Friday, March 11, 2011

Test-driving HP's credit card sized Veer webOS smartphone

HP Veer
HP Veer
HP Veer
HP Veer
HP Veer

HP's new Veer webOS smartphone is possibly the cutest handset announced in the past year or two. We got to test-drive this credit-card sized smartphone while in Barcelona for the Mobile World Congress show, and we loved it - even though its size made it a tad harder to use than we would have liked.

I was a fan of the design and size of Palm's Pixi and Pixi Plus - I'm a sucker for small phones - but this new Veer really outdoes the Pixi. The 2.6-inch touchscreen, with its 400 x 320 pixel resolution, looked stunning in spite of its size. The keyboard, however, really caused me some issues. I just couldn't get certain letters to work with my relatively large thumbs, even though Russ Jefferies seemed to have little trouble coaxing the keyboard into action.

And while it has an 800MHz processor that speeds things along nicely, it is the overall build quality and feel of the soft touch paint that really gets me. I just loved holding that Veer in my hands, even though I know that I could never be able to live with one as my day to day smartphone.

That doesn't mean there's no market for it, though. I couldn't use the Palm Centro, either, but that device sold like hotcakes. I really expect that people that want a compact phone are going to be drawn to the Veer since it still offers all the same smarts as its bigger relatives.

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