Well, here's the shiny little
Centro, in all its slightly-less-than-breathtaking beauty. Truth be told, the phone doesn't look or feel too bad -- we still don't get the gray stripe through the middle, but what can you do? The keyboard is unbelievably tiny, but we'll take it where we can get it. The surface of the cherry red or metallic black phone is quite slick, and we suspect will go tumbling out of sweaty hands like gang busters. Of course, the EV-DO connection was snappy, but the thing we're most stoked about is the fact that Palm has finally eliminated that 2-pixel border around the screen. Hey, no new OS... but that border is gone. The Centro is due mid-October for the shockingly low price of $99.99, which should help push more than a couple of these out the door. Hit the gallery and check out all the hot photos.
posted Sep 27th 2007 3:41PM
What's worse, the Centro keyboard or the iPhone keyboard?
Yawn. After iPhone, everything is simply boooooooo-ring.
Has anyone tried calling the phone number on the back of it?
Called the number - right to voicmail - left engadget love.
damn ...
How ugly could the people design that phone.
Looks like a cheap copy made in china ...
That thing is so effing ugly.
Stick a fork in Palm, they're done.
Why the old phone application? The 680 I had was running a newer one...
Man those screen capture images bring back some good memories...from 2003!!! Upgrade that damned OS already Palm!!!
I hate to be the lone gunman on the hill here, but this looks like a pretty cool phone for $99. Yeah, its not an iphone, yeah, the red looks diploable, yeah, Palm is stuggling for breath after being asleep at the wheel - but I like it - There I said it and I'm standing by it.
Say what you will but I bet a ton of high schoolers will pick this thing up. It's not the prettiest but it's a smartphone--on the cheap. Not for me but I see Palm making a ton of money off this.
Does that red finish look speckled like a 1950's truck stop diner table top?
Geez that's an ugly phone. Plus the old, ugly and boring os - yuck
I will say its a huge improvement for them
http://answers.nobosh.com/
right?
This is obviously targetted at high schoolers and pre-teenies who have small fingers, lower budget, and want to text and im like crazy. in that market, this my fly enough to make a decent profit for palm until they get around to finishing their Palm OS II. Hopefully they don't delay it yet ANOTHER year after 2008 rolls around.
the iphone is looking better and better. Hope it comes to sprint. my 755p is looking more and more ancient.
lol, the iphone wont come to sprint for at least 5 years if that. at&t in my opinion is a far superior company to sprint anyway.
Great price.
I don't find it quite so ugly.. But with the lack of wifi I don't see the purpose. I honestly don't know if I should choose to stick with old technology in the mogul or give the htc touch a chance. I've also never tried a WinMo on it either, only Palm devices, which I'm used to.
first of all, did any call the # shown on the back of the phone?
is it me or does this phone keypad look like crap.
I'd really like to move up into a smartphone, without the size and cost. This phone seems like a really good solution. I'm nowhere near a teenager, is it really too much of a toy? Also, how good is internet access on something like this?
Looks like a piece of junk. I've had 2 treos and that thing looks like the chinese rip offs I saw in Morocco this summer. They were smart to make the thing so cheap. Nobody would drop more then $99 for that thing.
Frak Winmo stick some money into a decent linux distribution and put that on there
better yet go stick the money into openmoko and stick the software stack on the phone
Wow, Exclusive to Sprint... I need to get out of my contact...
As long as it steals sales from the iPhony , that`s ok by me.
I see only positive things in this phone. Sure the OS is old, but it still works GREAT, has thousands of applications ready to be installed, works on Sprint's 3G network (very fast), can be used as a high-speed modem, has blue-tooth, etc.
I've been wanting to upgrade my Treo 650, and when this ships I'm going to do it!
Oh yea, and $99 after rebate, SWEET!
The screen is right out of the year 2000. The Palm IIIc. It's just embarrassing now.
Show me another phone with touchscreen, keyboard, fast internet (EVDO), and push email and i'll show you why it'll sell.
I have a moto Q, and no matter how much uglier the centro is and how small its keyboard is, when the time to upgrade comes, i'd go for one, coz it's a touchscreen at $100
Actually, I don't think the Centro has a touchscreen. That's why I wouldn't get it.
actually it does have a touchscreen
At $99 for a touchscreen, keyboard and EVDO, no matter how ugly it looks, it's going to sell itself.
And that's despite sprint, and despite Palm.
For that price, i´ll buy one
The resolution sucks. The human eye can detect 1200 pixels per inch .. and that phone has what? Less than a tenth of the pixels? That makes it unusable for full HTML web browsing.
QVGA sucks!
Actually that screen is still 320X320 which is still a higher resolution that many other devices out there today. I beta tested this thing earlier this summer and it was pretty decent. I can't go into detail because of the NDA I signed but it's well worth the $99.
I might be the last person on Earth to own a Palm Zire, a mobile phone and a MP3 player separately, but if I could get this Centro on this side of the Atlantic for the equivalent of US$99, I'd get it ASAP.
Mogul > Treo Centro
Yeah still too fat. Same OS. Sigh. Seems like a pointless release. Still, nice price.
Is that $99 with or without contract? Oh nevermind, it's Sprint. Can't use it on any other network.
whats up with the dent above the letter "R" button!?
When will Sprint offer something to compete with the iPhone?
screw this half-step nonesense.
If i'm not going to jump ship to ATT, give me some hardware that isn't yawn inspiring. blah!
I'm going to agree with the minority here and say that I am excited about this phone. I'm a college student who is still tied to a family plan, and I live in a rural area where there are only two large carriers available; Sprint, and Alltel. I go to school near Cleveland where I can take advantage of Sprint's mobile broadband coverage. This phone does things iPhone doesn't; high speed data and a tactile keyboard(even if it is tiny). I have been waiting for a smartphone to be affoardable enough to buy, with a touch screen. I don't know why people are bashing this little guy. Sure, it's not the most beautiful phone out there, but it's funtional, looks good enough, and you can't beat $99 for a phone that does all that it does.
Once my family's contract is up, we're swtiching to Sprint, and I am picking up this phone.
I like how they slipped in there the 1:37PM on the clock. 1:37PM = 13:37 Guess they are trying to call this the new leet phone on the block.
Haha probably unintentional, but nice catch.
Wow lot of people think this phone is ugly but in my opinion is a nice looking phone available in two colors and for $99 is well worth it. Sure is not like the iphone but it does have evdo ohh sorry iphone doesn't have 3g. So what is worth having such a nice phone with a slow conection, well unless you are near a wifi conection not to mention being tied up to Att.
2 Hilz / nah.im sure it wasnt intentional.the red centro
has 1:34p on
it!!!
@merzmer0
Are you effing kidding??? AT&T blows donkey balls.
I saw just thought it was funny =P
Does this thing hve EV-DO Rev 0 or rev A?
Same old 80's style looking ugly OS. Do yourselves a favor, Palm, update your OS. Acknowledge that you're aware we're in the 21st century. How about something that's appealing and different?
Phone hardware looks nice though.
So does every phone with a touchscreen have to be compaired to the Iphone?!?!
mogul > centro umm.... $500 < $99
for this price and the features... this is a winner...
my question is the $99 with two your contract?
never mind... got my own answer from the palm site...
"Order your Centro today with Sprint service for only $99.*
*After instant discount, mail-in rebate, and qualifying two-year Sprint service agreement.
The user-specific information that in other phones lives on the SIM card -- in this thing does that information live on the microSD card? Or does it use a SIM card and take a microSD card?
Only GSM phones use SIM cards. CDMA, like Sprint and Verizon use, ties a specific phone to your account.
I remember noticing that one of the early leaked photos of the Centro made
it look like the Centro might not have the 2-pixel border and I see that
Engadget has confirmed this. While I think that allowing the border to be
turned off programmatically is needed (and a couple of Palm devices already
allowed for this), getting rid of it completely isn't a great idea. I
remember owning a Sanyo Palm OS phone way back when (featuring an
unconventional 160x240 screen with virtual Graffiti area). I think it was
the first (and up till now only?) color Palm OS device without the border
and the borderless display presented usability issues. In short, apps were
designed such that they assumed the border was there and, as a result, used
the border as a margin. Without the border, the first letter on a line in a
memo, for example, touched the outside border, hurting readability. It also
made it difficult to position the cursor in front of that first letter (on
the Sanyo, you were still forced to use a stylus - I imagine that cursor
positioning is a non-issue with the Centro since you don't need to use the
stylus very often on Treos...er...Centros).
To find more selection on http://www.beltal.com
Only $99 and YOU CAN ADD CALENDAR APTS AND YOUR OWN APPS!!! WOW!!!!
FU Apple
please note that a minimum $25 data plan is required to get the $99 price on the centro..
http://sprint.com/centro
Palm just lost me to Apple. I was hardcore Treo for a while but they refused to upgrade the thing. This Centro thing is more of an insult than anything else. They already had a customer base and they pretty much just skipped right over them to get into a new market. Smart business move? I don't know. It's a bummer though because Treos worked awesome--they're just outdated. Anyone that picks up this Centro will realize that the only thing that is new is the looks---it still has the ancient Palm OS on there.
Karim Baz
I still don't get it why the designers keep putting the keyboard at the bottom where you almost drop it every time you try and type. Put the dang on/off buttons down there. Ergonomically speaking - these things are up-side-down.
Did no one else notice the "Powered by ACCESS" logo on the back of the device?? What's that all about? Scoop or tease?
http://www.engadget.com/photos/hands-on-with-the-palm-centro/416219/
http://palmaddict.typepad.com/palmaddicts/2007/01/access_debuts_n.html
Its starting to grow one me. I think I am going to pick one up
Who really cares if the Palm OS is out dated. Don't get me wrong a new OS would be nice, but Palm does one thing very well. It's phones and features are very easy to use. You press a button and you have your calendar..you press another button and you have email...etc. No the Palm phones are not sexy, but they work and they work well period. I could buy a Centro for everyone in my family and still spend less money than buying an overpriced Iphone. I have tried many different PDA's and Smartphone, but I always come back to Palm because they have it figured out. It would be nice to see some updated models. I feel with this new product they are aleast taking a step in the right direction instead of just coming out with another silly Treo.
I am a Junior in high school and i had been looking forward to getting the LG RUMOR for christmas.... well they wont sell anymore because of something to do with sprint and LG so my next option is the centro its looks cool to me and touch screen would b a great feature so i would be the flyest kid on the block my sister got a blackberry pearl for christmas but she has the worst service ever *SUNCOM* so with sprint ill get the centro so at least i can get better serivice than her...
I went to the Sprint store yesterday to get the Rumor and I was advised that something was wrong with the parts and would not be shipped until next year. So, I went for the Centro. This is my first smartphone and I really like it and have no problem with it at all.
wow these comments are harsh. after having all of these models of the palm this one by far is the best. who cares about the OS look, i thought it should be about what the software offers? this phone has google maps, on demand (which is great), sprint tv (which includes NFL network for free), mobiTV (live TV), versa mail (for EAS and other email accounts), sprint mail (for hotmail, gmail & yahoo), voice command (where you can compose email, dial & visit websites while driving), text messaging that saves as a chat (oh and you can send picture mail, video mail and voice mail FYI the iphone does not have this feature!!!!) and IM with AOL, yahoo and hotmail plus many other features. oh and did i mention that you can get the phone insured unlike the iphone!!! the only downfalls that i can complain about are these 1.) no flash for camera and 2.) if you break the phone i mean really break the phone beyond IT repair get ready to wait awhile for replacement!!!!
before you knock it try it! you always have that window of return with sprint if you don't like it.