Palm helped popularize the idea of a modern smartphone with its Palm Treo, but after failing to keep up with the iPhone and Android the company has been reborn. Its new product: A 3.3-inch companion device to work alongside those phones, not replace it. And yet Palm's past found me wanting to embrace the newly reborn Palm, an adorable and, yes, palm-sized $349 smartphone stand-in on sale Friday as a Verizon Wireless exclusive. I have fond memories for the original PalmPilot, the first truly successful personal digital assistant. I was even a fan of the Palm Pre, a phone with software that was, in hindsight, ahead of its time but couldn't escape the iPhone's shadow.

Palm helped popularize the idea of a modern smartphone with its Palm Treo, but after failing to keep up with the iPhone and Android the company has been reborn. Its new product: A 3.3-inch companion device to work alongside those phones, not replace it. Palm is back – well, sort of. We're not talking about a comeback of the PDA maker, back when that meant personal digital assistant. This Palm has Steph Curry on its team and is making a play for the as-yet undefined market – the one for a mini clone phone.