Palm desperately needs some good news. 

No one is really buying PDAs anymore.  Their Treo smartphone design has been aging ungracefully.  And their Palm Foleo (small laptop which connects to a smartphone) was stillborn when it was cancelled days before its release.

Palm is hoping to turn that all around with its new smartphone, which looks a lot like their old Treo smartphone – only smaller. Overall, it’s 30-percent smaller in every direction.  Except for some new chrome trim in places the family resemblance is easy to spot.

Centro has a full QWERTY keyboard but it’s a whole lot smaller than the Treo’s. 

Centro runs on the tried and true Palm operating system.  It does photos (1.3 megapixel camera), plays music, surfs the Web via its Blazer browser, handles your e-mail (even Microsoft Outlook mail) and can deal with many different flavors of instant messaging. 

There’s built-in Bluetooth, Google Maps, Sprint TV, news services and picture mail plus a voice and memo recorder.  E-mail attachment viewing is done thru Documents-to-Go software.

The new Centro comes in two colors: a distinguished Onyx Black and the very hot Ruby Red.

The first Centros will be marketed by Sprint and will run on their CDMA (voice) and high-speed EV-DO (data) networks.  Memory expansion is handled through micro-SD cards (4GB cards will be available soon).

But, the biggest surprise in today’s announcement is the asking price.  With rebates and enticements thrown in – Sprint is selling the Centro for $99.99 along with a two-year service contract.  That’s a full $300 less than Apple’s iPhone.

The Centro is aimed at younger users who would love to upgrade to a more sophisticated smart device  but can’t afford the iPhone.
 
It might just be a very winning strategy – a boost that Palm can use right about now.
Sprint has an exclusive on the Centro for the next 90-days.  Expect additional carriers to announce other Centros (hopefully some GSM world phone models) around the time of the Consumer Electronics Show early next year.

Palm’s Centro is due in Sprint stores, nationwide, in the next two weeks.  Can’t wait to play with one for an extended period of time to see how well it handles my torture tests.

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