My Treo sense is tingling, but it’s about to be disappointed with a new Palm device apparently in development – unfortunately it’s not really what any of us want.
My Palm Treo 650 was one of the best smartphones I ever owned, or at least that’s my nostalgia tinted memory. The new Palm phone, codenamed ‘Pepito’ will be made by TCL who purchased the brand back in 2014 after the companys well publicised collapse under the stewardship of Hewlett Packard.
The phone will be tiny, more in line with the diminutive HP Veer than a higher end Treo or Palm Pre.
The specs will include a 3.3″ 720p LCD display and will be powered by a Snapdragon 435 processor with 3GB of RAM and 32GB of on-board storage and it’s all powered by a ludicrously small 800mAh battery. The phone won’t have a headphone jack, and will come in a Gold colour option as well as the black we see here.
The phone will run Android 8.1 – hence our interest – and no mention has been made of any software customisations.
While a tiny little Palm won’t be on most people’s radar for purchase, I’m more interested to see if this is the first of a series of new Palm phones because a Palm Pre style phone running Android would have me reaching for my wallet.
There’s no word on the when, where or how much the phone will be announced, released or cost beyond that the phone will be available through US carrier Verizon. This is an interesting development, and TCL has made some great devices while owning the Blackberry brand, so I can’t wait to see what comes of the re-birth of Palm.
