Palm Reaches Out With Centro Smartphone
Posted on: Friday, 28 September 2007, 06:00 CDT
Palm has taken the wraps of its first non-Treo smartphone-PDA, called Centro, which it is pitching to young consumers and professionals.
The device was officially unveiled at a New York press conference, but photos of the device had been circulating online for the past couple of weeks.
Centro has a list price of $399 but after rebates and a two-year contract costs just $99.99. It boasts a touch screen and a keyboard.
"Palm Centro has the power of a broadband smartphone at the price of a standard 12-key phone," said Palm chief executive Ed Colligan.
It also runs the Palm OS and has all the usual features you'd expect from a smartphone, including voice, text, IM, email, web, contact and calendar capabilities, as well as a 1.3 megapixel camera.
It runs Outlook using Microsoft Direct Push Technology, as well as online email accounts Gmail, AOL and Yahoo, concurrently. Centro comes preloaded with Google Maps, Sprint Music Manager, the Deluxe version of PocketTunes music player and Sprint TV. Palm repeatedly noted the device was YouTube-friendly.
Sprint is the exclusive carrier for the Centro for the next three months. There is no word yet from Palm whether other carriers will carry the device after that time.
A monthly contract with Sprint's EvDO broadband network begins at $40 for a 40MB transfer volume, while an unlimited plan is $60 a month.
Centro, which comes in either black or red, is Palm's smallest and lightest phone, said the company. It has a "candy-bar" form factor and measures 4.22 inches by 2.11 inches and weighs 4.2 ounces.
It has a 1150-mAh removable battery that Palm reckons is good for 3.5 hours talk time and as much as 300 hours of standby time.
US customers can pre-order the phone today. It is slated to launch on October 14.
Our View
Centro's touch screen is smaller than Apple's iPhone, but so is the price. As such, Centro is likely to appeal to consumers, but some business users may complain about the lack of Windows Mobile 6 operating system.
The biggest wow factor of the Centro is its $99 price - which is available only for new subscribers. Still, Centro is likely to bring consumers to Palm and is a far cry from the Foleo companion device, which Palm killed off earlier this month.
Source: Datamonitor
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