New Palm Android Smartphone Discovered At The FCC, Might Be Called Pepito

Last year, TCL said that it would revive the Palm brand in the smartphone market in 2018. Now, a new Palm-branded smartphone has been certified by the FCC and the Wi-Fi Alliance and it looks like it’s going to be released really soon.

The Palm handset that passed through the FCC and the Wi-Fi Alliance arrived with the model name “PVG100,” according to Android Police. Very little is still known about the device specifications, but the FCC label on the back of the device clearly states that it’s been “designed by Palm in San Francisco.” Meanwhile, the Wi-Fi Alliance certification revealed that the phone won’t support 5GHz Wi-Fi and that it will only support 2.4GHz. The certification also confirms that the device will be running Android 8.1 Oreo straight out of the box.

Android Authority suggests that the new Palm smartphone will most likely be a budget-friendly device with pretty modest specs. This is certainly a huge possibility since most modern flagship smartphones these days are able to support 5GHz Wi-Fi.

The Bluetooth SIG filing for the Palm smartphone, which was discovered in June, carried the same “PVG100” model number. However, the Bluetooth listing also revealed that the device might be called Pepito or the Palm Pepito. It’s still unclear at this point if that’s the product’s final name or if it’s just a temporary codename, but Palm Pepito does sound like a good name nonetheless.

The Bluetooth SIG filing also confirms that the new Palm smartphone will have support for Bluetooth 4.2. The Bluetooth filing also listed the new product as a phone and a “companion device.” This suggests that TCL is planning to release more than one Palm device this year. However, it’s also possible that this is merely a placeholder or a poorly translated description.

So, when will the new Palm smartphone be released? It’s being speculated that the new handset will launch during the second half of the year. It was also previously reported that the device might be sold through Verizon.

TCL bought the Palm brand back in 2011 and the company re-registered the brand by the end of 2014. Since then, rumors of a revival began sprouting. TCL marketing manager Stefan Streit confirmed in August 2017 that TCL will revive Palm in 2018. TCL is also the company behind the Android-powered Alcatel and BlackBerry smartphones.