I’ve been testing a new, exciting smartphone, and I bet it’s nothing like what you think. My new phone doesn’t have a big screen or several dozen cameras; it doesn’t slip into a headset so I can play virtual-reality games.

In fact, my phone—the Palm, a new device from a new company that picked up an old name—is supposed to be the antidote to all those bigger, more engrossing phones. Palm tried to build a phone you won’t want to use. Not too much, anyway.