A new Palm budget smartphone is being released by TCL before the end of 2018

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• A new Palm device could be on the way before the end of
  2018. 
• Filings spotted by both Android Police and Android
  Authority point to a new Palm smartphone with the model name
  PVG100. 
• The device will reportedly have Bluetooth 4.2, will run
  Android 8.1 Oreo, and will support 2.4GHx WiFi, meaning that
  it’s likely to be a budget device. 

Another smartphone from the early aughts could be making a
comeback in 2018. 

Android Police has spotted
filings with both the FCC and Wi-Fi Alliance that point to a new
Palm device coming later this year.

According to the filings, the new Palm device has the model name
PVG100 and will run Android 8.1 Oreo. However, the filings show
that the device will only support 2.4GHz WiFi — this
means that the PVG100 is most likely going to be a budget device,
as most high-end smartphones support faster 5GHz WiFi. The device
will be launching on Verizon, according to Android
Police. 

Android Authority also found a
Bluetooth filing that calls the new device Pepito. The phone will
have Bluetooth 4.2, according to the filing. 

There hasn’t been a true Palm device since 2010, when
Palm released the Palm Pre Plus
and the Palm Pixi Plus. Both phones had a physical keyboard
and ran webOS, Palm’s operating system. Shortly after those
phones were released, the company was acquired by HP and the
brand was eventually killed off. 

A new Palm device would be the second major PDA revival in
recent years — the first one being BlackBerry, starting with
2017’s BlackBerry KeyOne and this year’s BlackBerry Key2.
Both brands are owned by Chinese tech giant TCL, which bought Palm from HP in 2014
and purchased the BlackBerry brand in
2016.