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Palm was the target of a lot of critics at the end of 2007, because they proved their lack of innovation and creativity in the smartphones segment. While HTC and Nokia were continuously improving their products, and there was and still is a strong competition between them, Palm brought only Treo on the market, and this meant nothing special or revolutionary. Maybe Palm will have better luck with this latest product, Palm Centro. It is the first product outside the Treo line, and it is ready to change the concept of Palm devices, from cell phones to smartphones. For this, Palm already tried this with Treo 680, and there are a lot of factors which didn't make this model succeed, and we are definitely expecting more from Centro.

You can get it through Sprint network, it costs $99 if you also get a two-year contract, and this is a bargain for a smartphone. It offers all the features of the Treo line, and even more: ease of use, and it can be considered in the same time basic and youth oriented features and also business features. This device isn't the best choice for business users, and it isn't the type of the innovation which was expected from this company. Centro is an attractive option.


This device is 4'' x 2.1'' x 0.7'', weighs only 4.2 ounces and it is much smaller than the products in Treo line. It is a nice middle product between regular cell phones and business smartphones. This smartphone comes in two colors: ruby red and black onyx. It gives the person which holds it the feeling that they are holding a toy in their hands, and it is quite crisp and plasticky. It has a 2.25'' diagonal TFT screen which displays 65,000 colors, at a cool 320x320 pixels resolution.The screen is crisp and bright, and the most important thing is that it is touchscreen. The keyboard has some issues, and its buttons remind people of gelatinous stickers, but they are tactile and the back lighting is great.

Centro runs Palm 5.4.9 and it comes with 128 Mb ROM and 64 Mb RAM. This is actually a smartphone, and it comes with Documents and Go preinstalled (v. 10). You can create, edit and open Microsoft Word and Excel documents, and also view .ppt and .pdf files. For accessing e-mail there are several options, and there can be set up both personal and corporate e-mail account. This VersaMail installed on Palm Centro supports a pretty wide range of POP and IMAP e-mail providers, including AOL, AT&T Global, Earthlink, Yahoo Plus, Gmail and Apple.Mac.


Centro offers a speakerphone, and it has also vibrate mode, three way calling, speed dial, EV-DO and Bluetooth 1.2 support. This device doesn't support WiFi, but the 3G support can help you experience browsing speeds similar to broadband connections' speeds, and you cans watch short clips, from many channels, including CNN, NFL Network and Fox Sports. You can listen to music and radio from VH1 Mobile and Sirius, and a special feature on this smartphone, Demand Feature brings on your mobile device area's current headlines. Sprint offers all these features in the Sprint Power Vision pack, which ranges from $15 to $25 per month.

Palm Centro brings also PocketTunes Deluxe Edition and this is the first time when this version comes on a Palm device, and this means that you can enjoy MP3s and DRM protected music. Centro doesn't work with Sprint Music Store, but we hope that future versions will bring new features, like this one, on the market.

Centro has a 1.3 megapixels camera, with 2x zoom, which also has video recording capabilities. Like the previous versions, the Treos, the camera doesn't have a flash and actually cannot change the white balance, the resolution. the brightness and many other options. After the pictures have been taken, they can be sent to your friends via Sprint Picture Mail or any other online service. You may also upload them to an online album. Picture quality is decent, and the images have sharp definition but they aren't as bright as many people would like them to be.


Palm Centro is a dual-band mobile device ( CDMA 850/1900; EV-DO) and the call quality is somehow mixed. Volume is soft and tweak to callers, even if they have audio cranked to higher levels. Voices are covered out in louder streets. Centro has a 312 MHz Intel XScale processor, and the general performance is satisfactory. There aren't significant delays in its functioning, but notable lags were reported when opening Office documents or waiting for streaming content to load. Web browsing is also satisfactory, due to the EV-Do support. The battery should normally last for 3.5 hours of talking and 12.5 days on standby.

Palm Centro is much smaller than the previous versions belonging to the Treo line, and this makes it a more compact smartphone. This device has an attractive price tag, and it offers many features for those money, like EV-Do support, e-mail and a lot of productivity applications. Its keyboard is pretty cramped and the hardware has a toy look. Speaker isn't cool at all, and the main disadvantage is that this device lacks WiFi.

This device isn't the innovative product which was so anxiously expected from Palm, but the smaller size and the ease of use combined with the good price tag make out of it a good option for smartphone beginners.