ComputerWorld has published a review of Palm’s new Centro smartphone.

“Go back five years when Palm handhelds ruled the mobile device market, before smart phones began their ascendancy. It’s easy to imagine that Palm’s new Centro — the company’s first smart phone not named Treo — is the device Palm envisioned as the future of handhelds.

That’s not damning by faint praise, either. Centro is far smaller than those old handhelds. For that matter, it’s significantly sleeker than Palm’s Treo, yet it provides most of the Treo’s capabilities and, at $99 (with a two-year contract from Sprint plus rebates) is quite inexpensive.”

Keep reading…

Palm’s latest smartphone, the Centro, goes on sale starting today.

Centro is a new consumer oriented smartphone that packs all the power of Palm’s Treo 755p smartphone in a smaller footprint. Centro runs the Palm OS (version 5.4.9), has 64MB of user storage space for applications and data, includes a 2.2″ color touchscreen, and a microSD card slot supporting up to a 4GB expansion card. The Centro also features a 1150mAh replaceable lithium-ion battery.

Centro goes on sale for $99 when purchased with a new two-year service agreement and the $25 Sprint Power Vision pack and after a $50 mail in rebate. If you extend you existing service agreement with Sprint, you can take home the Centro for $199. Or you can buy the Centro without a service agreement or extending your contract for $399.

The Centro is a Sprint exclusive for the next 90-days. Once the Sprint exclusive is over expect the Centro to start appearing on other wireless carrier’s networks.

The Palm Centro can be purchased at Sprint or Palm retail outlets or online at www.palm.com/store.

Palm has officially introduced the Centro smartphone. The following has been taken from the Palm press release mailed out earlier today.

“Designed for individuals and traditional mobile phone users looking for a better way to manage their professional and social lives, Palm, Inc. and Sprint today introduced the Palm(R) Centro(TM) smart device, at $99.99. With voice, text, IM, email, web, contact and calendar capabilities, a full-color touch screen and full keyboard, Centro brings Palm simplicity and organization to customers who want to stay connected with co-workers, friends and family. Centro will be exclusive through Sprint in the United States for 90 days and is available in onyx black or ruby red.”

“With a fun, new compact design, Centro is the smallest and lightest Palm phone to date. Centro has a modern, stylish look that feels comfortable in the hand, pocket or evening purse.”

“As the newest member of the Palm family, Centro is expected to attract new users to the smartphone category. According to IDC, the smartphone market is shifting to the mass market; U.S. smartphone shipments will grow from 13.8 million in 2007 to 74.4 million in 2011.”

Analysis

The Centro is the new consumer oriented smartphone that Palm has been hinting about for a while now and shares some of the design elements of the recently announced Treo 500v for European wireless carrier Vodafone. To purchase the Centro smartphone for the advertised $99.99 you will need to commit to a new 2-year service agreement with Sprint. At this time, the retail pricing for the Centro without a service agreement for Sprint customers who are in between contract renewal periods is still unknown, however rumors circulating on the Internet in recent weeks pins the price of the Centro around $400.

The Centro is a standard Palm OS 5 based smartphone runing similar software as the Treo 680 and 755p. Since the Centro is a consumer oriented device, the popular mp3 player software Pocket Tunes has been upgraded to Pocket Tunes Deluxe. I also noticed that the Centro ships with VersaMail 4.0. At this time, it is not clear what has changed between this new version of VersaMail and version 3.5.x which has been shipping on the Treo 680, 700p, and 755p. (I also don’t know if there will be be an upgrade made available for existing Treo customers.)

The Centro is slightly smaller and lighter than the Treo 755p. Centro’s published dimensions are 4.22″ (L) x 2.11″ (W) x 0.73″ (D) where as the 755p is 4.4″ (L) x 2.3″ (W) x 0.84 (D). The Centro weighs in at 4.2 ounces while the 755p comes it at 5.64 ounces.

Centro will be a Sprint exclusive for 90-days and is expected to go on sale in mid-October. It is possible that the Centro and the Treo 500v could go on sale on in the US and the UK on the same day. Palm will be shipping the Sprint edition Centro in two colors, onyx (black) and ruby (red). Not surprising, there has been no mention during today’s announcement as to when a Verizon wireless Centro, or Treo 755p for that matter, will become available.

Palm and Sprint are expected to start taking Centro pre-orders from their respective websites starting tomorrow.

Read the full Palm press release…
Palm Centro website…

Confirming what we’ve already suspected, GadgetsOnTheGo editor Jimmie Geddes has posted some pictures of the new Palm Centro taken from the Sprint website.

Palm and Sprint are expected to formally announce the Centro later today.

Keep reading at Gadgets On The Go…

Visit the Sprint MoreYous site…

Palm has sent out a notice of a joint press conference tomorrow, September 27, at the DigitalLife Conference taking place this week at the Jacob Javits Convention Center in New York City.

While the press release mostly contains information about the when and how to attend the event via webcast, today’s press release gives as a teaser with the line:

“The news will include a new Palm(R) smartphone for Sprint.”

Tomorrow’s event will likely be the formal announcement of the Palm Centro, the company’s first non-Treo smartphone.

Read the full press release…

(Updated 9/9/07 @ 4:15pm)

Palm InfoCenter has some new rumored details about the upcoming device rumored to be launching on October 14th on the Sprint network.

Kris Keilhack writes:

“Based on the preliminary specifications, strong software bundle, and rumored $99 price point, the Centro appears to be a far better value proposition than its pricier 755p sister device in the Sprint lineup. Even if the Centro lacks Documents To Go, PTunes Deluxe is a superb choice to be bundled the device, especially if Palm is targeting the media-savvy youth market with this release. Previously leaked photos have confirmed that the Centro uses the updated Phone app first seen on the Treo 680 and not included on the Treo 755p. Earlier reports also indicated that the Centro will have EVDO Rev. A but this has not yet been confirmed at this time.”

If this is true, I’m glad to see Palm including a full version of Pocket Tunes (pTunes) Deluxe with this new device. It is something that I have been advocating for a while now. All indications are that the Centro is intended to be a consumer device and not one targeted for business customers. In this context, I support the move to remove Documents To Go from the preinstalled applications list. I do wonder if the Documents To Go Viewer application will be loaded on the device. The Documents To Go Viewer application was a special read-only viewer that appeared on the Treo 600 to allow customers to view Word and Excel attachments from inside VersaMail.

Read the full PIC article…

Update:

The website PhoneNews.com appears to be corroborating the information from the Palm InfoCenter article.

More details via PhoneNews.com…

Palm’s European website is now featuring a teaser page to win 5 of Palm’s latest smartphones. This could very likely be the device that Palm is calling the Centro. Noticeably absent from the name, at this point anyway, is the name “Treo.”

Get the details here…

[Thanks to the tipster who emailed me the link.]

GadgetsOnTheGo.net‘s Jimmie Geddes has posted some official information about Palm’s latest smartphone, previously rumored to be “Gandolf”.

The Palm Centro from Sprint

• Smallest Palm OS smartphone to date
• Targeting a younger demographic, new to the smartphone space
• Runs on EVDO network
• New design features a full keyboard and touch screen

The Centro looks like it will be Palm’s low-cost entry level device the company’s executives talked about back in April at the Palm Analyst day.

Update:
For more details on the Centro, including a first-hand account hands on with a pre-release version of the device, check out Sascha Segan’s article over on Gearlog.com.
-amg