was my deal breaker. It is also V1 hardware which I never buy because there are always unfixable issues and sometimes companies don’t survive their first product (this is a startup that licences/bought the brand).
- robertlagrant 6y agoIs "Life Mode" basically, "we conserve our small battery's life by not having any processing while the screen's off"?
- kstenerud 6y agoWhat is with the font on this site? It's like looking at an out-of-alignment CRT, and nearly impossible to read :/
- Igor_Wiwi 6y agodoes it support contactless payment?
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- barrkel 6y agoWe need the ability to switch phones more easily than a SIM swap. Getting a paper clip or equivalent out is too fiddly, and the cards are too easy to drop or lose. If we can get to a place where your phone number is an account that your phone is logged into, then your choice of phone can become more like a fashion accessory for the day, and be selected on the basis of events, rather than needing to be all things for all occasions.
- scarface74 6y agoFrom a practical perspective, if you have multiple devices with a cellular data plan you could do this with third party voip services. But you are paying for multiple data plans. Of course on iOS devices, you have to have at least one phone as the central device with a voice plan but then someone calls your phone, your iPad and your watch will ring. But you still have to have multiple data plans. Ignoring the cost, my watch ($10/month), phone ($35/month), and iPad ($20/month) all unlimited plans serve the purpose. My watch when I don’t want to carry my phone or take it out of my pocket, my phone for the normal use case, and the iPad when I want a larger screen or do lighter productivity by just pairing my BT keyboard and mouse.
- pickledcods 6y agoThe quality of the site usually reflects the quality of the product because they both share the same mindset. Linking to 15 external sites, most of which I not have seen before and reddit for a single promotion page gives me the impression its less about the product and more about the clicks.
- charliebrownau 6y agoAnother plastic non repairable "smart" phone without replacement battery with screen that will crack by sneezing on it
- HenryBemis 6y ago1) my NoScript and my PrivacyBadger lit up on this website, wow!!! The amount of crapware/scripts running on this website is top shelf tracking!! 2) financing for $280?? Why would someone get into debt to buy a phone? This is an insult to minimalism
- rodolphoarruda 6y agoIf it runs Strava and fits into the back pocket of my cycling jersey, it's sold.
- aftergibson 6y agoMinimalists! Go forth and buy a smaller, more terrible version of the notification machine you already have. I do love the irony of selling junk off the back of a minimalist lifestyle....
- jccalhoun 6y agoI think this is the same phone that has been out since late 2018 https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/12/palm-phone-review-fun-endearing-and-bad-at-everything/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/12/palm-phone-review-fu...
- xchip 6y agoThe best according to the salesman
- m3kw9 6y agoThey should reissue the treo650
- yanndsal 6y agoHello
- overcast 6y agoI was expecting some type of non smart phone. Apparently minimalist just means take the usefulness out, by making the screen size prohibitively small.
- franze 6y agoLove it! I for one leaving my iPhone XR at home during my vacation. Taking an old iPhone 5s with me. The XR has become my always with me office. Where it is, work is, too. So I will not bring it with me. I might be crazy, but I don't think I am alone. Love the PALM idea.
- MiddleEndian 6y agoI have a Palm Phone. I've been using it for a year or two now. Full disclaimer that 80% of my phone activities are timing things, emailing notes to myself, and informing my friends I've arrived somewhere or will be late (although I do use other features as well). The positives: + The small form factor. You can't really comprehend how small and light it is unless you see one in person. It's almost comical when you first hold one. + Because the screen is tiny. it's incredibly easy to use one handed. You can use swipe text and swipe from the top for notifications and such with your thumb very conveniently. It also fits in my pocket effortlessly. + The home screen is kind of like Windows Phone in that you have a bunch of icons and you swipe down to view them. + It never bothers me, ever. Like Windows Phone (prior to 10), it simply never notifies me about much of anything. It is designed to be a device that serves me, rather than actively demand my attention. Nothing changes unprompted. No notifications that cannot be dismissed, and rarely a notification at all. Because it runs Android 8.1, I can disable all the useless notifications that Google added in Android 8.0. Honestly I rarely even get chat notifications unless I have those programs in the foreground, which I find to be fantastic. If the screen is off, I can live in peace. It doesn't even have one of those little lights that many other Android phones have on the front to insist upon notifying you about about SOMETHING. The neutral: ~ People in public will ask you what your device is if they see it. I find it fun but others may not. The negatives: - Verizon. Everything about Verizon. It sells them for some absurd price like $250, but you can buy them on Amazon refurbished for under $100, which is how I got mine. Also for some reason they marketed it as a "companion phone" and for a good chunk of its life you could not buy this as a standalone phone. I do not use Verizon, but I am not 100% sure if it works as a standalone device on Verizon's network (which is a general failing of Android in that your phone provider can somehow control how your device is used). Also because I have mine unlocked, there is one notification upon restart that tells me I am not using Verizon that I have to swipe to dismiss, and there is no way to disable this notification (another failing of Android in general that any notification exists that one cannot permanently disable). - Like most (all?) Android phones, you cannot uninstall a bunch of the useless shovelware it comes with, like Google Play Movies. - Swipe text is a bit harder to use accurately. - If you swipe to the side on the home screen, it brings you to an entirely useless news page. There is no way to disable this (I suppose I could investigate changing the launcher entirely, but I imagine most won't work well on a 3.3" screen). If there is a way to disable it I missed in the 15 minutes of mucking around, there's no community large enough to have discovered it and posted the solution online. Not something I think about often but something to keep in mind. - Battery life is not great. If you're a heavy phone-user, you won't like this device. If it were a little thicker, you could get more battery life out of it with the same form-factor benefit. Also, the little hole to eject the sim card is so small that no needles I have will fit in it. But honestly I sometimes let my phone die for a day even when I had a phone with longer battery life, so I don't really care. - The screen resolution is 720p. Some programs are designed for 1080p or greater, so there will be overlapping text or icons. - There will probably never be an update. Nobody knows what it is. Conclusion: For me, it's easily the least bad Android phone I've ever had, possibly better than Windows Phone. I'll be bummed out when it no longer works with the modern web and programs, but hopefully I'll get a few more years out of it at least.
- chadlavi 6y agoSo... another Android knock off of an iPhone, but also it's tiny?
- yamrzou 6y agoYou know what minimalist phone I want to see? One that has calls, sms, an online chat and video app (like Whatsapp) and a navigation app (like Google Maps or Citymapper). No browser, no games, no social media, nothing else.
- bonoboTP 6y agoYou can uninstall the browser and social media on most Android phones (sometimes you can only "disable" them, but the effect is almost the same).
- kwhitefoot 6y agoIP68 does not mean you can swim with it [1] yet the web page says: IP68 water and dust resistance means Palm is as rugged as it is elegant so it can stand up to the most strenuous activities—whether you're running, swimming, biking or hiking. Unqualified IP68 just means water resistant to a static pressure of at least one metre and the manufacturer is supposed to qualify it saying how deep it can go which the page does not do. But also note the word static. If you dive in then the momentary pressure could be significantly higher. So I think this is quite clearly misleading advertising. [1] https://www.trustedreviews.com/opinion/what-is-ip68-ip-ratings-explained-2947135 https://www.trustedreviews.com/opinion/what-is-ip68-ip-ratin...
- anamexis 6y agoAs someone who bricked an iPhone XS after swimming with it (in freshwater, at depths < 1m), I can confirm this. Certainly took me by surprise. It was a $99 fee with AppleCare+ to replace it.
- rgrs 6y agoIt it available worldwide or only in USA?
- glial 6y agoFor anyone looking for another alternative for a minimalist phone, I’ve been following this for a while: https://mudita.com/products/pure/ https://mudita.com/products/pure/
- Fnoord 6y agoThere's also the Light Phone 2, and arguably, a smartwatch is a "minimalist smartphone". Personally, I own a Fairphone 3. The ThinkPad of smartphones, as you can easily open/repair it. I went to the website of Mudita Pure and found the following: > Ultralow SAR value > Mudita Pure is designed to reduce SAR (Specific Absorption Rate) value as much as possible, without compromising on the signal strength. In order to achieve this, we’ve made our antenna with in-house shielding, using patented technology that we developed. > Good reception and ultralow SAR thanks to a custom antenna > There are plenty of antennas on the market but none of them allowed us to maintain good reception while minimizing our exposure to radio frequency energy. We spent quite a bit of time and money (2 years, nearly $1 million) to develop and patent our own solution. We built our unique antenna in-house, using this patented technology (patent US 9,900,411 B2, EU 3185352). I wonder what exactly their patent consists of, and how SAR matters. I also wonder if the device is rugged, which OS it runs, and how good its gonna be regarding software updates. Light Phone 2, in comparison, runs Android with e-ink display.
- kgwxd 6y agoFairphone looks like exactly what I want. Why do all the cool phones not work in the US?
- bookmarkable 6y agoIs this paid placement? How did this get on the front page?
- datavirtue 6y agoCharging time kills it for me.
- andrepd 6y agoIt's rather irritating that you either have 6 inch behemoths which simply do not fit my pocket (and imo promote unhealthy smartphone addiction), and the only alternative is a ridiculously small phone with loads of practical drawbacks. Where are the 4 inchers?
- mattmaroon 6y agohttps://www.apple.com/iphone-se/ https://www.apple.com/iphone-se/
- slim 6y agohttps://www.nokia.com/phones/en_int/nokia-1-0 https://www.nokia.com/phones/en_int/nokia-1-0
- abrowne 6y agoI bought one of these (Nokia 1) earlier this year and love it! It was available in the US from Amazon, but I think it's been discontinued, replaced by the much larger Nokia 1 Plus.
- _bxg1 6y agoThis came out a couple years ago and it got bad reviews: https://www.theverge.com/2019/2/6/18212311/palm-phone-review-time-well-spent-life-mode-lite-verizon https://www.theverge.com/2019/2/6/18212311/palm-phone-review...
- throwway253 6y agoThese will certainly be popular in prisons
- mnming 6y agoIt does not seem to have NFC? Ahh, I would definitely buy it if it does.
- MiddleEndian 6y agoI can confirm. It does not have NFC.
- JustinGarrison 6y agoI wrote a review of the phone after using it as my primary device for a while https://www.justingarrison.com/blog/palm-companion-review/ https://www.justingarrison.com/blog/palm-companion-review/
- mister_hn 6y agoWhy not Android 10 ?
- nitrogen 6y agoIs there any relation to the old Palm, e.g. Palm Pilot/etc?
- Animats 6y agoIs this from the company that did the Palm line of PDAs?
- hijef 6y agoI was obsessed with this phone a couple years back, but was annoyed that it was only available as a companion and locked to Verizon. I'm a Google Pixel lover because of the simplicity, software, and size. But I have always wanted a phone that was super small and was for essentials. I think I might buy it!!!
- sloshnmosh 6y agoWARNING This device is produced by TCL that has a long sordid history of selling phones with pre-installed malware, modifying pre-installed system apps to push ads after firmware “upgrades” and customized social media apps that share low-level user data with the Chinese manufacturer and reports of TCL devices performing DNS rebinding attacks to access internal networks. For more information visit XDA developers under “Joy launcher, no joy”
- api 6y agoThe entire mobile ecosystem is about spying, with any features these devices provide being secondary to their primary function of gathering information on their users. Of the mobile platforms, Apple seems the least like this. They seem to actually care about user privacy to some extent, but that's also because they are the most expensive and therefore have revenue more closely tied to their users as actual customers. I still wouldn't let Apple totally off the hook though. They still gather telemetry, and apps on iOS spy as much as they can possibly get away with. Virtually any mobile app is loaded with as much spyware as can possibly be packaged with it and tuned to gather maximum data without being too annoying or visible to the user. It would be really hard to change this as long as there is such a market for user data. It's too tempting to load apps (or the whole phone) with spyware and cash in. Add to this the fact that governments around the world are certainly in the game both financially and covertly. The only way to really have a privacy-first mobile device would be to lock it the hell down and not allow apps to do anything without explicit user interaction... especially location awareness or any kind of sensor or camera/microphone use. Even with a really locked down phone apps would still try to find clever ways to gather data, and there's a lot of exploitable surface area. The only other way to fix it would be legislation. One way would be to legislate HIPAA-like protections for intimate user data such as passive audio recordings or location information. Leak a users' location info or sell it without their permission? That will be $10,000 per violation, where a violation is a single location data point for a single user. This would instantly convert user telemetry data hoards from assets to liabilities. Of course what would probably happen is all this stuff would just move off-shore and into shell companies that can't effectively be fined or sued. Legislation might not even work and might make the industry even shadier than it already is. There's too much incentive to spy.
- smattiso 6y agoI have been using this as my daily minimalist phone for over 4 months. I love it, with some caveats. I bought it for a few reasons: * Tired of lugging around a monsterous phone. * Not allowing my Internet/web addiction to follow me everywhere. * Wanted something small and waterproof for outdoor water sports emergencies. I bought mine (an original Verizon edition) on ebay for 60 dollars. After that you will want to run it through some debloat scripts which improves battery and declutters the phone. Root it if you like, although I did not as I am satisfied with the mods you can make without root. https://forum.xda-developers.com/android/development/release-palm-debloat-fixes-script-t4052477 https://forum.xda-developers.com/android/development/release... I have purposefully crippled the phone and removed Google Chrome, Youtube, as well as the Play Store. Basically adb shell pm uninstall --user 0 com.google.____ I personally ripped out the Play Store so that I couldn't be tempted to download Chrome/YouTube again. I downloaded every app I thought I would want and now I sideload new apps with adb if I find other use cases. I have considered the alternative use case of sideloading the store, downloading the new app, updating my existing apps, and then removing the store. However given the continuous obsolescence that occurs with phones, my plan is to only update things as they break rather than constantly pushing myself to the newest versions until eventually my phone becomes clunky and unusable. The phone does everything I want (Uber, Maps, phone, text, whatever!) and I have 0 access to the web. I love it. You can't do this on an iPhone, I tried many times and the closest is with parental locking but it doesn't work how you'd like. The downside is that the battery life kind of sucks, however I get a full day of use out of it. I plug it in every night, I plug it in my car when I'm driving and use Android Auto, and without the Web to distract me I only use it for calls, texts, note taking, and to briefly look up maps, kitesurfing forecasts, or to call an uber. I can't wait for the exact same form factor with a 2x bigger battery. I'll never go back to a mega phone for daily use. Happy to answer more questions.
- danial 6y agoMy biggest problem with owning an Android phone is losing security updates after a few months/years. Has happened to me before, even on a Google branded phone (made by HTC). Are you still getting security updates on this device? Do you think you're likely to lose them in the near future? Edit: I'm asking because I'm really tempted to buy. Sold on everything else.
- fergie 6y agoLooks nice, but I just want an iphone 5 sized iphone with a decent battery.
- ahmedbaracat 6y agoThe "life-mode" is nice, does anyone know if it is possible to create something like it for Android phones with the current tooling?
- adamw2k 6y agoI bought one of these on eBay for like $75 and use it as a running companion, which I pretty much love. Using Google Fi, I throw a data only SIM in and it runs Spotify and acts as an emergency phone. After an hour run with next to no screen time, the battery is usually close to 50%, but definitely beats carrying a jumbo phone along. I wish they could improve on the battery, even if it was 10-20% larger (typing is really tough), but I don't know of anything else like this save for the Pebble Core, which never saw the light of day.
- jamesliudotcc 6y agoI bought one from eBay for about $100 to try it as a minimalist phone. The camera is bad. The battery life is abysmal. It is super duper slow but still gets too hot to hold. It doesn't fit in any phone caddies like for driving. In life mode, it keeps turning off bluetooth when I pause the audio on a podcast or audiobook, which is really bad when you are driving and want to focus on the directions for a second: now suddenly you lost your audio entertainment (and possibly your turn by turn directions being read loud enough for you to hear) until you can safely fiddle with the phone. Overall, it was a pretty bad experience. I lost it in my car (probably under a seat) and did not feel compelled to search for it. Maybe it was worth the $100 to break the habit of reaching for my phone all the time.
- xellisx 6y agoI want a new phone with a slide out keyboard that doesn't cost $600, has a good camera and a large battery.
- nikdoof 6y agoNothing says "we're lying about the battery life" more than including a free battery case...
- peterburkimsher 6y agoIf it had an SD card slot, I'd be likely to buy one. But without expansion, I don't see the benefit compared to my iPhone 4S + Third Rail case. https://palmsupport.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360034530092-Does-Palm-have-an-SD-card-slot-for-memory-expansion- https://palmsupport.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/3600345300...
- kalyantm 6y agoAs someone with the iPhone SE, i am waiting (and will forever wait) for a 4', no bezel, iPhone SE (what should have been the actual successor to the iPhone SE, rather than the iPhone 8 body)
- systemvoltage 6y agoPlam needs to think about a better logo.