The Palm brand was revived a couple of years ago with the tiny and somewhat delightful Palm Phone, but the brand’s latest return is much less exciting. The “Palm Buds Pro” have just been announced for $129 with ANC, but nothing all that exciting.
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A couple of years ago, the Palm brand came back with a tiny Android smartphone that was designed to be a companion to your normal device, but it didn’t prove all that popular. Now that most folks have forgotten about it, the Palm brand is getting another revival with a pair of truly wireless earbuds.
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Three years after a series of CEO changes at HP led to the implosion and ultimate death of webOS as a smartphone and tablet platform. The Palm brand was sold to TCL in 2014. Known for reviving BlackBerry, TCL crowdsourced smartphone ideas for Palm and the possible end result was leaked today.
Before the likes of the iPhone, Samsung’s Galaxy flagship series, and Google’s Pixel, brands like BlackBerry, Palm, and Motorola were the pioneers of mobile phones and personal digital assistants (PDAs). Motorola’s still going strong under Lenovo’s ownership, and the BlackBerry name returned with the Keyone earlier in the year with open arms from both critics and consumers. Now, in 2018, the famous Palm brand will be returning to the mobile landscape.
As suggested last week, it seems that TCL, parent company of Alcatel Onetouch, has indeed purchased the rights to the Palm trademarks from HP and plans to launch new devices under that banner. What new devices, exactly, is still a mystery, however.
Today TCL CEO George Guo said that he believed the existing value of the Palm brand had piqued the company’s interest in acquiring the trademarks, though it seems it did so without much of a plan for the future. The executive said that the Palm name will be brought back to the market, but TCL is hoping that the public will provide ideas for products it can produce under the brand.
The Palm smartphone brand may not be as dead it seemed. While parent company HP has already taken the company apart and sold off its remnants, there’s some new evidence pointing to the idea that the name, logo, and other related trademarks may be preparing to make a comeback.
Specifically, HP sold Palm’s trademarks to a company called Wide Progress Global Limited. Other trademarks owned by that company include… absolutely nothing. It seems Wide Progress Global was created solely to handle the Palm trademarks until some other company could put them to use.