Late last month, Palm launched their new multimedia smartphone, the Centro, which joins their perennially popular Treo line. Despite arguably more powerful, more flexible rivals, Palm’s handsets continue to curry favour among business-users who prize efficiency of use over the whiz-bang complexity of, say, HTC’s range. Now they’re hoping to bring that same degree of integration to the home user, with a smartphone bridging the gap between camera-toting, video-catching fashion phones and sober business handhelds that are happier previewing presentations than photos of the kids.
Inside the soap-smooth casing - which at 4.3 x 2.1 x 0.75 inches is smaller than anything from the Treo range - things are nonetheless exciting, with mobile surfing friendly features like EV-DO as well as more control options than you can shake a stick (or stylus at). The QWERTY keyboard is the most obvious, but there’s also a 2.2-inch 320 x 320 touchscreen and a surprisingly tactile D-pad. All that choice adds up to very straightforward use, and while Palm’s OS (version 5.4.9 to be exact) may miss out on the latest in eye-candy there’s something to be said for the four-years of tweaking and fettling its received when simplicity is the key.
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According to Sprint, the Palm Centro is the slimmest Palm OS device which features an internal antenna, full QWERTY keyboard and touch screen navigation. On the Sprint side of the house, you’re going to enjoy Sprint TV On-Demand and media player via PocketTunes Deluxe. As far as messaging goes, there’ll be instant messaging and email for both business and consumer.
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It appears that the launch date for Europe of that mysterious handheld gives more info than previously thought. Apparently the Gandolf will be launching on the Vodafone network in Europe on September 12th.
The blurry pic shows a device that looks indistinguishable from the pics of a device we know as the Palm Centro. The blurry pic is said to not be of the Centro, but of the Gandolf (what’s the difference?) with a somewhat clear Vodafone logo just below the screen.
So either there is no Palm Centro and they went with the Gandolf name, Gandolf is just for its European release, we aren’t getting the device here in the states, or there actually is two different phones and in a strange move Palm is releasing a new phone in Europe before the US. I don’t know which one it is, but it is almost guaranteed that whatever this device is it will be showing up on the Vodafone network soon.
Rumor – The Palm Gandolf to be released under Vodafone on September 12th [via SlashGear]
So we finally caught another picture of the Centro in real life, and the photographer was kind enough to get us a ton of pics, and a size comparison. The phone next to it is RIM’s BlackBerry Curve.
So this all means the Centro is very small for a smartphone with a QWERTY keypad. We already knew that though. There are pics of the OS in use too, but none of them indicate whether it is just Garnet OS or whether it is Garnet OS on Linux.
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Word on the street is that Sprint is releasing a new Palm device entitled the Centro. So is this another example renaming wherein the device actually has a normal Treo name (number) or is it an entirely new line of devices?
Personally, I have a feeling it’s the latter. Why else would Sprint get a 90-day exclusive on the upcoming Palm Centro. The Palm Centro is billed as a low-end device, aimed at the younger generation or those on a budget. So what will the accessory market be like?
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Palm’s latest device which is to be released on Sprint, the Palm Centro, is set to be running Access Garnet OS. To some this is great, as it should be familiar to those using just about any of the newer Palm devices. To others though, there are concerns whether this is the normal run of the mill Garnet OS or if its Access Garnet OS on Linux.
There have been reports of a place in the Palm Centro’s software where there is a reference made to Gnome, a popular Linux graphical environment. If it is just the plain old Garnet OS, I for one would be kind of depressed, but the same old line of applications would be included and the same old line of apps would be downloadable on the Centro.
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Pros: It’s familiar, the programming environment likely wouldn’t change and all the old apps that have already been created would work on the Centro.
Cons: It would be the same old OS implemented in yet another device, and the application development would still be stifled by its lack of openness.
Garnet OS on Linux
Pros: The open source community would have another device to attack. They generally don’t just attack and tear down a device, when they attack, they attack with a slew of new applications, games, and other software. That alone would make the Centro’s possibilities limited only by its own hardware, which could be improved upon by open source hardware hacks or accessories developed by hardware hackers. Also, this is a step in direction that Google wanted to go with its open access wireless spectrum, yeah I know its not the first device to run Linux, but every one of them helps.
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