HP Veer serves up webOS goodness in a pint size package

The third of the three webOS-powered devices announced by HP last night is the HP Veer, a mere slip of a smartphone at just 54.5mm x 84.0mm x 15.1mm.

It’s a wee little fella

Claimed to be “bucking the current industry trend of ‘bigger is better’,” the handset serves up the same pebble-shaped goodness of the Pre – complete with the distinctive slide out keyboard – but shrinks the screen down to a 2.8-inch, 320×400 dots capacitive touchscreen number.

“While much of the industry is trending toward larger and larger devices, we believe there’s also a whole lot of room for thinking small,” insisted Jon Rubinstein, senior vice president and general manager, Palm Global Business Unit, HP.

“Veer bridges the gap for a new generation of smartphone users, proving they really can have it all without sacrificing the size they want.”

Pocket rocket

Powered by a modest Snapdragon 7230 processor running at 800MHz, the teensy weensy Veer packs an HSPA+ radio, and has Wi-Fi b/g, Bluetooth 2.1 +ERD connectivity options plus support for Flash.

There’s 8GB of internal storage on tap, a rear-facing camera (sans flash), accelerometer, ambient light, and proximity sensors and mobile hotspot capabilities.

The Veer is scheduled for an “early Spring” release but we’ve no further info on release dates yet.

We think it’s rather a cute little number. How about you?

Specs:

Colour: Black
Operating system – HP webOS
Network specs
HSDPA 7.2/HSUPA 5.76
Quad-band GSM/EDGE: 850/900/1800/1900
GSM/GPRS/EDGE

Display
2.6-inch multitouch screen with a vibrant 18-bit color, 320×400 resolution
Keyboard
Slide-out physical QWERTY keyboard

Email
Microsoft Exchange email with Microsoft
Direct Push Technology
POP3/IMAP (Yahoo! Mail, Gmail™, AOL, Hotmail, etc.)

Messaging
Integrated IM, SMS, and MMS
GPS
Built-in GPS (A-GPS)

Digital camera
5-megapixel camera with extended depth of field, geotagging, and video capture

Audio
Speakerphone; dual-mic for noise cancellation for quieter calls.

Sensors
Accelerometer, ambient light, and proximity

Media formats supported
Audio formats: MP3, AAC, AAC+, eAAC+, AMR, QCELP, WAV
Video formats: MPEG-4, H.263, H.264

Wireless connectivity
Wi-Fi 802.11b/g/n with WPA, WPA2, WEP, 802.1X authentication; Bluetooth® wireless technology 2.1 + EDR with A2DP stereo Bluetooth support; Wi-Fi router functionality for up to five devices using HP mobile hotspot.

Memory
8GB (~6.5GB available)
USB mass storage support

Battery
910 mAh (non-removable); up to 5.0 hours of talk time or 300 hours of standby time.

Connector
Charger/magnetic connector with USB 2.0 Hi-Speed

Headphone jack
Magnetic connector with 3.5mm stereo headset adapter included

HP Touchstone – Compatible

Processor
Qualcomm MSM7230, 800Mhz

Dimensions
Width: 54.5mm (2.15 inches)
Height: 84.0mm (3.31 inches)
Thickness: 15.1mm (0.59 inches)

Weight
103 grams (3.63 ounces)