The new Palm Centro is growing on me?
Posted By RichC on October 11, 2007
Although I personally would be hard pressed to give up the large battery capacity (2400mAh) of my aging Palm Treo 700p, the new Centro being introduced by Sprint this month is looking pretty attractive. The new smart phone is considerably smaller than my 700p and the current antenna-less full featured 755p version (on the right above). In my ‘changed‘ opinion, the Sprint based Palm Centro offers a considerable amount of phone for $99.00 … plus the contract requirement through Sprint. Many of the Palm ‘smartphone’ competitive features are still part of the Centro such as the easy to use Palm OS, full QWERTY keys and touchscreen screen. The Centro also comes with a hidden stylus, although like their sibling Treos, will probably be rarely used?
As with my Treo 700p, one of the most appreciated features is the expandable memory by use of the SD, or in case of the 755p and Centro, the micro SD slot. With the low cost of extra cards, its a great way to carry extra data with you, be it movies, mp3 music or podcasts, photos or programs. Recently I’ve dedicated my SD slot to the Tom Tom GPS Navigator software along with the Palm bluetooth GPS receiver. It really works well.
Still, the reason I appreciate the Treo (and recommend the Palm based Centro) is for its ability to have ‘data’ at your fingertips. The Palm OS doesn’t come with the greatest ‘Contact’ manager, but it works well for me; its the most used software component on my phone. Second would be the ‘Calendar’ and function to trigger date and time based appointments and alarm triggers. SMS works well and is great for passing messages to and from the office or family. Personally I don’t use my phone for email very much, its just not easy to read, reply and archive important messages on my phone. The list could go on to include the other gadgets that I’ve mention in prior posts … whether its the camera phone, video phone or watching TV using Slingplayer software.
If you have been wanting to tip toe away from ‘just a cellphone,’ you might want to try a Palm Centro. I’m thinking about upgrading my wife’s Treo 600 (old) with this new phone … and have almost talked my daughter into it. (after adding pTunes software and a micro SD card for MP3s, it would be a great for listening to music)
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