Palm punts consumer-friendly Centro phone
Cut down Treo
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.
Wake me up.....
When Palm release their Linux based phone with wifi.
How is it possible for Palm to ignore so many people asking for the same thing yet?
