Rotisserie phone lineup
Let's engage in a little fantasy phone lineup. Imagine Palm's lineup from somewhere late in the Treo 600-series, say the 650. Now, instead of the Palm Treo 700, Palm introduces the Treo 750 and 755 phones. A little smoother, without an antenna, everybody is excited, and the phone represents a real upgrade over the last generation. Then, instead of the 750, which was a disappointing incremental step over the 700, Palm introduces the Centro, a new device aimed at the new smartphone buyers, who might have been scared off by the name Treo. This new device would have come out almost a year ago, and would be a great relief to the Motorola Q and Samsung BlackJack's that have flooded the market in drab slabs. Though it still relies on the aging Palm OS, the Centro would have represented a fresh update, while we waited for what we really wanted to see today, a completely new Palm OS loaded onto a completely different device.
At Palm's press event today, we were granted some time with the new Centro, but there really wasn't much to see. Sprint had spilled the beans a month ago, and Sprint's agents had happily demonstrated the new instant messaging app, which is new to the Palm line in the same way that voice recognition is new, which is to say you used to have to pay for it, and you can find it better, cheaper, elsewhere. YouTube's new mobile site loaded fine on the device, as does Sprint TV, but no surprises in either of those.
Wherefore art thou Treo?
The price is surprising, and presents a blind spot for Palm that even Palm CEO Ed Colligan couldn't seem to see around. The new Centro costs a very reasonable $99. Sight unseen, we would feel comfortable recommending a $99 Palm anything, as the Palm OS remains our favorite smartphone system. But the Centro is a comfortably small Palm. Not tiny, not super-thin, but very small for a Palm, and comfortable to hold. The keypad is much smaller than on our Treo 700p, but not the tiniest we've seen, and the buttons were large domes with plenty of travel.
So, why would anyone still buy a Treo? Palm reps claimed business users would be enticed by the larger keypad and screen, though the Centro does have the same 320 by 320 resolution as our larger Treo. Any other differences? None that Palm reps could name, at least none in favor of the Treo. Processor differences were negligible, and the operating system is the same on the two phones. In our opinion, Palm has effectively sealed the casket on this generation of Treo phones, at least on carrier's where users have a choice, which is only Sprint through the holiday season.
. . . and the rest
So how will the Palm compete with other devices in the same price range? We hope to have a review unit in house soon enough, but we think the Centro will find competitors in the BlackBerry Pearl, BlackBerry Curve and the new Motorola Q9. Rumor has it that the Pearl could see an upgrade beyond new color swatches, though until T-Mobile rolls out a 3G network, we're not expecting any groundbreaking features to be announced. In terms of harware, the Curve is the most multimedia friendly, but each device is appealing in its own way (though we may have to be sold a bit more on the recent Q update).
So, it all comes down to software, and it's certainly a bellwether of the market to see phones running BlackBerry OS, Windows Mobile 6 and Palm OS at this price point. Whether customers truly want a phone with the business chops these systems provide, and the complexity they entail, or whether a new Sidekick or Helio Ocean would be more in order, remains to be seen.
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