TCL Says New Palm Smartphones Will Arrive In 2018

Chinese phone maker TCL is reportedly planning on bringing back the Palm brand to the smartphone market in 2018. Although there’s no confirmation yet, it looks like TCL might release two new Palm-branded phones next year.

TCL marketing manager Stefan Streit confirmed the return of Palm phones in 2018 in an interview with Dutch website Android Planet. Streit didn’t specify anything regarding the upcoming new devices, but he did suggest that new smartphones are in the realm of possibilities.

It’s been suggested that one of these new Palm devices will be a new iteration of the PalmPilot. The original PalmPilot had a stylus and was marketed toward business users at launch. With the popularity of Samsung’s Galaxy Note series, it does make sense to revive the PalmPilot with today’s modern smartphone technologies.

TCL first acquired Palm back in 2011, but the Chinese company hasn’t really done anything with the phone brand. TCL not only sells smartphones, but also sells televisions and other electronics. Most notably, TCL is currently the home of BlackBerry and Alcatel smartphones. With the revival of Palm in 2018, the company will now be making smartphones under four brands.

TCL believes that each brand is targeting specific audiences. Alcatel is aimed at millennials, while BlackBerry is for business users. TCL believes that the Palm brand will be aimed primarily at an older group of users.

Back in the day, Palm was one of the leading brands in making personal digital assistants (PDAs), which are now seen as the beginning of the modern smartphones that we have today. When modern smartphones did arrive, Palm’s PalmOS, the company’s proprietary mobile operating system, never stood a chance.

One of the reasons why TCL wasn’t able to make Palm smartphones sooner is because PalmOS was acquired by LG. Currently known as WebOS, PalmOS now runs on a lot of LG’s smart TVs. This is also why TCL’s new Palm smartphones won’t run WebOS/PalmOS, as pointed out by Phone Arena.

It’s very likely that the new Palm smartphones from TCL will run Google’s Android operating system, according to Engadget. TCL’s BlackBerry KeyOne has seen some degree of success, so an Android-powered Palm smartphone seems to make sense.

TCL making new Palm smartphones has been rumored since the beginning of 2015, when the Chinese company re-registered the brand by the end of 2014. With TCL now confirming the revival of the Palm phone in 2018, it’s going to be interesting to see if there are really consumers still interested in the brand.

TCL has been really busy with its smartphone business this last couple of years. Not only is it handling TCL branded phones, but it’s handling Alcatel and Blackberry devices.

Last year, TCL released its first two BlackBerry Android smartphones: the DTEK50 and the DTEK60. The two never really caught the attention of consumers, and were seen as rebranded Alcatel devices. This year, TCL released the BlackBerry KeyOne and revived the brand’s signature physical QWERTY keyboard to many fans’ delight.

TCL is also preparing to launch a new BlackBerry smartphone this October that has been confirmed to ditch the keyboard in favor of an all-touchscreen design. Not a lot of information was given about the upcoming BlackBerry phone, but it’s expected to be water-resistant.