Yours truly has never been a fan of slimdown attempts concerning business smartphones – for me, a device should be big enough to use comfortably. Seeing that the Centro has been slimmed down quite a bit, how does it fare in everyday use?
When looking at the front of the Centro, one immediately notices the striking similarity to the 500/500v:
The back of the device features the usual camera/speaker combo – Palm omitted the latch for the back cover. Instead, you are now meant to slide it off the device – a process that works badly compared to the mechanism used on the 680:
Removing the back cover exposes the battery(1150MAH), SIM tray and a completely insanely-constructed MicroSD slot. Don’t ask me what the folks at Palm’s thought when f**king this up – swapping out a memory card is a total PITA:
The top of the device features Palm’s now-legendary silence switch. At the bottom, Palm’s Athena Connector and the 2.5″ headphone jack can be found:
The left side of the device features the volume button; IR was moved to the right side:
Palm didn’t change the keyboard layout(it is the same across all models, here next to a Treo 500) – however, the keys are now much smaller and are made of some kind of soft rubber…just plain lovely(sarcasm!!!).
Last but not least, the stylus also was slimmed down – plastic stylus freaks, rejoice(Centro, ipaq rx4240, ipaq 614 and Treo 680 stylus; from left to right):
In the end, the Centro is too small for my taste(and has too many, small nuisances). The screen is barely ok for me(pixel density can compete with Fossil’s WristPDA) – but the tiny rubber keyboard is the straw that lays the Centro flat for me. I’ll stick to my Treo 680, thank you. However, people who don’t type as much on their devices as I do will definitely get along well with the box.
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Shame you couldn’t get on with the Centro. I do a load of typing on mine and have no problem with the smaller keyboard and I’m loving the pocketable form factor. It’s the best Palm device I’ve ever owned/
Mind you that tea-stirrer-like stylus was dumped pronto and replaced by a 3-1 metal jobbie.
Hi Mike,
as said – for me, the stylus was not really the problem(the plastic ones are said to be better for the signal strength)…
But the rubbery keyboard simply sucks for me…