When Phones Were Fun: Samsung's PalmOS Flip Phone (SPH-i500, 2002)

I was a Sprint repair tech from 2003-2010 and I never saw and still have never seen one of these outside of seeing one on display at Best Buy

Since 2002, I've had the pleasure of owning almost every smartphone you can think of, including the i500. Among them, the i500 was undoubtedly one of my favorites. It holds a special place in my heart, especially considering I transitioned from the Treo 300 to the i500. Those were the days of my college life, filled with cherished memories.

I can't help but feel a tinge of sadness and nostalgia when I compare the current smartphone landscape to how it used to be. The excitement and enjoyment that smartphones once brought seem to have diminished over time. It's a sentiment that weighs on me.

Nonetheless, I'm eagerly looking forward to the release of the ZFold5. I'm hopeful that it will recapture the essence and spirit that made the i500 so special. Perhaps this new device will rekindle the same sense of delight and satisfaction I experienced in the past.

I had this phone I loved it

Palm os

This i never see

The problem with Palm is they refused to innovate. They had stale, boring PDAs while Sony was cranking out the most badass PDAs I had ever seen. They kept rehashing old designs that really weren't improvments. In many ways, they were the Apple of their time: too expensive and hardly anything new to shout about. When Sony was cranking out color PDAs for under $300, Palm wanted a whopping $450 for the same thing. And their PDAs needed PROPRIETARY SD cards! You couldn't use regular SD cards to back up the data! NOOO, it had to be a Palm branded SD card even though the format was universal. Meanwhile, Sony's Clie would use any Memory Stick inserted even if it was made by a different brand. I even had one with an adapter to use SD cards! And it was $80 cheaper than the closest model Palm offered. I'm not surprised Palm disappeared. They had no innovation and like Apple, they just bought out rivals to use their designs and claim the idea was theirs.
I STILL wish Sony would make an NX series Clie smartphone with the flip-up rotating screen. It had a physical keypad but you could rotate the screen and fold it back down to turn into a PDA and it looked amazingly like the Android OS phones we have today. And this was in 2004! What is frustrating is that Sony is always disappointing. They still refused to make a PSP cell phone with Android OS. They refused to make a NX series smartphone. They keep getting involved with political BS. They're losing their way and won't admit it.

do you still have it
we want the bios
palm60-en-t3.rom

You might also consider a dedicated short video Kyocera's Palm OS brick phone, the QCP-6035 - even though it did get a quick mention in this vid here. I had one and thought it was GREAT!!

I always felt that the iPhone's GUI was inspired by Palm OS where as Android's was inspired by Windows Mobile.

I still have my Samsung SPH-i500. What do you think it's worth now in late 2022(20 years old)

dont miss graffiti mode on these devices at all lol ridiculous cumbersome tech just to delete the qwerty keyboard! but those antenna's i really miss, rarely had connection issues with them back then, makes me wonder how much better signal would be if they had external antenna's on todays devices!

My favorite phone. Battery lasted 5 days! Lightweight and unintrusive on your belt. Excellent phine sound. Feeling srs nostlagia.

What was the price cost at release in 2002?

I used to have this phone and I loved it! If I could go back to it I would!

Do a review of the Sanyo M1 or all the Sanyo phones

Remember playing games on palm device like Apple Newton, Sony CLIÉ, palm tungsten C. Very slow but latter two very first color screen ever used.

@mr mobile If I got the sph m 500 would you appreciate a review?

Where can I buy this phone?

I'm Planning To Make Everything in my house from 2007 hope ya wish me good luck

Love me my Palm units

Is this the ancestor to Galaxy Z Flip?

they have been ahead of their time

I have to say that i like samsung phones of that era more than nokia phones

SPH stands for small penis humiliation. just thought you should know

I loved the palm pilot.. I miss Symbian.

These nostalgic gadgets... bring back pleasant memories 😃 keep it up!

Samsung sph i500
Nokia n73
Nokia n95
Nokia n82

Oh. My palm. It's gonna pre, dude...

Hello I from China. Last week I just bought the Samsung i539, very similar to the SPH-i500, palm based, but have an outside small led screen and music control. Waiting the shipment.

Great videos.. love the presentation and nostalgia

Is this a nintendo DSi phone

Love your videos after watching them man. You should make a video on "When phones were fun - Windows Phone 2000-2012" Please and thanks

What MrMobile meant when he said "RIP" meant that Sprint's operations were dissolved by T-Mobile.

wow i just found a i550 in my brother´s room, so exactly what do i have in my hands? in the wikipedia page says that a mobile carrier in mexico launched the phone, and guess what? i´m from mexico

I love walking down memory lane with this stuff. I have to admit I did miss the old Palm OS even the old sync which I did wirelessly. I had the Kyocera version he showed about 1/3 through.

Hi Michael, are you still planning on making that Kyocera 7135 review? Mine may be the only request but I'd love to see it. Thanks 😊

during olympic games 2004 in athens greece(where I live), samsung was official sponsor and had a modified version of this phone which had also colored external display, camera 5MP I think and a very bright flash next to that camera that I have yet to see in any smartphone and a much more curved design especially for the battery(well it didnt look like in your video with the battery installed), unfortunately I sold it because although I had experience in hacking palmOS devices(had a Palm III for years) for that one had so many locks that I could not find a way to install other applications. Samsung was selling them at the end of olympic games for around 250 euro.

You look like Tony Stark's younger brother

I found this series recently, love it! May I suggest a video on the Sharp GX10? That was my first "smartphone" back when Nokia had released their first smartphone back in about 2003 (I think)

You look like iron man

I remember downloading monophonic ringtones of songs I liked. I know I had "For Whom the Bell Tolls" for a while. And then polyphonic ringtones became available wow! 😲😆 They sounded so bad, but it's been long enough that they might be cool again, in a nostalgic way.

Yup, this was my first smartphone (Dallas, Tx).

I love this series, it’s really so much fun. My question is where did you get your tricorder from, I’m a huge Star Trek fan and I love the props and that’s suck a great looking tricorder. I have the playmates versions from years ago but it doesn’t look as good.

That looked cooler than my first Palm phone, the Treo.

you look like a combination of Jason Sudeikis and Richard Hammond

Nice

what about those brink phones with full keyboards do they have more ram or computer powers?

2002 we now have for you Roomba

I had this phone. Dropped it onto concrete from a second story apartment several times and it just kept ticking. I bought it used for $200 at a flea market in 2003 and put a sprint protection plan on it. After 2 years of straight use with no issues I decided to place a claim on the phone. Sprint replaced it with a treo 600 which sparked my interest in mobile smart devices.