After acquiring and then abandoning the PalmOS smartphone platform after it failed to catch-on in 2011, Hewlett-Packard will re-enter the market with a phone that offers a “differentiated experience” to customers. HP’s senior director for consumer PCs and media tablets for Asia Pacific, Yam Su Yin, told the Press Trust of India that the company will focus on all segments of the market, including tablets, notebooks, all-in-one PCs, and “has to be in the game” when it comes to smartphones.

When asked specifically about a smartphone, Yin said that it would be a bad business decision to stay out of the market and that “The answer is yes but I cannot give a timetable. It would be silly if we say no.” Yin also stated that “being late, you have to create a different set of propositions. It’s not late. When HP has a smartphone, it will give a differentiated experience.” Yin did not clarify which mobile operating system HP’s new smartphone will run, so their endeavor doesn’t sound too convincing as of yet, especially following HP’s first attempt at the mobile market and $1.2 billion disaster. Nonetheless, they seem to have brushed themselves off, and decided to take another plunge into the mean and fast global smartphone race.

CEO Meg Whitman previously tipped off on plans to dive back into the smartphone market last September according to CNET, saying that HP is “working on” a new smartphone. Explaining their forage back into the mobile business, Whitman clarified that “We are a computing company.” And that “We have to ultimately offer a smartphone because in many countries of the world that would be your first computing device” –  a pretty logical conclusion.

HP recently released HP Slate 21, a 21-inch tablet/desktop hybrid running Android 4.2.2. HP has been experimenting with Android in forms one wouldn’t normally expect, and although it may not be exactly what customers are asking for (according to ARS Technica), at least HP is trying to dapple in something new.