Rumor smashed: Not Palm Roteo but Compal Tabasco

Well, so much for hopes to see the "New-ness" that Palm has been promising for the last week. When the mysterious T-swivel handset live photos first appeared, everyone are speculating it could be Palm's and thus the nickname "Roteo" began to circle around.

Jenn K. Lee from Pocketables (via Engadget) tracked down the fellow named David, who snapped the photos. Apparently the non-functioning prototype was shot at Computex 2008 back in June, and the manufacturer is Compal. The nickname of the handset is: Tabasco.

This Compal Tabasco (pictured above) has a rear facing 3.2 megapixel camera with 2x optical zoom and a flash, a front-facing webcam, and it measures about 6.3 x 3.3 x 1.3-inches with a 4.5 or 5-inch screen.

Jenn also speculates that there's still a chance that this could become the Roteo (remember the rumor about Palm placing a huge order with Compal?). My take on this rumor, hopefully Palm got a better designed handset than this bulky Compal Tobasco. Because the trend that's in right now is slim and sleek, not the other way around.