A Palm
Smartphone Reboot Is Reportedly Coming To Verizon Later This Year
Verizon may launch a new Palm device
in the second half of this year, an anonymous source told Android Police. The rumor
backs up what a TCL executive said last August, when he confirmed to Dutch
publication Android Planet that the company would launch a Palm phone this
year.
TCL did not respond to comments
when we reached out at the time, despite previous reports that the company had
no plans for the Palm. There are little details beyond a supposed release date
for this new device.
According to Android police’s
report, the phone is expected to run on Android OS, and TCL has reportedly
returned to Pal’s erstwhile partner Verizon, for the impending release.
The carrier sold most of the
brand’s phones including the Palm Pre2. A GIF displayed by mynewpalm.com in
December 2014. The Chinese company TCL, which brought the Palm brand back in
2015, is also in the midst of reviving BlackBerry, another dated smartphone
brand, by making handsets.
The company might be preying on
early smartphone user’s nostalgia for the days before Facebook became a
data-sucking giant and when apocalyptic Black Mirror-esque robot films weren’t
streaming on Netflix.
The strategy seems to work in
some capacity for Nokia, which revived the 3310 and the banana phone form The
Matrix at the past two Mobile World Congress showings.
