Alcatel, new owner of the Palm name and legacy, has a brand new smartphone for the market with a familiar name. Meet the Pixi 3.
The name is the only resemblance to Palm’s older compact smartphone with hardware keyboard, though. Alcatel already established its Pixi line of devices before, so it’s no surprise that it didn’t imbue its new phone with the Palm nostalgia here. However, the budget handset maker did pull off another neat trick: Unlike the first two Alcatel Pixis, version 3 can support three different operating systems.
See also: Palm May Live Yet: Signs Point To Revival Under Alcatel/TCL
“Our users do not want complicated systems,” said Alcatel OneTouch Chief Marketing Officer Dan Dery in a press statement. “They want something familiar from their work environment in the office, but also on a smartphone.”
Of course, for some users, a single device offering a choice of Windows Phone, Android or the Firefox OS may be the epitome of complication. But what’s complex for one person could be freedom and flexibility for another. Notably the Pixi 3’s internal hardware, which will likely be middle-of-the-road, doesn’t appear to get in the way of this multiple support.
Alcatel has produced phones for each of the different mobile platforms before, but its latest is the first device that can work with all three. The Verge reports that the Pixi 3 will also come in a choice of display sizes: 3.5 inches (3G cellular connectivity only), 4 inches, 4.5 inches and 5 inches.
While the announcement is not the reemergence of Palm we were hoping for, the affordable gadget does offer some unique twists that could appeal to a broad range of users—at least those who prize flexibility over hardware specifications. Expect the company to show off this mobile wonder at CES next week, when it will also announce a new budget smartwatch.
