Palm Pre could be the next retro phone to be rebooted

It's 2009. Obama is now in the White House. Captain 'Sully' Sullenberger makes a successful crash landing on the Hudson River. Palm is still a phone maker, and it's seen as the main rival to the iPhone.

It's 2018. Obama is not in the White House. Nobody has landed on the Hudson. Palm might be making a return to shelves after years in the wilderness.

Well, that's the rumor from Android Police, who've spoken to a source familiar with the matter. Palm could be back as a smartphone brand - take a moment to drink that in.

TCL, the brand behind Alcatel and the recently-rebooted BlackBerry Mobile, is reported to be relaunching a Palm smartphone, in association with US network Verizon.

Wait... should we care?

OK, it's probably true that this news doesn't affect you much - the Palm range of smartphones, running webOS, was more about the potential they offered to the phone world, rather than actually doing anything.

They were slick in the way they worked, the 'cards' system was smart, and the Pre was everyone's tip to be the phone that stopped the iPhone from gaining world domination.

While TCL rebooting the Palm brand isn't new information, this is the first we've heard about a possible phone.

There's no word on whether it is the Palm Pre that would be rebooted, but that would make sense - the Pre was an incredibly well-made phone (fun fact: you could actually slice cheese with the keyboard, it was so sharp).

We'll await more information on this rumored new phone, but if you're a Palm fan looking longingly at the rebooted Nokia 3310, your time might be near...