HP Veer webOS smartphone (preview)

HP Veer preview: The HP Veer is a tiny smartphone with impressive specifications

PC World Australia (online)

  • Review
  • Specs
  • Images
  • User Reviews
  • Buy Online

Tiny smartphones have never really been hugely successful, but HP obviously thinks there is a market for them; its HP Veer smartphone weighs just 103g, has a compact 2.6in touchscreen and is powered by Palm's webOS platform.

Pros

  • 2.6in capacitive touchscreen, webOS, slide-out keyboard, cute form factor

Cons

  • No confirmed Australian release, no expendable memory

Bottom Line

HP's Veer smartphone may have a tiny footprint, but it still includes all the benefits of the webOS platform, along with a physical QWERTY keyboard.

Would you buy this?

  • Price

    TBA (AUD)

Check out our guide to the best upcoming smartphones in 2011.

The HP Veer smartphone has a 2.6in touchscreen with a resolution of 320x400 pixels, a 5-megapixel camera, a gesture area for navigation, a slide-out QWERTY keyboard, and a Flash-capable Web browser. The Veer is powered by a 800MHz Qualcomm processor, and will come with 8GB of internal memory.

The HP Veer smartphone runs the Palm-developed webOS operating system that powered the Palm Pre smartphone; a product that sadly never made it to Australian shores. HP acquired a struggling Palm for US$1.2 billion in July 2010, and the Veer is one of the first in a suite of webOS-powered products promised by the company.

Despite being small, the HP Veer includes a full slide-out QWERTY keyboard that Palm products were famous for, along with the full webOS capabilities; multitasking via "cards", HP Synergy, which groups contacts from multiple sources in a single application, and the ability to synchronise documents with Google Docs, QuickOffice, Dropbox and Box.net.

The HP Veer can also act as a wireless mobile hotspot, sharing the phone data connection with multiple devices, and is equipped with "touch-to-share" technology, which enables users to share content, read text messages and answer phone calls from a compatible HP smartphone or TouchPad tablet by simply tapping the devices together.

The HP Veer isn't the first diminutive smartphone; Sony Ericsson's XPERIA X10 Mini Pro and XPERIA X10 Mini are currently on sale in Australia and are similarly tiny.

HP has announced it will first be targeting markets where webOS is currently available, so at this stage the HP Veer smartphone is unlikely to be released in Australia.

Keep up with the latest tech news, reviews and previews by subscribing to the PC World newsletter.

Read more on these topics: HP, webOS, mobile phones, smartphones

Be the first to comment.

Post new comment

Users posting comments agree to the Good Gear Guide comments policy.

Login or register to link comments to your user profile, or you may also post a comment without being logged in.

Most Popular

Tethering tutorial: How to use your iPhone as a modem
Capacitive vs resistive touchscreens
LCD vs plasma vs LED TVs buying guide
The next Xbox reveal: What to expect from the Xbox 720
How to pick the right size TV for your living room

Best Deals on PCWorld

Printers & ScannersView all »
NotebooksView all »
TabletsView all »
Mobile PhonesView all »
Networking, Wireless & VoIPView all »