EnterpriseMobileToday PDAStreet

Home | News | Reviews | Features | Tips | Mobile Product Watch | Forums



Internet.com's premiere site for mobile managers and IT professionals is where wireless meets business. Our expert analysis and tips will guide you in buying, deploying, securing and managing mobile technology in the enterprise. You'll find strategic analysis, best practices, news, buyer.s guides and practical advice on how to evaluate and support a wide range of devices in the workforce.


PDAStreet.com > News > Palm Expands Centro Color Pallette for AT&T

Palm Expands Centro Color Pallette for AT&T

By James Alan Miller
March 31, 2008

Click to View
Over a month ago, AT&T started offering Palm's Centro smartphone, which until then had been a Sprint exclusive. At first, AT&T only offered Centro in "glacier white" with a dash of green to highlight its numeric keypad. Today, the carrier started offering its edition of the popular smartphone in what Palm's calling "obsidian black."

AT&T is selling Centro for $100 with a 2-year contract and after a mail-in rebate. Unlimited e-mail and data access is available for $30 a month with AT&T's PDA Personal data package and a corresponding voice plan.

Centro is the first Palm OS device to support certain AT&T-specific wireless services, such as XM Radio Mobile, Push to Talk and MusicID.

While AT&T's Centro is very similar to the version offered by Sprint, it is missing one important ingredient. Unlike Sprint's Centro, the AT&T edition does not support 3G cellular-wireless networking. So while you can speedily surf the Web, stream multimedia and download content to Centro on CDMA-carrier Sprint's EV-DO 3G network, the same can't be said for GSM-operator AT&T.

Rather, Centro tops out at AT&T'S 2.5G EDGE network, which is far slower than the carrier's UTSM/HSPDA counterpart to Sprint's EV-DO network. The reason for this disparity is, apparently, the lack of support for GSM-style 3G in the Palm OS.

As with Sprint's Centro, AT&T's is small and light at 4.22 x 2.11 x .73 inches (10.7 x 5.4 x 1.8 centimeters) and 4.4 ounces (119 grams). Even so, it sports a 2.2-inch, 320 x 320 pixel resolution touch screen and a full, if tiny, QWERTY thumb-keyboard.

There's also a microSD slot for memory expansion—for up to an additional 4GB of storage on top of Centro’s 64MB of RAM—Bluetooth wireless for personal area networking (i.e. connecting to a PC, a headset, car kit, etc.), a 1.3 megapixel camera with 2x digital zoom for taking pictures and video, and a 1150mAh-removable battery.



Related Links:

  • Centro: AT&T Picks Up Palm's Smallest, Lightest Smartphone
  • Review: Palm Centro - Small, Cheap & Good
  • Sprint Now Carrying Palm Centro

     
     Printable Version
     Email this Story to a Friend