Palm Phone: the tiny 3.3-inch phone nobody wanted as a second device

In November 2018 Palm Ventures Group, backed by TCL which owns the Palm trademark, launched a credit-card-sized phone: a 3.3-inch, 62-gram Android device sold on Verizon for $349 plus about $10 a month. Palm pitched it as 'your phone away from phone' — a companion to carry to the gym or the corner store when a big phone was too much, positioned between a smartphone and a wearable.

Reviewers admired the hardware but not the proposition. TechCrunch called it 'an idea whose time may never come,' Android Police a 'tiny tragedy,' and Ars Technica 'bad at everything.' An 800mAh battery died by noon on the first day, the camera was weak, and paying $349 on top of a bigger phone's bill to carry a second, lesser phone never added up for most buyers.

The companion pitch never found a mainstream audience. Palm later dropped the pairing requirement and sold the phone standalone — in the US at $199 from April 2019 — but the product faded, was discontinued, and official support ended in 2020.