The Palm brand is coming back with Android on Verizon
Word of a Palm revival began swirling as far back as 2014 when it was found that a high-ranking TCL officer obtained ownership of the brand. Then, last year they finally let the cat out of the bag that they were planning to launch new Palm-branded smartphones.
But these smartphones won’t be running the beloved webOS software that the Palm Pre championed — LG is using that for TVs now. No, these will be Android phones. And they’re launching on Verizon, apparently.
A Big Red destination makes sense for the phone seeing as how Verizon and Palm have a long history of partnership. Perhaps it’s not as strong now as the DROID push ended up being when Verizon decided to embrace Android phones in 2009, but it’s still interesting.
If you’re wondering whether TCL can do the series justice, remember that it’s the same company behind BlackBerry’s latest Android phones. The phones aren’t mind-blowing, but they’re solid, if not pretty good, and TCL has taken care to keep that BlackBerry feel with the phones, with striking designs, and — in the case of the BlackBerry KEYone — a worthy physical keyboard.
The question is what will TCL do for Palm? Are we going to eventually see something resemble the Palm Pre or Palm Pre 2? Or will they just be same-old-same-old devices with the Palm logo stamped on the back? That’s essentially what the BlackBerry DTEK phones were until the KEYone launched, after all.
Unfortunately, those details are not yet known. We just know it’s headed to Verizon, and that already gives it a nice chance to succeed as they look to rope in the old Palm faithful with a heaping helping of nostalgia.
via Android Police