Palm Centro

Introduction

Palm touts the Centro as its smallest smart phone yet, and they've managed to fit a lot in a small package. To a large degree, the Centro is a smaller, more modern looking Treo with many of the same features, including a QWERTY keypad with tiny keys. But the design also seems targeted at a younger, less business oriented group of users attracted to sleek smart phones such as the BlackBerry Pearl.

At 4.2 ounces, the Centro from Sprint is lighter than Palm's Treos, which range from more than 5 ounces to more than 6 ounces. The clean design does not include any overly problematic features, but it also stops short of real innovation. It does offer a very responsive touch screen which is a nice addition, but not enough to set the Centro apart when the Apple iPhone and HTC Touch are closer to the forefront of this technology.

In the end, the Centro has enough helpful features to work for business users but it also may be attractive—and not too overwhelming—for users venturing out into the world of smart phones. The Centro comes in a range of colors, from several service providers. Sprint, AT&T and Verizon all offer the Centro. The Centro reviewed by Mobiledia was from Sprint.

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Design

Palm has packed a lot of features into the Centro but fortunately the company chose to keep the hardware design straightforward, intuitive and sleek. At 4.2 inches long, 2.1 inches wide and 0.7 inches thick, the Centro is substantially smaller and lighter than Palm's Treo series. It still feels solid and well-made, however, and the simple, modern lines of the phone give it a classy, understated appearance.

If Palm is trying to create a lightweight smart phone, this is as close as the company has gotten to BlackBerry's less bulky phones. This smart phone is perfect for business, but the small size makes it perfect for after work as well, and it fits easily in the cell phone pocket of a purse.

The Centro comes in a range of colors, which are offered at different service providers. Sprint offers the widest range, with pink, red and glittery black graphite. AT&T offers the Centro in glacier white, with punchy lime green number keys on the QWERTY keypad, and Verizon offers a cobalt blue Centro. Although the dark colors have a slight sparkle to them, it's subtle enough to maintain a professional look for business users.

Keys are just one way to access calls, text messages and applications on the Centro, since it features a touch screen and stylus. Yet with about half the phone's face dedicated to navigation keys and the QWERTY keypad, it's easy to stick with these when using the phone. Also, the touch screen works with touch only, not the finger swipes allowed on the iPhone and HTC Touch. The touch screen, at 2.2 inches measured diagonally, is slightly smaller than on the Treos. The keys on the call screen are large enough to dial easily, so this is probably the best way to make calls on the phone.

As for the physical keys, the navigation key at the center of the phone is the most useful, and I found myself using it to toggle through applications and select the ones I wanted more frequently than the touch screen feature. On home screen, which includes the telephone keypad, time and date, users can press the navigation key down to quickly toggle through contacts, a call log, voicemail and applications. At the center of the navigation key is a separate key, with the Palm logo, that can be pressed to select items.

Other keys around the navigation key instantly bring up the phone screen, calendar, applications and messaging. To the right, there is a power key that can also be used to end calls. When the screen turns off, this key is also used to turn it back on and the center key must be used to unlock the keypad. The power key also turns off the screen. There is a call key to the left of the navigation key.

As with the Treos, the Centro has a QWERTY keypad at the bottom of the phone's face—only the Centro's keypad is essentially a shrunken Treo one squeezed onto a smaller space, which is not an improvement. The tiny buttons can be hard to use, but at least they are made of a rubbery material and raised up enough to help users dial by touch. A small menu key at the bottom right side of the keypad pulls up menus related to the application that is open, and its strategic placement below the other keys makes it easy to reach.

On the left side of the QWERTY keypad, the option key can be used to access functions such as "find," when it is pressed before other keys. For example, pressing the option key and then the letter P key allowed me to adjust the screen's brightness. Other helpful shortcuts where the option key is used include e-mail and the work clock. The Centro also has 70 programmable buttons for quick access to common tasks such as speed dial and accessing a webpage.

At the bottom of the Centro is the microphone, a slot for the charger and the USB port. A button on the left side of the phone is used to select the phone's volume level, after a user adjusts the volume using the rocker key immediately above. This arrangement, with two separate keys used to adjust volume, is a little cumbersome and takes some getting used to. A ringer switch on the top of the Centro makes it easy to switch off sound with one touch, and is much faster than using the volume key.

The earpiece is at the top of the phone's face, and the stylus is kept in a slot on the upper right corner of the phone. There is a large speaker on the back of the phone, next to the camera and self-portrait mirror. The infrared port for data transfer is on the right side of the phone, and directly below it is the microSD card slot. To insert the card, users have to remove the back of the phone to reach the tab covering the card slot.

Out of the box, the Palm Centro from Sprint comes with a Palm software installation CD, rechargeable Li-Ion battery, charger, Sprint charger adapter, USB sync cable and printed materials including Read This First, Welcome to Sprint and Getting Started Guide.