Palm Centro, now in spicy European GSM flavor

Palm's GSM Centro has been about the worst-kept secret in the entire smartphone industry for the past few weeks, and indeed, it's now official -- for Europe, anyway. The unlocked handset features a quadband GSM / EDGE radio with nary a trace of UMTS in sight (this is still Garnet, after all), 64MB of user-available storage, a 1.3 megapixel camera, and a 320 x 320 display -- in other words, the same Centro we all know and love (or tolerate, or despise, depending on your point of view) with just a little bit less CDMA and 3G data to its name. It'll hit the British market on the 14th of the month and the remainder of Europe by the end of February for €299 or £199 (roughly $440 or $392); no word on when the official AT&T version will be available yet, but US folks desperate for one of these unlocked versions in the meantime shouldn't have a lot of trouble importing it, we'd imagine.

[Via Treonauts, thanks Andrew]

[Drew @ Feb 7th 2008 2:30PM]

I find it decidedly inconvenient that the UMTS was never found.

[aaron @ Feb 7th 2008 2:30PM]

How many people are actually desperate for a palm product?

[Jonathan @ Feb 7th 2008 2:40PM]

Ha. That's funny cause that's what I came on to say. I actually am desperate for a new Palm product. GSM, GPS, better camera, and wifi. Give it to us Palm. Or at least give us some leaked shots from your product development team.

And please don't tell me you don't have one.

[z @ Feb 7th 2008 2:41PM]

Patrick Duffy might be.

[Heathen @ Feb 7th 2008 2:41PM]

Palm? They are still in business?
Isn't Garnet really old? 1.3MP cam, EDGE wow this thing is loaded (if the year is 2001)

[L @ Feb 7th 2008 2:46PM]

I'm sure the Europeans will go gaga over this.


Not.

[tom @ Feb 7th 2008 2:53PM]

400 dollar???? Are you kidding me? Palm. Are you on dope?

[Chuck @ Feb 7th 2008 4:53PM]

400 dollar? Palm you must be crazy to have one of the cheapest smartphones on the market.

[Jon @ Feb 7th 2008 4:49PM]

Unlocked price.

Still expensive, but not ridiculous.

[DrXym @ Feb 7th 2008 3:14PM]

Without wifi what's the point of an unlocked device like this?

[CanCar @ Feb 7th 2008 3:52PM]

The boys of TreoCentral discovered a Palm White Centro GSM put on a base in stand of accessories in the area of mobile phones. Although in truth they could not verify it, because the unit did not have a battery, but had slot to card SIM, and therefore corresponded to GSM techno.

[senorbelly @ Feb 7th 2008 3:53PM]

Girl 1: Ha ha ha, lookit, isn't this the same Palm OS as the last couple Palm devices?

Girl 2: Yes, ha ha, yes it is!

[Hung @ Feb 7th 2008 4:12PM]

QVGA? That must be a typo.

But I wouldn't put it past Palm to throw a sticker on 320x80 pixels and call it a graffiti strip, then charge out the butthole.

That's not a typo: butthole.

[Timmay @ Feb 7th 2008 4:23PM]

The Screen is not QVGA, the site says the Centro has a 320 x 240 screen. But in real life it is 320 x 320.

The Centro is a solid phone with a good OS. You bash it now, but they'll sell like hot cakes.

[Chris Ziegler @ Feb 7th 2008 4:30PM]

Ha, you're dead right - typo on their part. Thanks for the catch, guys.

Chris

[Chris @ Feb 7th 2008 5:10PM]

Is it just me or does that seem like a lot for just an unlocked centro? Sprint is selling them for $100.

[Chris @ Feb 7th 2008 5:11PM]

Is the unlocked version really worth $250+ more?

[trumpton @ Feb 7th 2008 8:54PM]

Hey Palm knockers! Be sure to list the current smartphones available with a high res 320 x 320 touch screen, full QWERTY keyboard, video, MP3, full Word/Excel read/write compatibility, native PDF read, voice dial and zillions of excellent freeware/shareware apps for £199, contract-free.

[CB17 @ Feb 7th 2008 9:44PM]

Blackjack 2, which also has GPS, a better keyboard, better OS and just a slightly lower res display.

Or the Motorola Q9

[CB17 @ Feb 7th 2008 9:45PM]

Oh and also the iPhone by the end of the month.

[trumpton @ Feb 7th 2008 8:58PM]

"- in other words, the same Centro we all know and love (or tolerate, or despise, depending on your point of view)"

Why would anyone "despise" a cheap, fully featured, small, lightweight phone that came in at #4 in Time Magazine's 'Best Gadgets of 2007' rankings?

Be sure to explain your prejudice Engadget.

[Chris Ziegler @ Feb 7th 2008 9:00PM]

Prejudice? Read the very phrase you quoted. Everyone has an opinion on this phone; some love it, some don't. In fact, by phrasing it the way we did, we were as UNprejudiced as we could've possibly been.

Chris

[trumpton @ Feb 7th 2008 9:18PM]

So exactly who "despises" the Centro (why?!) and what motivates Engadget to mention it in the short intro to a news piece that a hugely successful phone in the US market is being released in Europe?

I'm sure there's some people somewhere who 'despise' the iPhone, but I don't see Engadget mentioning that hate in their intro paragraphs anywhere.

Why is that, do you think? Any idea?

[bulls96 @ Feb 7th 2008 11:16PM]

yeah engadget never seems to fail to inject negativity on any news on Palm... call it balanced... but thats the way i feel when Palm gets mentioned in this site.

[GC @ Feb 8th 2008 1:00PM]

same. price. as. iphone.
ohhhhhhh palm palm. you really wanna go bust, don´t you?

[evengrift @ Feb 8th 2008 6:41PM]

Same price as what iPhone? What iPhone can you get for €299? A HiPhone maybe.. Or are you comparing US to European Prices? Like the Apples to Oranges do you? The Centro is $100 here with Sprint, where are you getting $100 iPhones?

[evengrift @ Feb 8th 2008 6:37PM]

CB17, do you just specialize in being wrong everywhere? Take the short bus to stupidtown do ya? Lets get you schooled a little..

The BJ, BJII, and Q9 all lack touch screens and native PDF support. The iPhone has no r/w support for Word or Excel.

WM5-6 while more flexible then the aged PalmOS still hasn't demonstrated the same level of stability, and hasn't approached the level of application proliferation, not that you would expect it to have.

Don't forget what dogs versions before WinMo2003 were.

Have you ever used a non-touch screen WinMo device? It's a leading prelude to SSRI scripts.

[CB17 @ Feb 8th 2008 10:54PM]

iPhone: SDK this month

And maybe you should school YOURSELF a little. The Blackjacks have the Picsel Viewer for PDFs

And I think most people would rather have the GPS and better keyboards over NATIVE (ooooohhh big word) PDF viewers and an unusable touchscreen (unusable as defined by being how small it is and requiring a stylus..... or you could just define unusable as requiring a stylus, yeah I think I like that better)

Wait, wait, did you just use a 4 year old, been replaced twice, operating system as a reference (SE2003)?

[evengrift @ Feb 17th 2008 12:19PM]

iPhone SDK = Automatigically now people will have full r/w acces to their M$ documents and spreadsheets?

Picsel viewer, this is a native part of Windows Mobile? Wow, someone oughta tell the people over at picsel this, because their business model must be in real trouble then.

Why do you need GPS built-in? You're beloved iPhone doesn't have it, and google maps is good enough there, no?

Okay, I'm going to spell out the 4 year old comparison for you because its obvious you're a little slow. Take out your crayons so you can follow along....

When was the last Significant upgrade to the PalmOS? You know the OS we're talking about? Let's see? About 4 years ago? Now what happened over those 4 years? Microsoft infused Windows Mobile with countless dollars and man hours, and turned into something usable (if a bit unstable). During the same period the PalmOS saw no meaningful improvements, but continued see new applications developed for it, and (and this is beyond me) the PalmOS has even managed to maintain something of an evangelical following.

Finally, when you're wrong? Can you try not to change the game? The OP asked simple straightforward questions, and you had to respond inaccurately? Or with claims that it doesn't matter? I didn't see anywhere in the OP where they were looking for opinion.

Some people still like touch screens, and styli, go figure. Its not for you or I to decide for them what equipment they should use.