Palm to serve up "ultra thin" WiMAX smartphone this year?

Plant this firmly in the "unsubstantiated rumor" category and take it with a boulder-sized grain of salt, but there's one thing here we can say with certainty: whether it sells or not, Palm is in desperate need of fresh product. Like, not a new Treo with a little more memory or a slightly better camera -- we mean seriously fresh product. We're sure there are some reasonably smart folk kicking around at Palm that realize the very same thing, and it's only because of that assumption that we're forced to give this rumor some amount of credit. Anyhoo, here's the deal: Sprint will start flipping the switch (wouldn't it be cool if there actually was a giant switch they flipped?) on its WiMAX network later this year, or in a worst case scenario they'll at least be trialling it. Well, ya need product for that new network, right? Palm allegedly is going to swoop in late this year (think October time frame) with an "ultra thin" (tipster's words, not ours) smartphone that'll rock WiMAX out of the box. No word on what platform it'll sport or really any other detail of consequence, but "Palm" and "thin" aren't typically two words you hear in the same sentence, so by the time you throw in some blazing fast data, this could be quite a treat indeed.

[Thanks, anonymous tipster]

[Steve @ Mar 7th 2007 12:13AM]

I'll believe it when I see it... Palm can't even get my 2 week old 750 to work correctly. I can't even get a ring chime or vibrate when I receive an SMS. Tried their 'fixes' and nothing.

[Nathan Qazi @ Mar 7th 2007 12:22AM]

Hey Steve!

You should get that unit replaced. I left Palm after owning the travesty that is the Treo 700w from Verizon. I came back to them with the Treo 750, and I'm absolutely loving it. It definitely chimes/vibrates when I get an SMS; I love the threaded text messaging tool.

Sad that you got a bad unit. :-( Hopefully it's a 1:1000000000000000 thing (where you're the 1...not me!!! :-p )

Good luck, man!

Nathan

[Jimmy Bean @ Mar 7th 2007 12:04AM]

For some reason my posts are not showing.

[Alan @ Mar 7th 2007 1:22AM]

I actually heard that there is a new product coming out from Palm which is to be announced in a few months. Good thing I picked up some Palm stock yesterday.

[js @ Mar 7th 2007 1:07AM]

iPhone, FTW.

[Zorque @ Mar 7th 2007 1:14AM]

Is it too much to ask that they, at least for part of their line, separate the Palms from the phones once again? I'm perfectly happy with the phone I have for the moment.

[John @ Mar 13th 2007 9:12PM]

you can still buy palms without the phone. they still make several models, including that LifeDrive thing. check the palm website.

and the one thing i want from palm is a new OS. i'm still on the treo 650 for that reason. why get a newer, faster phone that still runs an outdated OS

[dave @ Mar 7th 2007 1:18AM]

Oh c'mon, fanboys. Where exactly is this mythical Wimax network?? Yeah, let me run out and buy a phone that works in like 3 metropolitan areas in the whole country.......... "maybe".

Not.

[macstibs @ Mar 7th 2007 9:17AM]

not
buying
it...

either literally or metaphorically.

[ryan l @ Mar 7th 2007 11:15AM]

So Palm has had a smartphone out for more than six months and people are still buying it...whaa?

Heres a crazy thought; maybe...if you can string out the lifecycle of your product...you can make more margins on your initial investment and spend more time/resources on a truly unique or different product.

More margins equal happy business.

To all the iphone fanboys....wimax is sort of like 4g-iphone is 2.5g

iphone recipe: Take below average tech add a some neat software whizbangs and a dash of marketing. Cover in shiny wrapper.

Sit back and watch them trip over themselves to get one.

[Jesse Eastman @ Mar 7th 2007 12:16PM]

Right On. You summed it up pretty good there.

[Xenoterranos @ Mar 8th 2007 1:29AM]

Since I'm rocking a free-n-crappy right now, I hope by October there will be some decently awsome phones to upgrade to when my 2 year is up. No alegience to sprint or anything, but if they _reall_ get wimax up and running by then, It may be enought to get me to get this phone.

[Alan Strangis @ Mar 7th 2007 12:34PM]

Palm TOTALLY had the chance to release an iPhone 'killer' over a year before Apple announced it. A TX with a phone in it would have been very nice indeed... and something that Palm users were constantly clamouring for.

Well I gave up, and I'm happy with WM5

[Munk @ Mar 7th 2007 5:31PM]

Is Palm still in business?