Palm punts consumer-friendly Centro phone
Cut down Treo
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Palm has, as expected, announced its Centro smartphone with US carrier Sprint, though the new-design handset won't go on sale until the middle of October.
Palm's Centro: cut-down and consumer friendly
The Centro - codenamed 'Gryphon' - is visually the same handset as the Treo 500v - aka 'Otto' - Palm launched over here earlier this month with Vodafone. The key differences are the inclusion of a dual-band CDMA 2000 EvDO radio and the use of the Palm OS - version 5.4.9 - rather than Windows Mobile 6.
The Centro has 64MB of user memory, the 500v has 150MB. It camera spec is better too: two megapixels to the Centro's 1.3Mp. And the 500v is a Bluetooth 2+EDR device, whereas the Centro uses version 1.2.
Palm's Centro: Palm OS on board
The Centro does have the better screen - just: a 320 x 320, 65,536-colour job to the 500v's 320 x 240, 65,536-colour display.
Palm, then, is clearly pitching the Centro as a lower-end device, and it's planned availability in glossy black and red versions should stress the consumer-friendliness of the phone.
Sprint will offer the Centro for $100 - provided customers agree to a two-year contract and send back a $100 rebate coupon. In short, the up-front cost is at least $200. Palm and Sprint will begin taking orders for the product today.
COMMENTS
Title
When my ancient Clie started misbehaving earlier this year I tried replacing both my phone and PDA with a single device. Bleah. The Treo was too kludgy and the N73 was pathetic as a PDA and the synch was awful. So I went back to a phone phone (with teeny camera) and a Palm. They really need to solve the form-factor problem. I'd have thought they'd try an all-touch phone years ago but now apple have beaten them to it ... on the other hand now might be a good time to be a follower? (I believe the TX already does everything the iTouch does and more).
What's with this nano-keyboard?
I can barely understand a small numeric keypad for a phone, but small keyboards reek, and this is even smaller that the reeking small keyboard on my current admittedly terrible phone. Palm still hasn't got their eye on the ball--they need to simplify and quit trying to do non-PDA non-phone things on their devices.
...before you go go
I think you'll be pulling a Rip Van Winkle on this one, sir.
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