Palm Designs The Perfect Smartphone

If only they could sell worth a damn.

Aug 13 2010, 9:18am CDT | by Robert Evans

Well hell, pack it up Google and Apple. Palm's just designed the perfect smartphone. Wait, what do you mean they're hemorrhaging money and can't survive without being tethered to HP? Well hell. Apparently great ideas aren't enough to keep a company solvent.

Rant aside, Palm's latest patent application is seriously the most elegant solution I have seen to a problem endemic in modern smartphones.

As screens grow larger and phones get packed with more and more features, they become less and less well-suited to what was once their primary function; placing phone calls. I seldom use my Evo for voice calls, but when I do it tends to be a pain in the butt to keep up to my face. Plus, when I'm calling someone I can't use my phone for any of its more useful functions; browsing, texting, IMing & such.

Palm's theoretical device solves this problem by having a detachable section that does all the "phone" work, leaving the "smart" portion in your hands for note-taking, browsing, or whatever else you can think of. The detachable part automatically hooks into the base unit via Bluetooth. There are some concerns - mainly battery based, with this design, but the basic idea is so beautiful it almost brings a tear to my eye.

HP, if you're reading this site, please hand Palm a huge bundle of money to turn this dream into a reality. But make sure to take all control out of their hands when it comes time to market this thing. They've proven themselves hilariously incompetent at that part.

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Robert Evans
The excitement about new smartphones, tablets and anything mobile drive Robert to unearth the latest rumors and developments in this fast moving space. He adopted 4G as soon as it become available and knows where the mobile market is going.
Robert can be contacted directly at robert@i4u.com.