HP
Veer

The Veer was a tiny smartphone which was part of the Palm Pre family. It was announced by HP after it had purchased Palm at the same time as the HP Pre 3 and the HP TouchPad tablet. Initially unveiled in February 2011, it was exclusively launched in May 2011 by US carrier AT&T and referred to as the HP Veer 4G. AT&T described it as “the size of a credit card and no thicker than a deck of cards” that was “perfect for feature phone or quick messaging phone users looking for all of the features and capabilities of a smartphone without compromising on size and style.” AT&T Mobility’s vice president for Mobile Device Portfolio, Mike Woodward felt that the Veer provided the company with “a highly unique and feature-rich smartphone for customers who want something a 'little' different”. Stephane Maes, vice president of smartphone product management of the Palm Global Business Unit at HP said that the Veer offered “a unique combination of high-end webOS smartphone features in a surprisingly compact package is just right for customers who want to do more with less”. The Veer, included an advanced web browser, Adobe Flash support, a tiny four-row slide-out qwerty keyboard, a five-megapixel camera and a 2.6-inch capacitive. The phone was also expected to have the WebOS Touch-to-Share proximity-based sharing capability but we don’t believe this was ever available on commercially shipping devices. In the end, the device was short-lived and disappeared by the end of 2011. This was a result of HP announcing that it was ceasing all development of WebOS devices on 18 August 2011. AT&T quickly sought to get rid of the inventory of Veer devices it held by dramatically reducing the price. The device in the Mobile Phone Museum collection is a prototype unit that is co-branded with both HP and Palm on the back of the phone. Commercial versions of the device featured the HP and AT&T logo with no reference to Palm.