Is the new Centro the Palm to buy, or does the Treo 755p merit the extra cash? We take the two phones head-to-head to see if bigger smartphones are better.
Review summary of the Palm Centro:
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Recently, we lost our Treo 700p, our primary business phone in house. Luckily, we've been paying for handset insurance, so we were covered, and Asurion, Sprint's insurance company, replaced the 700p with a spanking new 755p. Then, a few days later, the Palm Centro arrived in our office for review, and the two beg for comparison. We don't believe the Treo 755p will be the last Treo, though it is the newest, and we don't think the Centro is as new as Palm claims, despite the name and family change. So, how did these phones really measure up in our tests?
Round 1: Design
Neither the Centro nor the Treo are especially attractive phones, though they are functionally elegant. The Centro is by far more appealing, not only because it is a smaller phone, but also because of the smooth, rounded edges and bands of metal that stripe the phone. Don't get us wrong, we've never considered the Treo to be too large, though we do find it bulky in our pockets. Still, it is comfortable to hold during conversations, and the soft-touch finish on the 755p is attractive and easy to grip.
The Treo 755p's larger size pays off when you are using the phone. We wouldn't call the Centro's keyboard unusable, but it begins to approach that level of uselessness. It was difficult to use with one hand or two, and we even had problems pressing the dedicated keys on the face, mainly because they sat so flush against the face and did not travel far. The Treo 755p, on the other hand, has a widely spaced, comfortable keyboard that we can use with one hand or two. The keys are a bit hard, and not quite large enough, but they're still better than the Centro's keys.
Both Palm devices use the same screen resolution, 320 by 320, which is convenient, because it means Palm didn't have to change the interface on the Treo to fit the Centro. In fact, the interface is exactly the same, though fitting all those pixels onto the smaller Centro's display means sharper images and text, which we appreciated. Still, we'd like to have more to say comparing the interface on the older Treo to the new Centro, but Palm has unfortunately let this sleeping dog lie.
Winner: Tie
Round 2: Calling
These two phones do not sound exactly alike, but neither holds a significant advantage in terms of call quality. The Centro sounded a bit brighter, the Treo a bit warmer. Both phones were obviously cell phones, as our callers told us. Both phones also have the same calling features, including a great contact list that could be better if it was integrated more deeply into the system. Both phones make you pay extra for voice dialing, which should be free by now. The Centro usually had an extra bar of service on Sprint's network in lower Manhattan. Otherwise, these phones are the same.
Winner: Tie
Round 3: Multimedia
Here's where our tests surprised us. Sure, the Centro is a newer phone, and so it will use newer chips, but at such a bargain price, we expected newer bargain chips. Instead, multimedia performance tests between the two phones seemed to indicate that the Centro is faster in almost every way. When we loaded Web pages like our graphically-intense homepage, the Centro loaded it faster every time. Using both Sprint TV and our SlingPlayer, the Centro loaded videos quicker and streamed them every bit as smoothly as the Treo. The screen was smaller, but this might have made streaming videos look even more sharp. Even while loading satellite maps in Google Maps, the Centro delivered a faster experience. The only feature difference between the phones is the type of memory they use: miniSD for the Treo and microSD for the Centro. We miss the standard SD slot on our older Treo 700p, as it let us view pics straight from our camera's memory card, and, frankly, if we're going to have to carry an adapter anyway, we don't really care which one it is, mini- or micro-. So, for its performance advantage, we prefer the Centro.
Winner: Palm Centro
Round 4: Value
Is there any doubt about which phone will come out on top here? We originally thought Sprint might hobble the Centro by omitting key programs to keep the Treo competitive. Instead, the opposite is true. DataViz's Documents to Go is not only full-featured on the Centro, its two versions newer than on our recently acquired Treo. Every feature is in tact, or improved, since the latest Treo release. In terms of value, there is simply no comparison, as Palm is practically offering the same phone in a smaller package at a $150 discount.
Winner: Palm Centro
Odds and Ends
There are plenty of categories we used to review the phones that we didn't use for this duel. In terms of messaging, productivity applications and scheduling, the two Palm devices are exactly the same. They perform equally well, and come bundled with roughly the same features. Differences between the two can be chalked up to design differences, not differences in features or performance.
And the winner is . . .
We are going to be recommending the Palm Centro to plenty of people we know, starting with folks who want to upgrade their Treo. If they have large fingers, or just can't stand typing on the tiny Centro keypad, we wouldn't berate them for choosing the Treo 755p. After all, we use the 755p regularly, and find it to be a top choice in the smartphone market. Still, the Treo and Centro are so evenly matched, price literally becomes the selling point, and we can't value a larger keypad at a 250% price premium between the two models. Should Sprint drop the price of the Treo below $200, we could be convinced, but we'd rather see a serious feature bump, and make the Treo the king of the smartphones once again. Oh, and where's that new OS?
Champion - Palm Centro
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