Palm One Treo

HP Veer 4G Review

I was a bit surprised to see HP carrying on with the rectangular Palm-style rigid cardboard box. The box is adorned in the standard AT&T blue, orange and white colors, which is starting to look a bit dated, as it reminds me too much of the old Cingular days. Nevertheless, the packaging is quite nice for a budget-oriented device.

In addition to the Veer itself, the box contains the standard documentation and paperwork, a mediocre 3.5mm stereo headset, and, tragically, the magnetic microUSB cable and 3.5mm headphone jack adapter. Sadly, Palm's classy "Designed in California" text has been removed.

The bundled USB AC adapter is still amusingly branded as "Palm" which is the only visible place on the hardware where the old logo carries over. "Palm" still does appear in a few spots throughout WebOS 2.1.2, however. Unsurprisingly, the Veer is adorned with HP and AT&T logos but nothing indicating Palm or, somewhat surprisingly, WebOS.

Form Factor & Build Quality My initial impression out of the box was that this thing is impossibly tiny. After nearly a month of use, I must admit to still being shocked at how much HP has managed to cram into such a small package. I was expecting something along the lines of a reduced-size Pre but I was not expecting anything this Lilliputian! The Veer can hide completely under a credit card and can slip safely into a shirt pocket without a moment's hesitation. Without a doubt, this little gizmo is the best execution yet of Palm's "river pebble" theme as first seen at CES 2009 with the original Palm Pre . Despite my fondness for large-screen behemoth handsets, I simply must confess that the Veer is a very pleasant device to hold in the hand. It has sleek yet gentle curves, pleasant contours and general soothing aesthetics. Indeed, I found myself walking around carrying the little fellow in my hand and marveling at how easy it is to use one-handed with the slider closed. The entire exterior is coated with a lovely soft-touch paint that does not suggest it will pull a Zire 72 and peel off after a few weeks' use. The Veer is the anti-Droid, in every sense of the term. Come to think of it, it's the antithesis of nearly every modern smartphone which, depending on your usage habits and personal preferences, can be both a good and bad thing.

One of the biggest criticisms lodged at the current stable of WebOS devices has been the sub-optimal build quality. While we saw a few furtive steps on the road to quality recovery with last year's Pre Plus and Pre 2, I am glad to report that the Veer is leaps and bounds ahead of past Palm devices in this regard. There is no twisting to the keyboard when the slider is extended and only the tiniest hint of a wobble. No flimsy port doors are in attendance (more on this below) and the device's handful of external buttons feel fantastic, even after near-daily use over the past month. I have no worries that this little phone's power button will collapse or become unresponsive like my Palm Vx, Tungsten T5, and Palm TX did in years past. The volume keys in particular feel especially solid. They don't protrude too much, they are not too deeply recessed and they don't wiggle or rattle. Again, after on and off testing throughout the month of May, the Veer looks and feels brand-new.

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Overview

I've been reading reports regarding ChangeWave Research's consumer cell phone survey of people who are "very satisfied" with their current cell phone. The ChangeWave report ranks Palm as being at the bottom, with the chart being broken out by manufacturer. I sometimes wonder about these types of surveys. I mean, how do we know exactly who was surveyed and what specific device each person uses on a daily basis? Palm didn’t rank last in customer satisfaction – that’s not what the chart shows. The chart can be misleading. For example, it’s important to look at who was surveyed. According to ChangeWave’s website , the Alliance is a worldwide group of 14,000 highly qualified business, technology, and medical professionals in leading companies of select industries. Members are credentialed professionals who spend their everyday lives working on the frontline of technological change. The Alliance is surveyed weekly on a wide range of business and investment research and intelligence topics. This doesn't exactly indicate that it’s a representative sampling as it doesn't specify if the cell phone users surveyed even owned/used a Palm device.

Recently, two third-party research firms contracted by Palm (Satmetrix and Russell Research) conducted similar surveys to that done by ChangeWave, and both surveys found that Palm's customer satisfaction is much higher than the ChangeWave study suggests. According to the Satmetrix survey, 65% of respondents rated their overall satisfaction with Palm as an 8-10 out of 10. Also, the Russell Research study found that 56% of respondents were either “very satisfied” or “extremely satisfied” with their Palm smartphone device. So it seems that the results of two third-party research firms strongly demonstrate that Palm's customer satisfaction is much higher than the results sent out by ChangeWave in their report.

Well, that makes more sense to me. Palm's main point is that their third-party data contracted by them suggests a stronger picture than what was included in the ChangeWave study and what people have been writing about. I'm no analyst and I certainly don't go around doing surveys to ask people what cell phone they use and how satisfied they are. I do know that out of all the people I know who use Palm phones, the only ones who have complained to me personally are Treo 700p owners who have not been very satisfied due to the ROM problem. And I certainly don't blame them a bit. I just wouldn't go by one single survey report out there. Yes, I am a Palm fangirl, but I'm also a big Apple fangirl . Heck, I'm just a plain out gadget freak and I love them all! I even want a BlackBerry Curve after using one in the Round Robin recently.