As strange as it seems, TCL is launching a new Palm product which is thankfully not running a new version of WebOS but instead has gone with Android 8.1. The phone is very cute, with a tiny 3.3" display, and a body of 96.6×50.6mm (3.8×2") in total. Inside you will find a Qualcomm Snapdragon 435, 3GB of RAM, and an 800mAh battery, for connectivity USB-C, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and LTE. This Palm will fit in your hand and you won't get a lot of things done with the minimalist hardware, providing the similarity to a kitten, including the powerful attraction some will feel towards it.
Ars Technica has the rest of what is known about the Palm Palm here, including what TCL imagines you will use it for.
"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."
Here is some more Tech News from around the web:
- Rivals ARM and Intel Make Peace To Secure Internet of Things @ Slashdot
- Microsoft's Surface line will pop its clogs in 2019, claims analyst (again) @ The Inquirer
- It's the real Heart Bleed: Medtronic locks out vulnerable pacemaker programmer kit @ The Register
- Benchmark re-do shows Intel's i9-9900K is just 12 per cent faster than AMD's Ryzen 7 2700X @ The Inquirer
- CPU Price Watch: 9900K Incoming, Ryzen Cuts @ Techspot
- Get Rid of Windows 10 Ads, Office Offers and Other Annoyances @ Techspot
- Climate Change Will Cause Beer Shortages and Price Hikes, Study Says @ Slashdot
I wish that “Palm” would make
I wish that “Palm” would make a flip phone variant with real keys and a Dumb OS mode that is not tied into any Android(Up yours Google) Ecosystem at all.
I do not even have a data plan with my T-Mobile Lagecy Pay as you go account so just give me the option of flushing the Android and using a dumb OS and having at least a modern NON GSM based radio that support at least G4/LTE or newer connectivity.
I’m willing to pay more for not having any Android Security problems and Cosntant update issues and just have a phone to make and recieve phone calls.
The OLD GSM radio bands are no longer being used by most carriers in the US and even T-Mobile’s remaining GSM bands are no longer working inside some buildings and that GSM is history for even T-Moble in 2020.
There are a ton of those
There are a ton of those already, it’s a saturated market. Why would you want one with ‘Palm’ written on it in particular?
I have a Samsung ON5 it’s
I have a Samsung ON5 it’s good enough for a smart phone, but I’d pay extra for some dumb phone OS that disabled completely any WIFI/WIFI Discovery service or Blutooth/Blutooth Discovery service and restricted the Phone to only Voice service and Text Only based Text Massages(No Attatchments allowed) and disallowed and App Installs. The Samsung ON5 has a replacable battery if only the phone was smaller like this Palm phone.
That Palm phone really needs a more modern CPU than that A53 cores based CPU that it uses. The A72/A73 cores are much more efficient than the A53.
“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.”(See Ars Article linked above)
Really 8 Arm Holdings A53 cores that’s got to drink the juice!
That Palm is not worth it as is any Phone with a non replacable battery! I’ll still be looking for a Flip Phone with a dumb OS once the ON5 stops working if only my carrier still offered some dumb OS based based Flip-Phones at the time.
That said the FCC needs to require that all US carries have phones where the Wifi and Blutooth can be turned off as well as disabling the phone’s Wifi and Blutooth discovery services also. All Android OS based Phones need an alternative Fully DUMB OS mode where the user can line item select what phone hardware/software features are disabled including any non FCC required background/decovery services like Bluetooth and Wifi decovery services that are attack vectors if enabled.
2G/GSM is going ByBy soon(1) and is mostly useless anyways even with any phone carriers that still provide GSM service. As the any carriers that still provode GSM in the US have been removing most of the GSM equipment from most of their cell towers so any remaing GSM cell towers are few and far between!
(1)
“Why We Don’t Recommend 2G GSM Phones in the US”
https://www.pcmag.com/news/362222/why-we-dont-recommend-2g-gsm-phones-in-the-us