Review Of The Palm Centro: The Treo Made Smaller And More Affordable

The Palm Centro packs virtually all the same features as a Treo cell phone, and even more, in a smaller, cuter package. But the complex and dated Palm operating system makes it less modern than the looks might suggest. It comes with a lot of PDA features, a full QWERTY keyboard... and some annoyances.

The Bottom Line:
With its low price, the Palm Centro is a great attempt to make Treo-like PDA phones accessible to more people. But in my humble opinion, the Palm system is not user-friendly (contrary to popular belief) and the Centro will infuriate technologically-challenged senior citizens and impatient users like myself. However, users already familiar with the Palm operating system might like the Palm Centro for its stunning good looks, its relatively okay sound quality (though the speakerphone's output volume is a little low) and its robust design.

Hardware & Design Quality

Pros:

• Lovely and convenient design. Large enough to be a PDA phone, but narrow enough to be easy to hold just like any other regular cell phone.
• There is a "silent mode" switch on top of the Centro: This is a convenient way to turn the ringtone off when entering movie theaters or meeting rooms.

Cons:

• Like all Palm/Treo cell phones, the Centro has a full QWERTY keyboard, but this one is much smaller than Treos and BlackBerry devices. And it is made of rubber-like plastic bubbles that feel like a hybrid between regular keys and touch-sensitive keys. I had mixed feelings about it: For sure, the rubber-touch helped me stay right on the key but since it is so small, typing a phrase took just about the same time on the Palm Centro as on any normal cell phone with predictive text input. However, a full keyboard always carries an advantage over predictive text input since it makes it easier to type special words like a phonebook entry.

Software

Pros:

• The Palm Centro is no different than other Palm cell phones and comes with a variety of typical PDA software and features. For instance, it can edit Excel and Word files, access your email like a BlackBerry device, and comes pre-loaded with Google maps and more.
• It includes AOL, Yahoo and Windows Live instant-messaging programs, which is a great way to use (and get used to...) the full keyboard.

Cons:

• The Palm operating system is not necessarily my dream operating system for a cell phone. It is sometimes annoying. For example, it will alert you of missed calls and refuse to return to the home screen unless you press "OK". Also, for an unknown reason, the "home" menu frequently went back to the "main" option, which shows only a certain number of items and I had to manually set it back to "All". Honestly, I don't like the Palm operating system's painstaking usability. But don't take my word. Others love it so you may too.
• The Palm Centro comes with a USB data cable but your computer won't list it as a USB mass storage device, which would make file transfers easier -- instead, you have to use Palm's included synchronization software. Uploading MP3's, WMA and MIDI files requires the use of Sprint's music software.

Performance

Pros:

• I didn't use the Palm Centro long enough to assess its battery life.

Cons:

• Charging the battery was relatively slow but you can recharge the Centro while transfering data through the USB connectivity cable.

Call Quality

Pros:

• The speakerphone was very good at picking up my voice. The other parties to my conversations could not detect that I was using the speakerphone.

Cons:

• Sound volume coming out of the earpiece was good but not great. It can be a problem in noisy areas.
• The speakerphone's output volume was not high enough for an even slightly noisy environment.
• The Palm Centro seems to pick up a bit too much ambiant noise then transform it into lots of treble. For instance, when I was standing anywhere where there was some noise (like people talking nearby or traffic), someone on the phone noted that it sounded like there was a party of 800 people behind me. It was bearable but slightly uncomfortable for them.

Multimedia Experience

Pros:

• The camera is easy to use.

Cons:

• The counterpart to the camera's ease of use is that you can't adjust any settings such as picture quality or resolution. There is just no option to do so. This is not necessarily a downside since the Palm Centro surprised me with quite decent picture quality but I would have liked to have some control over it.

Liberty Level

I did not manage to upload free ringtones. However, pictures and files of various types can be transfered through the data cable and Sprint's or Palm's included software.