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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The v on the end of the model number, in case to don’t recall, is in reference to its current Vodafone only availability, from whom you can get the device for free with certain contracts. Its not quite as attractive as say the iPhone, of which only today got to see one, but it’s a lot more sleek and smaller than its predecessors in the Treo line.

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LONDON, September 12, 2007– Palm Europe Ltd today announced the Palm® Treo 500v smartphone which combines multiple forms of communication and multimedia capabilities with high speed 3G/UMTS mobile internet access, allowing users access to popular websites such as MySpace, YouTube and eBay whilst on the move. The new Palm Treo 500v smartphone will initially be available exclusively to Vodafone customers from October.

The Palm Treo 500v smartphone runs on a Windows® Mobile® 6 standard platform and has a full keyboard, large screen, video streaming capability and a comprehensive multi-messaging functionality covering Instant Messaging, SMS, email and phone and personal information management software in a new design(1). The compact form factor is available in two colours: glacier white and charcoal grey.

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It is a bit wider than the Centro, making for slightly larger keys. It will be running Windows Mobile 6 on a 3G network.

That 3G network will be UMTS based and the phone won’t have a touchscreen. It will have a 240×320 screen and 150MB of memory. On top of that there is a 2MP cam and Bluetooth 2.0 with a microSD card slot. Initially the color scheme will be grey and white only. Other than that, all we really know is that the September 12th release is apparently only for Vodafone so far and that as it’s a Vodafone device its name will have the “v” appended onto it a la Palm Treo 500v.

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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]

However he stated that scrapping the Foleo will cost Palm about $10,000,000 and I can only assume that for that kind of money he couldn’t have hired some more “resources” and produced some sort of a product on the Foleo line? Mr. Ed also said that there may still someday be a Palm Foleo, just wouldn’t even give us a roundabout ballpark figure of when.

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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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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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