Some of you may have already forgotten that there was a time when Palm handhelds used to be a big thing. The industry has progressed significantly since but it seems that the brand will be brought back once again to the mobile market. TCL, the Chinese company that’s making BlackBerry-branded handsets, said last year that it would start selling Palm-branded smartphones in 2018. According to a new report, the first such device will be launched with Verizon in the United States later this year.
AndroidPolice hears from a trusted source that the plan right now is to launch a Palm-branded smartphone on Verizon in the second half of this year. Nothing is known about the phone itself, though, aside from the likelihood that it’s going to run on Android.
It’s not surprising to hear that the first Palm-branded smartphone could be launched on Verizon. Big Red was a major partner of Palm for a very long time and it sold all of its webOS handsets right up to the Palm Pre 2. Verizon was even going to carry the Pre 3 but the handset was canceled when HP purchased Palm.
TCL bought the rights to the Palm brand in 2015 and it appears that the company is finally ready to put it to use three years after the fact. It has been somewhat successful with the revival of the BlackBerry brand so it will be interesting to see how its Palm-branded devices perform in the market.