HP Veer
Phone Scoop Review
May 13, 2011 by Eric M. Zeman
HP's Veer 4G for AT&T attempts to set the bar for how small and feature-rich a smartphone can be. It sets bars, all right, but are they the right ones? read review ›
User Reviews
Average Ratings
Every phone isn't made to please everyone
The HP Veer is not your average smart phone, HP took a bold step into going the opposite direction that every other cell phone company was going, which was to be the company with the biggest touch screen. HP takes a step back and reaches out to those who doesn't want a huge phone to tug around and instead makes a small portable but powerful 4G device. HP has stated with the release of this phone that their target audience isn't the "up to par with technology, smart phone genius", its more for pre teen ages that is just getting started using smart phone like devices that do not have the need for a "jumbo-tron" screen and crazy big app store. In my opinion the HP veer is a great BASIC smart phone for those who don't want to jump all the way into a high tech smart phone, and instead are just wanting to start off with something small and simple, but still up to date and not behind on technology.
decent phone if you dont mind tiny.
I have to start with a warning. This Phone isnt for everyone.
"The Baby Palm Pre"
This phone reminds me on a palm pre in overall design. The overall feeling is a quality "solid" phone. The slider mech works very smoothly and has a good pleasant amount of spring assist to it. well the chrome back of the face is definite fingerprint magnet, it gives it a certain feeling of luxury phone that hp is known for. The screen is SMALL as far as touch screens go. Web site veiwing is painful as checking email and longer text messages. The keyboard is what looks like a smaller version of the palm pixi keypad with rubbery keys that although nice to type on on a pixi are too small. I have smaller hands and if you don't have decent nails the keys are very close and "cluttered" feeling and i find myself hitting more then one key too often. The autocorrect does a decent job of cleaning this up but fails pretty often. The overall feel of the software is nice and simple which might be nice to some but if I am paying for a 4g phone. (non-LTE) I still expect more features (the app store is sad), and the Internet browser is buggy on some pages. and limited support on hps end. The camera is definitely a weak spot with low light images being pretty "pathetic". I wasnt expecting a great camera but still was expecting to not see pixels and it wasn't worth taking pictures in less then perfect lighting. It also does not offer very many options at all as far as picture settings. The service was Great in certain places but never seemed like a "4g" fast phone and found myself waiting for pages for a while. I dropped a call very rarely. The music was a big disappointment though. The speaker was quite and came out pretty distorted and with no headphone jack i didnt find myself using the music or watching videos very often at all.
Overall if your looking for a small phone that looks nice and has a nice feel and dont mind the lack of higher end features, This could be the phone your looking for.
Pretty good phone!
This phone is unique for its tiny size. I used to own at least 3 Palm phones in the past and I like WebOS. The user interface (UI) is prety friendly, the card deck concept is pretty cool because this is a true multi tasking phone, whatever task you done, simply flip it away! The keyboard is tiny but make no mistake, you can type easily unless you have big fat fingers! Battery lasts me the whole day. The speaker is loud enough! It has all the most important features you find in a smart phone and it syncs with Exchange, Google calendar, contacts...) The white color make the phone totally stand out but it also attracts dirt so you'll have to be careful with this white one! There are 2 main cons for me:
They call it 4G phone but sometimes I even get Edge speed! The reception kinda sucks: I have 2 AT&T phone on my desk and one has full (or almost full) bars and this Veer gets only 1 bar, sometimes 2, and 3 if I'm lucky, so forget about 4 or 5 bars! However, I can still make calls with just 1 bar (or sometimes no bar at all!)
Secondly, there's not nearly enough WebOS apps but most of the useful apps are there.
Overall, it's a great smartphone because it has all the essential smart phone features, & functions like email, calendar or even maybe web browser (the screen is tiny but you can always pinch to zoom and that it has flash! (I wouldn't care much about games, ebook readers....) I would say it would be a steal if it's free with 2 years contract! I have this phone as a second phone when I go out because of its size: I want something small in my pocket but I also want to be able check something on the web and especially I can still text comfortably and that's the Veer perfectly serves my needs!
Not for everyone
I've had some first hand experience with this phone. There are some cool features but they seem novelty at best. For instance, the magnetic charger/data cable is a cool and innovative idea. I like how they are trying something new, but where will you buy a replacement data cable and/or charger if this one goes bad? Online? Yes. Online. Enjoy two phoneless weeks if this happens. I still give props for the idea.
No micro SD card? What? This, to me, is the biggest mistake. Let me put it this way, I didn't like how WP7 took away the microSD option on it's phones (Sans the focus) and I really don't like how the Veer has no microSD slot.
Speaking of micro, this phone is TINY. I have average hands... and holding this phone made me feel as if my hands were fat and awkward. For instance, my Thumb covers "QWERT" on the QWERTY keypad. Some people will LOVE it! My Girlfriend thinks it's adorable. It is cute. The design of the phone is sleek and very beautiful (Something Palm/HP can do very well). That being said, you will like it if you're a preteen girl. And that's their target market.
The touch is great, not laggy, and the webOS (not a fan of web OS myself) is pretty much the same as the Pre or Pixie. It does run smooth. The advantages of a webOS phone are clearly the operating system and it's lack of problems... but, with such a small market I would advise against this phone. iOs, WP7 and Android devices have a phenomenally larger market than every WebOS device. Plus, the screen is so small... as a previous reviewer said... I did squint quite a bit.
So, here's my thoughts... if you have a daughter in middle school who wants an up to date phone that's going to fit in her skinny jeans pocket... this phone is totally for you. If you're anybody else... go with a WP7, Android or iPhone.
Smaller than I thought!
I just play with a non working Veer and I am amazed at how small it is. I am almost six and a half feet tall with large hands and I can completely cover the phone with a closed fist. trying to read the small print on the screen made me squint a bit and I feel this may be a problem for people to read texts and emails. When closed this phone is smaller than any other phones in the store. I feel the larger the screen, the better the experience for web browsing, texting, facebook... etc. It dosent seem to make sence for texting and data phones to be that small.
