Palm phone $350
Cute phone, but why would you need it?
The new Palm phone has me shaking my head.
The Verizon-exclusive phone is described as an ultra-portable. You can say that again. Verizon also has called it the Palm Companion Device, which also works.
The very small cellphone attracted a lot of attention. But after hearing about it, no one particularly wanted one.
The Palm phone isn't made by the Palm company you may remember. The Palm name was sold to Chinese electronics manufacturer TCL, which is better known for really well-made TVs.
TCL decided to revive the Palm brand starting with an Android phone with a 3.3-inch display. Yes, that's really tiny, but the Palm isn't supposed to be your only phone. Think of it as a tiny phone to use when you want to take a break from your regular phone.
Verizon sells the Palm as a companion device — meaning you have to own a Verizon smartphone first, then they will sell you the $350 Palm phone. You add the Palm to your Verizon account as a $10 per month additional 4G device, like you might add an iPad or Apple Watch.
The Palm phone has the same phone number as your bigger smartphone, and when you receive a phone call, both phones ring. Texts also show up on both phones.
The Palm does run full-blown Android (Version 8.1), so you can install and run any app you like. But the phone runs on the Qualcomm Snapdragon 435, which is snappy enough for regular apps, but not appropriate for gaming (you won't want to run games on the Palm anyway).
It has 32 gigabytes of storage (with no expansion slot) and 3 GB of RAM. The phone measures 1.99 by 3.8 by 0.29 inches, and it weighs just 2.18 ounces.
The 800-milliamp hour battery is tiny, running down in just over two hours of pretty constant use. It takes about an hour to charge it up.
The Palm phone is a decent tiny phone, but why would you want it? Perhaps it would be nice to slip into your suit pocket or small purse for a night out. It is tiny enough to disappear in the smallest purse, and you could certainly use it to take a call, hail an Uber or get some driving directions.
But most of us don't have $350 for a novelty phone we might only use occasionally. It may be easier to carry, but everything else about it seems harder.
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