TCL Takes Advantage of Backlash Against Huge Phones with Palm Reboot - The UpStream

TCL Takes Advantage of Backlash Against Huge Phones with Palm Reboot

posted Saturday Aug 11, 2018 by Scott Ertz

TCL Takes Advantage of Backlash Against Huge Phones with Palm Reboot

Over the past few years, phones have definitely gotten larger. In fact, since the beginning of the consumer smartphone market, phone screen sizes have nearly doubled. The original iPhone had a 3.5-inch screen, while the original Android phone, the HTC Dream (known as the T-Mobile G1 in the US), had a 3.2-inch screen. Compare that to the iPhone X's 5.8-inch screen and Samsung Note 9, announced officially this week, with its 6.4-inch screen, and you can see a big change in the market.

Not everyone enjoys a phone with a large screen for a variety of reasons. Whether it be the way it feels in your hand, an inability to fit in into a pocket, or a variety of other reasons, there is a market need for high-profile phone with a smaller screen. Growing electronics brand TCL, who has become known for owning niche markets, is rumored to be interested in a small screen.

After Blackberry ended hardware developement, they licensed the brand to TCL to continue developing phones. Those phones, which focus on the otherwise ignored market of physical keyboards, have seen some pretty impressive success for a brand that had all but been written off completely.

TCL intends to do something similar with the small screen market, planning to re-launch the Palm brand, which they acquired after HP uncerimoniously killed it off in an idiotic and failed plan to become a software services company. Based on some leaked renders, the rumored phone, possibly to be branded the Palm Pepito, is designed in a similar style to the old Palm Pre line, minus the sliding keyboard - apparently that is reserved for Blackberry.

The screen is to be 3.3-inches, will ship with Android Oreo 8.1 and will feature 3GB of RAM And 32GB of internal storage. The device is expected to launch in partnership with Verizon Wireless in the US. That is not an unexpected partnership, as the Palm Pre Plus launched on Verizon before AT&T and T-Mobile jumped onboard with the Palm Pre 2 the following year. Verizon has previously said that they would launch a Palm-branded phone in 2018, so we can expect to see more about the Palm Pepito in the near future.

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