A phone for your phone
In a world where smartphones are enlarging to tablet-size, perhaps what you need is a mini phone
SMARTPHONES are getting so big that many don’t even fit in a back pocket anymore, and we’re not even talking about the “XL” models. So what should an individual do when their mobile device is as much a daily survival tool as it is a phone, but can’t always be easily carried around given the current trend for the-bigger-the-better type phones?
Palm has a solution: Get a phone for your phone.
Maybe you remember the Palm of the late 1990s and early 2000s, responsible for some of the more popular PDAs of the time like the PalmPilot.
Before it shut down in 2011, the company brought some amazing innovations to the mobile digital device industry that inspired features of today’s phones.
Well, now a startup based in California is working with TCL Communications, a Chinese electronics and smart tech company, to reinvent and reintroduce Palm, and it’s bringing yet another device to simplify your life.
SMALLER COMPANION
Palm wants to bring “people out of their tech and into their lives”, by giving your phone a simpler, smaller companion.
Recently, the company introduced the “Palm”, a credit card-sized phone that you can add to your Verizon plan when you think your phone is getting a little too involved in your life.
This little guy will sync to your big phone and, though it is capable of all the same things, with this one you can more easily control how much your digital life infringes on your real life.
A feature called Life Mode allows you to decide which notifications the mini phone will receive; you can turn off phone calls, choose not to receive text messages, and opt out of Instagram notifications, among many others.
Even the alerts you do choose to be active on the Palm only show up when you wake up the screen.
Don’t worry, though; all these notifications and messages that you’ve shut off on the Palm will arrive safely to your big smartphone.
You can even unlock the Palm with facial recognition and download your favorite apps.
Basically, this little device can be both exactly like your smartphone and nothing like it, depending on how much you want ittobe.
SPECS
As for the specs, the phone has everything you would expect to have in a traditional smartphone, only smaller: Qualcomm 435 processor, 3.3-inch HD display, 12MP rear camera and 8NP front camera, and Bluetooth connectivity. It only runs Android 8.1 Oreo, but maybe we’ll see an update in the near future.
You can fashion this powerful little handheld into a sport sleeve designed by Stephan Curry for staying “connected” during your workout or in a wristlet designed in partnership with Kate Spade for when you’re on the go.
This new Palm is completely reinventing the old Palm. Rather than putting all your digital information in one place like the PalmPilot did, the goal of the newly branded company is to keep this information out of sight unless absolutely necessary.
The phone will be available next month for US$349.99 (RM1,454) only as an add-on to an existing Verizon line.