At a Glance
Editor Rating: 
4.3
4.34
4
4
5
5
4
What’s Good: Full-featured, easy to use smartphone for entry-level price; Clear, bright, high-resolution touchscreen; Compact body with rounded edges; Zippy EV-DO data with access to Sprint TV service; A-GPS works with location-based services
What’s Not Good: QWERTY keys are small and cramped; Display is smallish (if still easy to read); Hardware and software design feels a bit dated; Noticeably thicker than comparable devices; No Music Store access (yet)
Bottom Line: Get Centro in your hands. If you like the way it feels and if the buttons aren’t too small for you, you might have found yourself the best value currently going in a full-featured smartphone built for consumers. Palm OS is not slick, but it works well and Sprint’s fast EV-DO data network and excellent music store add value to the device. But the cramped buttons and small screen will be deal-breakers for some.
Specs:
- Make/Model: Palm Centro (690)
- Network: CDMA
- Data: EV-DO
- Carrier: Sprint (Locked); GSM version available from AT&T
- Size: 107 x 54 x 18.5 mm
- Weight: 119 g
- Form Factor: Candybar
- Display: 2.25” Color LCD, 320 x 320 resolution, 65,000 Colors
- Memory: 64 MB built-in, microSD card slot
- Notable Features: Palm OS Smartphone Platform; POP3, IMAP, and MS Exchange Email support (including MS Direct push); IM support for multiple procotols; Web browser; Sprint TV and Power Vision compatibility including laptop tethering; ocketTunes Deluxe music player software including Internet Radio support; Sirius Satellite Radio support
The screen is really all not that bad..on text messaging you can actually turn the fonts verry large. Easy for a person with bad sight to see. The screen also has great resolution and better than a 1.3 camera, even though they say it is.
The calling is excellent!
So is the outstanding battery life. If you were calling Annd left the phone on call all day, it would last about 3 hours 30 minutes just before it gets to about 10 percent, which would last about 30 to 45 minutes doing pretty much nothing. Calling is the only thing that runs down battery, but if you are at work, you could also charge it with the USB cored. Besides that the battery life will last you 2 days just pretty much texting, and 1 calling.
It also has excellent sound quality. And fairly small for pockets, but not too small, and hard to use.
Also, it ALWAYS keeps up with your texting NO MATtER HOW FAST..EVEN IF YOU DRoP iT ABOUT 15 TIMES, or more.
On the microsoft, when you type a lot, about 3 pages, still as fast, not as, but most of us don't text that that fast anyways..besides teenagers..but what do they need Microsoft half of the time anyways when they have laptops..or computers their on half of the day anyways..
Overall...this phone is AWESOME..for people with wide fingers, you still have the feeling benifit of the doubt, and people with average fingers, this keybred is perfect..as well as the touchscreen.