Palm to serve up "ultra thin" WiMAX smartphone this year?
By Chris Ziegler 
posted Mar 6th 2007 11:05PM
posted Mar 6th 2007 11:05PM
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]
could this be hawkins new project ....which is supposed to be released by end of 2007 ???
Palm has missed the "thin is in" trend in the past few years, now it's about time for Palm to come up with a thin smartphone to compete with Motorola Q and Samsung Blackjack. Will WiMAX be on the Palm Sherlock that's scheduled to be out in June?
This has to be the Hawkins new project. The palm sherlock to be released in june will probably be just a treo 750/680 cdma version. There isnt enough time for wimax to be rolled out in less than 3months.
Palm used to know the market was about thin, think Palm V. That was an awesome device, at the time. I think they have completly lost that kind of innovation, and this coming from someone who couldn't wait to buy the 680, and I actually like it.
THIN != INNOVATION
Some people do not give a damn about thin. The Treo is a VERY REASONABLE thickness.
I think there are plenty of other things to be innovative about (POS, Bundled apps, high-end features built in, etc), but making the device thinner is simply a form change.