An Ode to the Palm PVG100 Phone

I love my PVG100 Android Phone. I’m afraid that another phone like this might never exist, so I’m paying homage to it in blog post form.

Some stock photos:

PVG100 compared to a credit card PVG100 in a hand

The photos are real. This phone is real. There really isn’t anything like it, and you have to actually hold it in your hand understand what a marvel it is.

You can still buy it new on Amazon right now, although I don’t recommend it.

Specs

The Specs for this phone are not bad for a phone from 2018:

  • Dimensions: 96.6 x 50.6 x 7.4 mm (3.80 x 1.99 x 0.29 in)
  • Weight: 62.5 g (2.22 oz)
  • Screen Size: 3.3 inches, 30.0 cm2 (~61.4% screen-to-body ratio)
  • Resolution: 720 x 1280 pixels, 16:9 ratio (~445 ppi density)
  • Chipset: Qualcomm MSM8940 Snapdragon 435 (28 nm)
  • CPU: Octa-core (4x1.4 GHz & 4x1.1 GHz)
  • GPU: Adreno 505
  • Storage: 32GB eMMC
  • RAM: 3GB
  • OS: Android 8.1 (Oreo)
  • Camera: 12 MP, AF, LED flash, HDR, 720p@30fps video
  • Selfie Camera: 8 MP, 720p@30fps video
  • Comms: GPS / 2.4g 802.11 / 4G LTE
  • Battery: Li-Ion 800 mAh, non-removable, charging 50% in 31 min, 100% in 68 min

Living with this phone in 2025 is a bit difficult due to:

  • Android 8 is super obsolete, many apps cannot be installed
  • Even if those apps could be installed, they will be super slow
  • 32GB of space is pretty limiting, no room for an SD card
  • The camera is not great
  • The battery is super small, you can expect about 1h of intense usage, and 12h of standby

Even with the slowness and miserable battery life, I still love this phone.

I just feel like I’m living in the future having this in my pocket. It certainly is the most powerful device per gram I’ve ever owned.

It even meets all my actual needs for a phone:

  • Can make phone calls
  • Android Auto & Google Maps
  • Supports Pagerduty and HID Access for work
  • Music player for bluetooth headphones
  • OSMand for offline maps
  • “OK” photos
  • SMS / RCS chat
  • EMail, web, etc

I don’t have a lot of requirements, and this phone meets them all. I will continue to use this phone as long as all these above requirements are met. I can replace the battery or use a battery case.

But Why is This Phone Unique?

You can read a little bit about the history of “Palm Ventures” in this Wikipedia article, but two designers somehow convinced TCL (who owns the Palm trademark) to lend them the use of the Palm brand and to manufacture the phone they designed. They just really knocked it out of the park (for this niche market)! Nobody has made a comparable phone since.

Other Small Smartphones Don’t Stack Up

There are certainly other small phones on the market and entire communities centered around small phones. They lament the same thing: there are no good modern tiny phones.

Problably the most modern phone closest to the Palm PVG100 is the Jelly Star:

Jelly Star

Or perhaps many of the phones by Unihertz.

The thing is, compared to the PVG100, the Jelly Star feels like a brick! It is twice as thick and weighs twice as much. Sure, in absolute terms it is still tiny, but I can’t go back.

But also, the Jelly Star and any other comparable small phones just suck compared to the PVG100, even now six years later:

  • They are much thicker than the PVG100
  • They have terrible terrible low res screens, an absurdity for 2025.
  • They are made of plastic!
  • Or somehow have even worse technical specs than the PVG100 (CPU, storage, etc)

Soyes is an example of a chinese phone OEM that makes small phones. There are others, but they are all the same theme: they are all cheap, slow, plasticy, and just lack the refinement that the PVG100 has.

Like the Soyes XS24 Pro for only … $35

Soyes

Yes, it is too good to be true. The specs are fake and it is preloaded with malware.

There are other tiny phones like this, which I appreciate, but am not interested in. These are small phone simulacra.

And don’t try to tell me that the 6.3 inch Google Pixel 9 is a “small phone”.

Economics

I would love to see the accounting books for Palm Ventures to see if they even made money on the thing?

Fundamentally, I think it is hard in this market to sell a small phone for the same price as a large phone. Why would you spend $500 on a 3" screen when you could spend the same amount of money on say, a Google Pixel 7a?

That limits manufactures to how good a small phone can fundamentally be. I bet this limit wasn’t in place for the PVG100 because… startups? Also the PVG100 was $350 at launch. It also got bad reviews. Who would buy a smart phone for ants?

Plam Ventures tried it, and proved that there was little market for a high-end tiny phone. Therefore all other subsequent phones are in the mid or low end?

I think the Kickstarter approach that Unihertz uses might be the only possible way to create a new high-end tiny phone.

Conclusion

Just let me know if you come across a tiny phone that hits these specs (like my 2018 PVG100 does right now):

  • ~60 grams
  • ~400ppi screen
  • US Frequency bands, 4G
  • Not plastic
  • ANY PRICE

Specs like these means compromises. It means you can’t have a headphone jack, or a IR blaster, or fancy LEDs. Heck even just one physical button please!

But the PVG100 proves that these specs can be met. I just want to see it happen again like it did in 2018.

And because I’m not creative enough, I asked a computer to help write an actual ode:

Oh Palm Phone, light as morning air,
You grace my pocket, small and rare.
A perfect gem, both sharp and bright,
A sixty gram star in gadget's night.

Though PVG100 shows its years,
You meet my needs, despite the jeers.
A marvel built with love and care,
No rival phone could e'er compare.
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