It's going to be a busy week for smartphones. We've got Google I/O, a bunch of finishing touches on the Droid Charge review, the Infuse 4G on its way, and early this morning yet another new device hit the doorstep. This time it's the HP Veer 4G which is slated to launch on AT&T May 15th. 

We've been WebOS fans for a while now and are looking forward to HP's refresh of the entire WebOS lineup. Previous hardware was getting long in the tooth and unfortunately we haven't been able to take a look at WebOS 2.x until now. We're used to seeing flagship devices launch first and then smaller, thinner, lighter versions come later, but it appears HP wants to get new hardware out there as fast as possible, and is starting things with the Veer 4G.

The Veer is tiny, the device's outline is about the size of a credit card. Next to the AT&T Palm Pre Plus, the Veer looks very small. Compared to the 4.3-inch devices I've been carrying and reviewing for so long now, its size is positively mind-blowing. 

Left to right: HTC EVO 4G, AT&T Palm Pre Plus, HP Veer 4G

The Veer is essentially a ground-up refresh of the Palm Pixi. The two share the exact same 2.63 inch diagonal 320x400 sub HVGA LCD display and button-less gesture area. Where the two differ is surrounding form factor - the Veer abandons the candybar format in favor of the portrait slider carried by the original Pre, and as a result has a much smaller outline. The Veer will come in both black and white. 

In addition the Veer is built around a much speedier SoC, Qualcomm's 800 MHz MSM7230 with Adreno 205 graphics, same as we first saw in the T-Mobile G2. It isn't quite as fast as this generation's 1 GHz frontrunners like Hummingbird or even MSM8x55, but MSM7230 makes the device substantially faster than the Palm Pre Plus I carried around for a while. On paper the Veer should perform better than the Pre Plus and Pixi, but behind the Palm Pre 2 and HP Pre 3. My mental comparison point is the Palm Pre Plus, and compared to it, everything on the Veer is smoother and faster. 

The other big differentiator is the move from a 2 MP to 5 MP camera, though the optical system is still fixed focus. Thankfully capture is still incredibly speedy - you can still mash the capture button and snap a bunch of pictures in rapid succession. 

We've run a few of our web benchmark tests from the usual suite and have results, but expect to see a lot more in the full review. 

First impressions with the HP Veer are overall very good. Build quality is solid, as the Veer has a very sturdy feeling slider with none of the "oreo effect" that plagued the original Palm Pre for so long. In addition, the Veer also lacks the LCD pressure distortion that used to occur when the slider was closed sharply. The entire mechanism feels snappy and precise with absolutely no play. Buttons are clicky and responsive, nothing suffers from miniaturization thankfully. I've been using the Veer all day today with my own SIM inside (just like I do for every phone when appropriate) and thus far am impressed with how useable the whole thing is despite the miniaturized keyboard and relatively small display. 

The only compromises the Veer does make as a result of its miniscule size are lack of a microUSB port and 3.5 mm audio jack, and a non-replaceable 910 mAh (3.3 Whr) battery. For USB connectivity and audio out, there are two proprietary magnetic adapters very reminiscent of Apple's MagSafe. We'll subject the Veer to our suite of battery life tests immediately and find out how much stamina the Veer has with such a small battery. 

We've taken a bunch of photos of the Veer alone and alongside its larger predecessor and put them in a gallery for your perusal. Stay tuned for the full review later this week. 

There's also been some confusion about HSPA+ support on the Veer. The issue stems from an assumption that 64QAM support is mandatory for a device to be 3GPP Release 7, which is absolutely not the case. Ironically, I left a lengthy comment explaining why that's the case in the HTC Inspire 4G HSUPA update story before all of this suddenly became an issue.

The long and short of it is that if a modem supports any 3GPP Release 7 features, it's a 3GPP Release 7 device, and thus 'HSPA+,' which is merely a colloquial label for enhancements added in Release 7. The reality is that none of the features in any release but the original WCDMA 3GPP release are mandatory, everything in each release since then is optional. Thus, features added in 3GPP Release 7 are optional - you don't have to implement every new feature to be able to call your modem HSPA+. Features supported by Qualcomm's MSM7230 inside the HP Veer that are from 3GPP Release 7 include UE DTX/DRX (discontinuous uplink transmission and receive), F-DPCH, and others. Qualcomm's MSM7230 and other current generation WCDMA SoCs include QPSK and 16QAM modulation on the downlink, meaning they are HSDPA 14.4 Category 10 devices. Downlink support for 64QAM will come in the next refresh. 

As of right now, to my knowledge the first shipping phone with 64QAM support was the Samsung Galaxy S 4G which includes an ST Ericsson THOR 5730 HSDPA 21 Mbps HSPA+ modem. Though 64QAM offers potentially faster speeds and better spectral efficiency, it requires accordingly better SNR than 16QAM and substantially more than QPSK, and as a result isn't used unless user equipment is close to the cell center. This behavior is easily measurable on devices like the Galaxy S 4G, whose engineering menus show a percentage breakdown of what frames were modulated using QPSK, 16QAM, and 64QAM. I've been working on performing extensive drive testing with that particular device to explore just this issue for some time now.

Further, the enhancements added in HSPA+ / 3GPP Release 7 cover far more than just the standalone addition of  64QAM. Release 7 adds HSDPA categories which include MIMO but exclude 64QAM support in addition to categories that exclude MIMO but include 64QAM. On the uplink it also includes 16QAM support which could enable upstream speeds of up to 11.5 Mbps. Other major features added are faster call setup and takedown, and reduced cellular signaling to alleviate some of the call and data session blocking issues which have affected a number of UMTS networks. The point of all this is that it's a grossly innacurate oversimplification to claim something is or isn't HSPA+ based on absence of 64QAM on the downlink. 

The long and short of it is that the HP Veer 4G, HTC Inspire 4G, and Motorola Atrix 4G are all definitely HSPA+ capable with 16QAM HSDPA 14.4 support. As an aside, I'm a bit surprised that this is suddenly an issue now since HSDPA 14.4 (Category 10) devices have been shipping for some time now under the HSPA+ banner to no complaint.

I've already started running endless throughput tests on the Veer 4G and thus far have been decently impressed with speeds.

They're right around what I'm used to seeing in my market, which AT&T has enabled HSPA+ support in. I've verified this using AT commands on a Sierra Wireless 308 AirCard. Speeds closer to the theoretical maximum for the UE category will only come with faster backhaul. AT&T is calling this 'enhanced backhaul' and isn't being totally clear about what cell sites have full support yet, though I'm told internally the list of sites that are upgraded with faster backhaul is quite short at the moment.