January 4th, 2009
Does the new Palm Nova device have a slider keyboard and large touchscreen?
It should be a big week of news with MacWorld and CES taking place and one of the most anticipated announcements surrounds Palm and what they will be revealing on Thursday. CrunchGear just posted some thoughts on the possible new Nova device that we may see this week. According to their source, the new OS is “amazing” and “iPhone-like”. Speculation is that the device may have a slider display that reveals a Treo-esque keyboard. As a fan of the Palm Treo Pro and older Treo devices I would find a slider of this design very compelling.
A large touchscreen, with the option to also have a Treo experience with a keyboard would be a fantastic design, IMHO. The Palm OS (version 5.x) is already very iPhone-like with the icons that launch applications on a home screen and simplistic limited multi-tasking functionality. I think Palm could have probably taken the existing Palm OS and made some significant improvements and come out with this type of new design and been competitive with the iPhone. If this new design is real and it runs a much more optimized and current OS, then Palm could really have a winner on its hands. You know that I will definitely be buying one since I have a place in my heart for Palm and like the latest and greatest devices.
Most all mobile enthusiasts, including myself, feel that this announcement on Thursday needs to blow us away in order for Palm to continue to be a player in the mobile space. There are also a ton of people that want to see Palm succeed and even just looking through the comments on CrunchGear you can see there are still many Palm fans out there. Palm can sell a large number of units of a new device, even with the iPhone, Google Android, and others, because they still have their name brand recognition (amazing to think with all of their name changes and misdirection over the last couple of years) and there are many who still like the simply, yet effective Palm OS.
Matthew Miller is an avid mobile device enthusiast who works during the day as a professional naval architect in Seattle. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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