The long retired Palm brand is back in the device market with the launch of a new Palm Phone. It is manufactured by a new Palm-branded startup backed by TCL and has BasketBall player, Stephen Curry of the Golden State Warriors as an investor and brand ambassador.
The Palm Phone is marketed mainly as a companion to an existing smartphone and available only as an add-on to an existing device plan on Verizon Wireless. It is about the size of a credit card (50 x 97 mm) and three Palms will reportedly fit next to one another on the iPhone XS Max.
It runs Android 8.1 Oreo OS with full access to the Play Store and syncs with the user’s main smartphone (either Android or iOS) to make and receive calls and messages (via Number Share). To access Google Assistant, the user only needs to long press the power button.
The phone has a 3.3-inch HD display, an aluminium alloy body frame with Corning Gorilla Glass on the rear, 12MP rear camera with flash, 8MP selfie camera, USB-C port and a 800mAh battery for up to 8 hours of battery life. It is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 435 processor paired with 3GB of RAM and 32GB built-in storage.
Like older Palm devices, apps can be accessed using gestures on the lock screen and the ‘Life Mode’ puts the device in a sleep mode (no cellular and wireless service) until the screen comes on. It is also IP68-rated (water and dust resistant) but there is no fingerprint sensor.
https://youtu.be/Fycs1-ElYGs
The new Palm Phone will sell for US$ 349.99 and comes with a $10 bill monthly for LTE service on Verizon. It arrives in Gold and Titanium colour options in November along with numerous accessories and cases.
