The Bottom Line: If you currently are using a separate phone, PDA and MP3 player, the convergence of these three into the Cento may be worth checking out.
What would happen if you took a Palm PDA, MP3 player, 1.3 megapixel camera, pocket calculator and a phone and combined them all into one small device? That is the premise behind the Palm Centro.
What's In the Box?
You get the Centro, battery, USB cable and AC recharger, install CD and instruction manual.
Activation
If you are an existing customer of a wireless provider and you have an existing phone with a SIM card, you can just remove the SIM from the old phone and insert it into the Centro and you are ready to go. Be aware, however, that unless your existing card is a G3 one, you will not get the benefit of the higher speed when surfing the WEB. You may need a new SIM.
Also, be careful of "activation fees". If you are a new subscriber, I suppose that may be a legitimate charge. In my case, since all that was required was moving the SIM card from my old Motorola RAZR to the Centro. My provider (AT&T) charged $18 for that. I called customer service and got that charge cancelled rather quickly, without any issue. If you are hit with an activation fee, I'd recommend you request it be waived.
Features and Colors
Though most providers offer the Centro in white or black, other colors may be available from different providers. Also, though there are phone features that will be common with any provider, specific additional services will vary. I'd suggest you check out the various wireless provider websites to see what each offers in terms of phone plans, data plans and any additional features you have need of.
Cost
How much you will pay for the Centro will depend on what your current status with your chosen provider is. I've seen prices ranging from its supposed list price of $349 all the way down to "free". As an example, when I went purchase the phone as an existing upgrade customer I could have paid $169 with a $100 gift card rebate directly from AT&T, $79 from Radio Shack, or $59 from Best Buy. All of those required a 2 year contract. The point is, it pays to shop around and request price matches whenever possible.
Wireless providers tend to give the best deals and lowest prices to new subscribers, so if you are new to a carrier you may be in the best position.
Setup
The first thing to do before setting up the phone is to install and recharge the battery. Once that is done, throw out the installation CD that comes in the box, go to www.palm.com and download the latest version of Palm Desktop for the Centro. It will save you a lot of aggravation later.
More often that not, there will be a later version of the software on the website. There certainly was in my case. Ignoring my own advice, I used the CD included in the box and after several failed attmpts to get the Centro to synch with my PC it finally dawned on me that the issues might be software related. After getting the latest copy, the synch occured flawlessly.
If you happen to run Microsoft Outlook as your e-mail and contact manager, you can connect the Centro to your PC via the included USB cable and do a hot synch. In my case, I'm running the latest version of Microsoft Office that includes Outlook and all of the contacts (with pictures), appointments and to-do items carried over without a problem.
If desired, you can also set up the Centro for e-mail, web browsing, document reading via Documents to Go, push to talk and a few other applications. If you've had wireless service before, you will know that many of these will require some form of data package above your usual monthly service charges.
PDA
The Centro uses the very old, yet still surprisingly fast Palm OS. The advantage of this is that there is quite a large number of additional applications you can purchase for it. Installation is very simple. You just download the program, run the install, then do a hot synch.
Phone Quality
So far, I have no complaints with reception. As with all wireless providers, reliability depends on how near or far you are from cell towers.
One feature I especially like is the ability to ignore an incoming call and send it to voicemail the way most phones will do, but in addition send a quick text message to the sender. That's especially useful when you don't have the time to talk, or even listen to the voice recording, but you want to let the caller know why you are unable to take the call at the moment.
Layout
There are four customizable buttons surrounding the 5 way navigation key in the center of the phone. Typically these are used to get you to the phone, PDA, e-mail or calendar. On the left side there is a rocker switch to change the volume and another programmable key that can be used typically for Push to Talk, camera or voice command.
At the top there is a slide switch to turn off the ringer and switch to vibrate mode. The back contains the slot for the stylus that is typically used with the PDA, the speakerphone, and the camera lens.
The right side has a door where you can insert a micro SD card to increase the phone's memory (though you have to remove the battery cover first--an odd inconvenience). The bottom has the charger port, USB connector and headphone jack.
The keyboard is a full QWERTY, though the keys themselves are placed very close to one another. They can best be described as small raised jelly like keys. I personally have not had a problem using them for "thumb typing". If you do a lot of text messaging, a phone with a keyboard is a must.
MP3 Player
Using the Centro as an MP3 player is pretty easy with the installed pTunes software. Just connect the USB cable, start pTunes and your PC recognizes the Centro as a disk drive. All you have to do is then drag MP3 or WMV files to the Centro.
The phone has a fairly descent speaker, though you will need a set of earbuds that have a 2.5mm jack, or buy a 3.5mm to 2.5mm adaptor that will allow you to use your regular headphones with it.
Update: I discovered you have to be careful in finding an adaptor. The Centro uses a 4 pole, rather than 2 pole tip so make sure you are looking for one of those. Also, the adaptor has to be thin. One I got at Radio Shack was too thick and its casing was hitting the USB connector slot in such a way that it was preventing the plug from going all the way in resulting in only one channel working in the earbuds.
Camera
For a cell phone camera, the Cento takes fairly detailed pictures, certainly more than adequate for e-mail purposes. These can be stored in internal memory or on an installed micro SD card (4 GB max size). You can browse them individually, e-mail them, or view them as a slideshow.
Battery Life
As you can probably imagine, if you tend to use most of the features a good deal of the time, you will want to make sure you have a charger within easy reach. In theory you should be able to get 3 hours of talk time and several hundred hours of standby.
With moderate use, I'm down to half a charge after only 2 days. Not really a big deal. After all, why buy a phone like this if you don't intend to use its many features?
Battery Update: After some weeks, I began to notice a problem with the battery holding its charge. It was beginning to drain not in days, but in hours. I could fully charge it at night, but the next day it lost power at an alarming rate to the point where it needed recharging after only a half day's use.
The solution was to do a soft reset. That consists of removing the back cover, taking out the battery then inserting it. That procedure is covered in the manual and will often clear up a problem. It did in this case.
After doing an Internet search, some people reported bad battery life when using an older version of Sprint's e-mail program. The solution for them was to get the update of the e-mail program.
Of course, other things can affect battery life such as heavy use of Ptunes or e-mail programs that continually poll. If doing a soft reset doesn't work, try removing some 3rd part applications, one at a time to see which one may be causing a loop that is draining the battery.
Summary If you want a lot of capabilities in a small package, this is one of the smallest PDA phones on the market.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): $49 Recommended for: Professionals On-the-Go - Internet and Email is a Must!
Epinions.com periodically updates pricing and product information from third-party sources, so some information may be slightly out-of-date. You should confirm all information before relying on it.
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