If you’ve been reading The Dojo (or PDA Handyman) for any length of time, you’d know I’m a semi-unabashed Palm lover. Yes, on occasion I have questioned Palm’s decisions (i.e., my poor, dear Foleo) and on a few occasions wondered if they were about to plunge themselves into the fires of hell to disappear forever. Well, the reality is that Palm’s not been doing so well, mostly because they’ve been sitting on their thumbs. Its even possible that sitting on their thumbs for so long has caused them to create something equally frustrating as it is brilliant.

I speak, as indicated in the title of this review, the Palm Centro, which is currently an exclusive offering from Sprint. To see the Centro is to love it. Its small, sleek, nicely proportioned, and… well, that’s where it sort of ends. Maybe a few years ago in 2003 I would have been egged on to see the recent growth in the venerable Palm OS, but by this time the changed-in-name-only Access Powered “Garnet OS” has stagnated and festered. Sure, Sprint has managed to eek our some cool abilities, and the hardware certainly does run the beasty quite swiftly, but its just old.

So, I face a quandary. I love the hardware and yet, when faced with a 10 year old user interface paradigm which has changed little, I’m not sure how to evaluate it. Of course, its my job, so here I go. I love it and I hate what Palm has become. Since nobody is ever satisfied with reviews as simple as that, I will endeavor to explain. I love what Palm has done with the handset. They’ve always been good with hardware and it shows here. They have not only devised hardware which supports what Treo users expect, but have also started to integrate more than simple color into their fashion ideals.

The Hardware

The initial Centro from Sprint comes in metallic black (Onyx) or metallic red (Ruby), and Palm is now offering Pink. The Centro is a candybar-style handset, but more like the Treo 680’s antenna-less design. Essentially, everything that is on a Treo 700p is on a Centro, just smaller. There are, however, a few things about the hardware I don’t like. First, is the flimsy stylus. Palm’s been about 50/50 on the plastic (teh suck) stylii and the metal (woot) stylii, but on the hot little Centro, they opted for possibly the worst plastic stylus ever.

Second, since I’m a technology pundit, I don’t read the manual (of course, that’s a Mac users trait, as well) and it took me a while to identify the port for the microSD card slot, and even longer to get it open. Shame on Palm for making it so hard to open. If you face the display towards you, its on the right side just under the black IR rectangle. What kills me is that someone designed a bevel into one edge, but they didn’t then design a slot on the outside where you can stick the odd fingernail. Feh!

Third, though this is true of just about all mobile handsets, the D-pad sucks for games. I’m sorry, but there’s no such thing, as of yet, as a good mobile phone game. Sure, all touchscreen games still rock on the Centro if, and only if, you use another stylus (a sharpened stick would be better!), but using a mobile should be about doing things with one hand. Of course, that brings me to my chief complaint about Palm OS “Garnet”.

All About Ancient Operating Systems You Wanted To Know (But Were Afraid To Ask)

Here’s a ridiculously quick, useless historical recap. Jeff carried around some wood, then 3Com made the Palm, at which point the Palm OS came into being. A load of coders developed for it, but it didn’t grow. Palm spun off, then spun itself off, then bought its name back from itself, then sold its OS to Access. Access promised a Linux version, then renamed the old version Garnet, also know as Palm OS 5.4.

Just like the original Palm OS 10 years ago, Garnet runs one application at a time. You don’t quit Palm apps, you just switch to another one. Even the Application Launcher is an application. Of course, over the years Palm has devised methods of running multiple tasks at the same time, but the general concept of the user interface has never changed. This is where we are at with the Centro. Despite its advanced design and popularity, the Palm OS has never really grown up, even though everyone and their dog has been asking for it forever.

This isn’t to say that they Palm OS isn’t any good. In fact, its rather amazing that the ethics and concepts behind the design have been able to hold on for so long and still feel functional. This is sort of like if Apple had decided to retain the OS9 desktop appearance but added most of the capabilities of Mac OS X into the backend. You’d get something more capable and powerful, but it would still look like 1999. Besides, even on a 320×320 display, the Palm OS interface looks somewhat cramped. Its no surprise that the display on the Centro is smaller than the one on the Treo line, either.

Here comes one of those bumps in the road, though. When it comes to software for mobile devices, there’s little which can compete with Palm. Even in Microsoft Office compatible programs, Palm is the winner, hands down. On a side note, I do find it odd that, in all this time, Microsoft has been either unable or unwilling to improve its only mobile Office applications. Regardless, Palm users have always enjoyed much greater file format compatibility and feature support, and that will hopefully continue no matter what platform is actually running the Palm software.

In that light, Palm and Sprint have gotten together and spiffed out the common application set that generally gets shipped with Palm Powered devices. The big thing now is actual Sprint TV support. The new Palm client is based on Frauhofer and Kinoma codecs, and it works well, but its not as slick as the version Sprint makes for its other handsets. It looks quite good on my MOTO RAZR V3m, for instance. Sprint also includes Palm versions of the Sprint Store and Sprint Mail, and is working on a version of the Sprint Music Store for the Palm. Finally, Sprint has improved the Palm’s ability to bill your account when making software and add-on purchases.

What’s It All Mean, Tyler?

I can’t really sum this up all into one neat little package. On the one hand, Palm is not innovating and growing like they should be, and that’s left the Palm OS hanging out there longer than it should have. On the other hand, the hardware and software support is pretty hard to beat. Its also hard to beat the idea of a real Smartphone for a mere US$99. Of course, that’s after all of the Sprint and Palm Inc. incentives added on to make the price attractive, but hey, why complain!

Now, tie this in with the likelyhood of a 3G iPhone sometime this year and I’d have to say that, unless you don’t want an iPhone, I can’t suggest the Palm Centro. Sales have been too strong for too long and Palm is resting on its laurels, which really aren’t there in the first place. Palm needs to be pushed into the pool to fend for itself again. Its not that I don’t want Palm to succeed. I do! I just don’t want to them to lose, either, and with the way things are going, that’s the direction they’re headed in.

written by Tyler Regas