HP Veer Review

Are you looking for a basic smartphone with a keyboard for messaging and easy going operating system? If yes, then HP Veer can very well be the smartphone for you. This phone from HP boasts of an incredibly small size. The phone was announced by HP in February 2011 and is powered by a Snapdragon processor.  HP Veer mobile phone is seen as a successor to the Palm line of the Pixi and Centro models. The phone is marketed as HP Veer 4G. Check out our exclusive HP Veer review to know what the phone has in store for you.

HP Veer Looks And Design

Veer looks very much the same as that of Palm Pre 2. The pebble shaped Veer is incredibly small measuring just 3.3×2.2×0.6 inches when closed. It is so small that you may lose it instantly. It easily slips into your pocket and is quite light weighing just 3.6 ounces. The design of the phone is quite simple and polished. The rounded edges of the phone make it very easy to grip and it is wrapped around by a case. The soft touch back of the phone provides a good grip. Overall we were quite satisfied with the looks and design of Veer.

HP Veer Display

HP Veer has one of the smallest touchscreens you will see in smartphones. Measuring 2.6 inches, the display of the phone is capable of displaying pictures of resolution measuring 320 x 400 pixels. The touchscreen definitely cannot compete with the touchscreens of giant smartphones available in the market but then we should not forget, that Veer belongs to a completely different category. Though the panel is quite bright yet, viewing web pages on the screen is a challenging task especially in portrait mode.

The colors rendered are quite bright and the photos looked good. Though sunlight legibility of the screen is quite decent, yet you need to hide it to some extent for optimum readability. The screen is accompanied by a special graphics effect which helps you to ensure that you are selecting the very right spot. On the top of the display you get a mute button while the power button is on the right corner. The volume control buttons are on the right side, while the speaker is on the backside of the phone.

HP Veer Keyboard

Veer is equipped with a physical QWERTY keyboard which is located just under the screen and hence you need to slide it to get access to the keys. Though the keys are tiny, yet there are nicely labeled. The keys are made up of hard plastic and produces satisfying click when you press each one of them. If you happen to have large hands, then you will face problems operating the keyboard. But the keys are raised enough and we typed messages fairly fast. The keyboard featured a dedicated @ key.  The keyboard is good for everyday use.

HP Veer Applications

Though the App catalog bears a HP brand, yet when compared to Android and iOS, apps are far behind. There are only about 6000 applications. Some of the intgerated apps which you will find in the phone are as follows

• Angry Birds
• Evernote
• Facebook
• Fandango
• Yelp
• AT&T Navigator
• Amazon MP3
• Quick Office

There is no official Twitter apps but there are some pretty good third-party apps.

HP Veer Features

HP Veer is the first device which runs on WebOS 2.1 which is the latest version of HP’s OS for smartphones. Though the OS is not as eminent as some of its rivals, yet it deserves some attention. The phone is also equipped with a 800 MHz Qualcomm MSM7230 processor similar to that of T-Mobile G2. The processor performed quite well and the phone was quite snappy while opening apps and switching between them. Veer also provides a decent 8GB of internal memory storage but sadly one cannot upgrade the memory. Another cool feature of the phone is Just Type.

You just need to tap Just Type area on the keyboard and then you can start typing straight away. You can perform searches of all types from this menu and at the same time you can start an email. Unlike previous WebOS phones, Veer does a very nice job of combining contacts and calendars to give you a unified view. It very easily syncs with Google, Facebook, Linkedln and Yahoo. The WebOS handles notifications quite well and though notifications are too tiny on Veer, yet it is quite good.

HP Veer Camera

The smartphone is equipped with a 5MP camera which gave us mixed results. The camera takes good everyday shots but it is rather limited. You do not get a front facing camera in Veer and the 5MP snapper lacks advanced features such as zoom or flash. It however has geo-tagging facilities. The still shots which we captured outside produced vivid colors and produced sharp details. You can directly upload the photos on social networking sites like Facebook from the Photos application. The capture speed was not that fast and the camera of the phone is quite good for still snapshots and portraits.

HP Veer Video

The footages shot with Veer’s VGA camcoder was not that great and when they played on our laptop, then we witnessed a lot of pixilation and blurring on them. Even the Youtube videos were played not that great.

HP Veer Connectivity And Multimedia

Connectivity is decent with HP Veer mobile phone. The phone supports both 2G as well as 3G network. There is also support for GPRS and EDGE. For local connectivity you have Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 2.1 with A2DP profile. You also get a 3.5mm audio jack. Like most of the AT&T 4G phones, you do not get 4G speeds on Veer 4G. There were times when we were not able to get 4G service for browsing the web. The mobile hotspot worked nicely.

Veer is certainly not a device to give you a power packed multimedia experience, but you can surly get the job done. You get a preloaded Amazon MP3 application preloaded, the experience of which is good one. The speaker performs well and you get enough volumes.

HP Veer Call Quality

Veer is a great voice phone. The reception is quite good and in our tests, the phone made calls to areas where many failed. The call quality is great. We were able to our listeners quite loud and clear. Though there was some fuzziness, yet it was never quite distorted and the voice came very clearly.

HP Veer Release Date

Veer HP was released in May 2011.

HP Veer Accessories

During unboxing HP Veer phone we found it to be equipped with the following accessories

• HP Veer
• Battery
• Charger
• Headphone
• User manual

Download HP Veer Manual.

HP Veer Battery Life

Battery life is quite decent with Veer. Despite having a small 910mAh battery, the phone lasted for a long time in between charges. You will be able to make most out of it for the day and then recharge it the second day.

HP Veer Price

HP Veer price in the USA is approximately $ 100. HP Veer price in India is not yet known.

HP Veer Verdict

HP Veer is not a phone which will entice you to a great extent. It is more of a messaging phone but still it can do a lot. It is a pocket friendly device and really light weight. However, we will say that Veer is more of phone to show rather than use.