Palm unwraps first low cost 'Centro' smartphone

Palm Inc., the manufacturer of the Treo range of smartphones, unveiled Thursday a new device that the company claims is Palm's smallest and lightest smartphone ever. Palm and wireless provider Sprint Nextel Corp. introduced the device, dubbed the Centro, at the DigitalLife show in New York City's Jacob Javits Convention Center.

Available in bright red or black, the petite candy-bar handset is company’s first non-Treo PDA/cell phone hybrid based on the Palm OS. Although the Palm OS-run Centro bears some features of the Treo smartphone, including the touch screen and QWERTY thumb-keyboard, it still does not fall under Palm’s aging line of Treo smartphones.

The launch of company's first low-cost, consumer-oriented smartphone, Palm Centro, was not a surprise as the leaked pictures of this affordable smart device have been circulating on the Web for the past couple of weeks.

Priced at US$99.99, the new Centro, a smaller and lighter version of its Treo smartphone, would likely lure consumers looking for a low-cost upgrade, the Sunnyvale, California based personal digital assistant (PDA) manufacturer Palm expects.

The original price of the phone is $400, but rebates for a new two-year contract and a $25 or $30 all-you-can-eat data plan signup brings the initial value down to $100.

Designed for individuals and traditional mobile phone users looking for an upgraded device to manage their professional and social lives, the new Palm Centro comes with voice, text, IM, email, web, contact and calendar capabilities, a full-color touch screen capable to display 64K colors at 320×320 pixels and full keyboard for typing text messages and e-mail.

"Palm Centro has the power of a broadband smartphone at the price of a standard 12-key phone," said Ed Colligan, President and Chief Executive Officer of Palm. "People looking to have all their contacts and calendar at the touch of a button, plus YouTube streaming videos and the Internet can now get it in a small, cool design with the trademark Palm ease of use. If you're thinking about stepping up to a smartphone, the Palm Centro should be your choice."

The Centro measures 4.2 inches high, 2.1 inches wide, and 0.7 inch thick, and it weighs a mere 4.2 ounces. A bit bigger than a credit card, the device also includes dual-band CDMA2000 EV-DO with 1xRTT, Bluetooth 1.2, 64MB usable storage, 1.3 megapixel camera, 1150 mAh battery, and microSD card slot.

Palm, the leading producer of handheld computing products, said Centro’s battery offers 3.5 hours of talk time. Palm will begin selling Centro exclusively through Sprint Nextel Corp in mid-October.

Centro’s launch comes at a crucial time when Palm is struggling hard to maintain its pioneering position in increasingly competitive smartphone market. Palm, which targets consumer, business, education and government users worldwide, intends to intensify its access not only geographically but also demographically with this new launch.

Palm has found itself under pressure mainly by Apple's much-hyped iPhone, an all-in-one cell phone/iPod/pocket computer. Apple’s iPhone has already shaken up the cellphone industry by its flexible interface, giving a tough challenge to handset makers including Palm, which makes the hybrid phone-organizers, called smart phones.

But, in a response to a query about the target market of company’s new device, Colligan said “This (Centro) is not attempting to be an 'iPhone killer'". He further said, "The iPhone is part of that 5% of the market; we're going after the other 95% of the market."

Palm shares closed up 97 cents at $16 in recent trading.