HP Announces The Veer, A Credit Card Sized webOS Device | Hacker News Reader

HP Announces The Veer, A Credit Card Sized webOS Device

mobilecrunch.com

64 pointslotusleaf198749 comments

I really wish "Credit Card Sized" would take into account all three dimensions. This thing looks 5 to 10 times bigger than a credit card! I was super excited clicking on this headline, waiting for an actual really serious innovation in small technology. Imagine a credit card with a touch screen and the Internet and apps and oh wow this is going to be so cool!

Oh. It's huge.

If we only have to consider two dimensions for something to be credit card sized, then I suppose these beams of lumber are "credit card sized" as well: http://bit.ly/fN3tns

Well, it's hard to tell. When looking at the photos without any frame of reference, the phone looks enormously thick because it's hard to visualize how much smaller the face is. Apple had a similar problem when they announced the iPod 5G - it was thinner with a wider screen, which led to the illusion that the device itself had actually gotten wider.

The point is, it's small enough that girls will want it because it will fit in their pockets.

But isn't a usable screen size a big factor when selecting a smartphone? I dread browsing on the credit-card screen or playing games or writing email or doing anything else that I do on my phone

This phone has a pull out keyboard, that means you still get have a similar area to write emails that an iPhone would with a virtual keyboard.

So, for communication and entering text, I don't see how this would be inferior to an iPhone unless you are only using a virtual keyboard. For browsing, you're correct. Scrolling up on a text message in landscape mode is nearly impossible on my iPhone. The vertical screen real estate is smaller than the width of my thumb.

I have an xperia mini pro, which has the same screen size, and playing games and browsing is fine. I probably wouldn't read a book on it, but I happily read blogs, news sites and the like.

I would guess its far too thick to fit in most women's pants pockets-Im not female, but I have a few coworkers who put iphones in their front pockets of jeans at work sometimes and they say its already a tight fit as-is.

Even if that were the case, optimizing for that problem is fairly silly regardless.

It's credit-card-sized on its largest, user-facing side. It's the easiest size analogy and one most people can relate to. It is 15mm thick, which is 5mm thicker than an iPhone, but really, the only thing that matters is how it actually handles. We posted a follow-up with hands-on pictures here if you want to get more of a feel for the size: http://www.mobilecrunch.com/2011/02/09/hands-on-gallery-the-...

> It's the easiest size analogy and one most people can relate to.

It's also extremely misleading! I can fit ~20 credit cards in my normal wallet. I can fit 0 of these phones. Given the headline, I think most people were expecting something that is a similar size as a credit card; maybe we could start keeping our phones inside our wallets! So many cool ideas come from this, but they are all destroyed when we realize the phone is actually significantly larger than even a stack of credit cards.

I hope I'm not coming off as mean, or rude, here. I just got so excited, you see! Thanks for the extra link, it does help get a good idea for size.

In that case, the best analogy would have been to say it was "wallet-sized."

It's more accurate, and just as easy to relate to.

"wallet-sized" means nothing to me since wallets come in all kinds of sizes, from just bigger than a credit card to larger than two iPhones side by side. Credit cards are all the same size.

And none of those credit cards are the size of a Veer.

And yet no one was genuinely confused about what they meant when they said it was.

What matters is can I slip it into the credit card slot of my purse or not.

Thin phones are not practical. I can tell that as a proud former owner of Samsung Ultra -- 7 mm thick -- that broke in half when I forgot to take it out of the back pocket and sat on it. It was a delightfully elegant phone, but very fragile.

Out of the major mobile operating systems, from a developers point of view, I find WebOS to be the most straightforward to develop for and as a result really enjoy writing code for it. This looks like a neat little device and I hope that the platform succeeds!

It might be "the size of a credit card", but not a phone I'd personally want.

- Surely the selling point of something sized like a credit card disappears as soon as you remember that, errr, it's about ten times thicker than a credit card.

- I've never looked at my Blackberry and thought "man, I wish this could be shorter and thinner so that it leaves more space above and next to it in my pocket".

- I have thought "I wish this could be thinner deph-wise, so that it doesn't stick out of my pocket as much". This phone actually looks deeper than Blackberry Bold, iPhone and quite a few Android devices, I think?

- It looks... kinda weird. Maybe that's just because of it's unusual dimensions, and I would get used to it if it was my phone. But right now, it looks like a novelty phone designed with teenagers in mind - to me, at least.

i think it looks thick because of the small size in other dimensions. it would also feel thick due to the same reason.

From what I have seen, it's a phone, not just a 'device'. Which is going to mean contracts and lock-in. Why couldn't this have been a small handheld 'device' - wifi-only (ala ipod touch) and priced low enough to flood the market with these? There's loads of verticals a device like this could likely dominate - good OS to build on, small form factor - throw in a low cost and let 1000 vertical apps bloom. But they chose yet again to chase the 'phone' market. sigh.

There's the Archos 28 [1], which is a little taller (3.9" instead of 3.25"), but thinner and lighter (9mm and 64g instead of 15mm and 103g), and costs less than $100. Runs Froyo.

The Veer's screen looks better, though, at 320x400 instead of 320x240.

[1] http://www.archos.com/products/ta/archos_28it/index.html

Thanks for that - hadn't seen the small one (had seen an earlier archos 7"? tablet).

I think most of the phones are trending toward a larger display. I wonder what the appeal of a much smaller device will be compared to most of the industry moving to larger screens. In my opinion this device might not be well received because of that.

I look at the picture of the hand holding this device, and I wonder how the hand model could select those icons, much less a big-fingered guy like myself.

It's a lot easier to guess where the user clicked when you have clickable regions defined.

An on-screen keyboard would be nasty at this size, but it has a Centro-sized (surprisingly comfortable, IMHO) keyboard.

I know a lot of girls who love smaller phones just because it will fit in their pockets. I think some of the iPhone's higher success with girls is also somewhat related to the fact that it's smaller dimensions over most of the flagship android devices. Some of the girls I know opted for feature phones just for the size over smart phones (one was pissed where her husband bought her the fascinate)

> I think most of the phones are trending toward a larger display.

Which, as far as I'm concerned, is an utterly terrible idea. I tried a 4.2" phone, I'd need a 4th phalanx at each finger for it to become comfortable (and the real estate in my pants is not sufficient for comfortable wear), even though I believe I have pretty standard hands for 180cm height. First time a device made me think I had small hands.

The thing was unusable single-handed (roughly 25% of the screen was not accessible to my thumb with a standard hold) and not enjoyable when using one hand to hold and one hand to use (hand felt overly stretched)

> I wonder what the appeal of a much smaller device will be compared to most of the industry moving to larger screens.

I'd expect many women to enjoy phones which don't require two hands for usage.

Maybe I'm strange but I think the trend towards bigger and bigger phones really annoying. I have an xperia mini pro and really wouldn't want anything larger, it's just too inconvenient to carry around. For me the ideal solution is a small phone and a 6-7" tablet.

It's not for the crowd that wants a bigger screen; it's for those who want smaller phones. It's a little harder for us geeks to understand how the size could take priority.

The headline made me envision a device the size (and shape) of a credit card, in which the entire front face was screen and nothing but screen. No bezel, no top and bottom non-screen black areas for buttons and mic, just 100% screen.

I instinctively figured that's what you'd have to do shrink a smart phone down to the size of a credit card, and I was kind of excited to click the link and see some real design innovation from HP of all places.

But alas, it wasn't to be. I should have known better. Same layout and form as every other smart phone, just smaller. Oh well, maybe Apple will make an iPhone mini one day.

You know, every day I look at websites on my iPhone, and I think to myself, "You know what would make this phone better? If the screen were smaller! Yeah!"

I often look at my iPhone and wish that it were narrower and shorter. It's a great phone but sometimes I wish that it were just a bit less bulky. I have to switch my SIM card to my old Sony/Ericsson phone so that I can have a phone with me when I go running as my iPhone just won't fit into the pocket on my sports clothes. I'd really rather not do it and instead have a smart phone that was a centimeter shorter and half a centimeter narrower.

You know there are people who don't look at websites on their phones and who don't find that feature particularly compelling. I am also happy with the size of my phone and really don't need a larger one.

I think a large push of the whole webOS platform was to make it much easier to optimize web pages for mobile devices, and I think this phone would be more than adequate for this. An intuitive interface makes it even better.

Also, this screen is larger than the blackberry curve's, and just smaller than the bold 2's.

Finally another smartphone with a small form factor. I postponed getting one myself because of the large sizes until the Sony Ericsson X10 mini was launched, and it's the perfect size for me.

It's going to run Flash.

On a 2.6" touchscreen.

Flash sites, by and large, are designed for precise pointing devices on fairly decent-sized screens. There are going to be a lot of frustrated Veer users fat-fingering their way through Hulu.

tangent: isn't Hulu still blocking access from phone-like devices?

Agree that navigating flash sites on a screen this small will be frustrating.

The whole Flash thing is just a lame argument put forth by marketing departments trying to find some edge over the iPhone. Mobile Flash sucks, and Flash itself is quickly falling to irrelevance.

It's small yes and I will not be surprise that the audience for that phone will be leaning toward the feminine crowd: I can see such small phone being a backup phone to put in a small purse. But as usual we just need to wait a couple months to see if the Veer will get some traction.

The Pixi has the same size screen. My wife has one and loves it. It's a great phone for the non power user. It handles emails, texts, calendar, and calls just fine. The browser works well, and she uses it to browse facebook all the time. The app store is limited, but she doesn't really mind, as she's not that heavy of a user.

If marketed correctly, especially towards females, this phone could be a decent success. None of the girls I know have ever complained about a phone being too small, only about phones being too big. For my friends at least, text messaging and size seems to be the first priority, with the other features coming second to those.

There's still a slight functional balance that needs to be met when making a phone small, however. But if you can make it small and keep it functional, kudos.

There seems to be an acceptance that Apple nailed the form factor for a smart phone when it launched the original iPhone.

I'm still unconvinced. I'd like a PMP slightly larger than the iPhone and I want my actual phone to be a sim card in size. I want it in a wristwatch or my eye-glasses or my headphones (but not my shoe).

I wanted to write a logish comment about how much I like my $30 Sony Ericsson W205 and that I'll only replace it by an iPhone nano-class device but I found a comment which sums it all up, at the danger of being down-voted:

"It's an HP KIN is what it is."

(If this is the competition, Apple and Samsung have nothing to fear)

I like the size and form factor, just wish they'd made the keyboard a kickslide like the X10 Mini Pro.

No NFC chip in these new devices. That could be a deal breaker, if iPad ships before HP..

that credit card needs to go on a diet

Credit card sized from the standpoint of a Flatlander, perhaps...

I find it interesting, though. On my last visit to SF, I visited a small sushi restaurant and found it interesting that virtually everyone had an iPhoone-like device out on the table. They didn't seem to be interacting with them, so I assumed it was because you can't comfortably sit with an iPhone-sized device in your pocket.

It's more likely that they had the phones respectfully silenced, but wanted to see incoming messages flash on the screen. I leave my Droid 1 lying face-up for the same reason.

I do the exact same thing. It's not because I can't comfortably sit with an iPhone 4 in my pocket (sometimes I forget it's there), but it's because I can't comfortably remove and replace my phone in my pockets with a longer/wider phone. Thus, for easy access, it stays on the table.

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