Exclusive: New Palm phone to have slide-down keyboard, large touchscreen

**cgk** · 01/05/2009, 12:35 PM

Originally Posted by Darth Pooh

Foxconn, hmmm, I have a nvidia clone MoBo from them, it's a good build. I'd like to think they have decent quality control, but I've heard people who bought the same model as me have issues.

YMMV.

The truth is with those type of people - the QC is as good as the customer wants to pay for...

**Fintan** · 01/05/2009, 12:54 PM

Looking forward to their presentation for sure!

They better start making money with this phone.
In this light it would be smart to bypass the traditional first carrier Sprint (CDMA right?!) and launch it as GSM model first.

**yavapai** · 01/05/2009, 01:10 PM

what! Not come out on sprint first! Ha, thems fighting words. Hope he's wrong

**miles4000** · 01/05/2009, 01:14 PM

Sprint first and VZW years later! darn.

**Milenkod** · 01/05/2009, 01:39 PM

a bit off topic...
my wife ran over her 800w with our Oddessey minivan and it functions 100% perfectly... (except for a little crack on the case)
whichever ODM makes that needs to make the Nova device...

**whatever7** · 01/05/2009, 01:42 PM

Originally Posted by Dieter Bohn

I can CONFIRM everything in that crunchgear story and have two tiny details to add:

http://treocentral.com/content/Stories/2300-1.htm

You believe it will have flashy transitional effects? This is the same Palm that has had round logo UI for years, the same Palm that doesn't let you rearrange logos and rename them? What the hell.

**jhoff80** · 01/05/2009, 01:47 PM

Capacitive touch? So much for the claimed resurrection of Graffiti (thank god).

Edit: Though, it IS possible for a pen to work on a capacitive touch screen, my Dell XT tablet works like that. I doubt its possible to do it and make the pen stylus sized so that's out of the question though.

**renn** · 01/05/2009, 02:21 PM

iPhone OS: lack of cutnpaste/annoying keyboard-shifting; iPhone succeeds bc of the big screen and surfn Safari. iP could be improved.
I hope this is a sweet week for Palm...esp given the cool looking Treo Pro.

**scheumanrj** · 01/05/2009, 02:24 PM

I find it truly amazing that we are only 3 days away from an announcement about the new Palm OS (Nova) and yet there is soooo little that has been leaked about it and only vague and inconsistent speculation on what feature/functionality it will provide. Kudos to Palm on that front.

I haven't been this interested in a new Palm release since the (Handspring) Treo 180 and I'm looking forward to the CES announcement like a kid on Christmas eve.

**nathanb131** · 01/05/2009, 02:27 PM

I've been thinking about all my beloved Garnet aps and how they might look/feel on a larger screen with much higher res. I've only owned Treos, if the resolution was for example 320x640 would most of those aps scale to cover that real-estate? I would love to have more viewable pixels with ListPro and other info-intensive aps. But many are obviously designed to fit the square.

I wonder if Nova is in fact backwards compatible with Garnet (if not, hello WinMob) if there will be a way to launch TWO garnet aps to be viewable at the same time? That could lead to some really geeky PIM possibilities.... But I suppose what they'll do is let you launch the ol' square garnet app in the upper part of the big screen and maybe a nice soft keyboard will appear in the bottom part so you don't need to slide out the hard keyboard....

So what you'd end up would be a virtual Treo (maybe you could skin it to look like a 650, 755, Centro etc

). I think it would be very ironic and a little embarassing to use a virtual Treo on a full screen to run Garnet aps until they were updated for Nova capabilities.

That begs another question. Will there be 3rd party aps available right away for Nova? Has any developer been given specs for it? Did Palm put such a premium on secrecy and have such confidence in the standalone appeal of Nova to not let programmers sniff it til launch? Did Apple do that with iPhone? I'm very worried about 3rd party apps. Nova's ability to support Garnet and it's adoption by developers is my main reason for staying or leaving.

**nathanb131** · 01/05/2009, 02:39 PM

Originally Posted by mclark2112

What about looking to the Palm Heritage for an idea. I'm feeling a T|3 type of slider, with an always exposed keyboard.

The Keyboard is palm's killer feature. So rather than the keyboard sliding out from under the screen, I see the screen sliding out from behind the keyboard, going from square to 16:9 for media and browsing duties.

Now that's a solid idea. We love the candybar form of the treo and the screen is perfect for most our one-hand aps. But for that browser/media experience mayhaps the rest of the screen slides/rotates out from behind the keyboard, not the other way around. That would truly set the device apart from everything in this me-too market. Though it would be hard to execute well....

**miles4000** · 01/05/2009, 02:40 PM

"Nova's ability to support Garnet and it's adoption by developers is my main reason for staying or leaving"

I dont have alot of legacy Palm data, but do have\use Garnet appls. If they really come out with appealing OS with appls I would overlook backwards compatibility with Garnet. This is assuming that 3rd party appls are available soon after release.

**johncc** · 01/05/2009, 02:40 PM

Originally Posted by treoKing

Here is another mock by Rob Beschizza:
http://gadgets.boingboing.net/2009/0...the-itreo.html

Like the orginal, the screen seems too square. A screen of that proportions does not even need a slider.

**lawmangrant** · 01/05/2009, 02:42 PM

This is my Palm Mockup...

I have seen a few others, and the last one, had no buttons, I do not see Palm going away from the hard keys....That's the bread and butter for Palm.

Here is my mockup, in the style of the Treo800.

I could see a beautiful 480 x 640 VGA screen on this thing!!!

**BeingBoston121** · 01/05/2009, 02:46 PM

This has to be an exclusive phone for Sprint. Cingular has the iPhone, T-Mobile has the G1, and Verizon has the Bold. Sprint needs a very publicly announced successful handset that will draw a crowd.

And I'd love to have a new Palm smartphone with my $99 plan!

**Caduceus** · 01/05/2009, 02:48 PM

Originally Posted by mclark2112

What about looking to the Palm Heritage for an idea. I'm feeling a T|3 type of slider, with an always exposed keyboard.

The Keyboard is palm's killer feature. So rather than the keyboard sliding out from under the screen, I see the screen sliding out from behind the keyboard, going from square to 16:9 for media and browsing duties.

This such a good idea that I hadn't even considered... I really hope Palm has something similar as an option.

**Caduceus** · 01/05/2009, 02:50 PM

Originally Posted by Fintan

Looking forward to their presentation for sure!

They better start making money with this phone.
In this light it would be smart to bypass the traditional first carrier Sprint (CDMA right?!) and launch it as GSM model first.

Aren't there like way more GSM folks than CDMA? If so, this totally makes sense.

**Caduceus** · 01/05/2009, 02:51 PM

Originally Posted by MilenkoD

a bit off topic...
my wife ran over her 800w with our Oddessey minivan and it functions 100% perfectly... (except for a little crack on the case)
whichever ODM makes that needs to make the Nova device...

That is amazing! I hope palm does plan to use the same manufacturer.

**Padre** · 01/05/2009, 02:52 PM

I can't wait for Thursday, which also happens to be my berfday

Let's hope Palm's put together quite the present for me

**eekinsman** · 01/05/2009, 02:58 PM

Are the specs on the new Nova phone(s) really that secret? Does anyone imagine that it WONT have WiFi? Does everyone agree that WiFi inclusion is a no brainer?

Originally Posted by scheumanrj

I find it truly amazing that we are only 3 days away from an announcement about the new Palm OS (Nova) and yet there is soooo little that has been leaked about it and only vague and inconsistent speculation on what feature/functionality it will provide. Kudos to Palm on that front.

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