A Verizon smartphone for the rest of us

For an executive summary, see only bolded items. After a month of constant use the battery gets over a week without full charging, being topped up for minutes when I sync 2-3x a week.  Calls and reception are superb.  When signal is lost the Centro beeps at intervals and this can easily be shut off.  After testing, all my apps are bug free. I don't use bluetooth as much given the speakerphone is very good. A great finale product for Palm using PalmOS.

There are several thorough Palm Centro reviews on epinions.  I won't dwell on what was said by prior excellent reviews, but highlight new issues.

My viewpoint is that of a heavy Palm users since 1998,  with many apps used daily.  My need is for a basic highly reliable cellphone and a PDA.  I've been with Verizon since early 1990s, used only Motorola cellphones and carried a separate Clie PDA.  I don't surf the net via cellphones as the small screen makes it tedious to read long email, view attachments or use a browser.  I do require a phone to work from the higher norths of Canada to 5 mi offshore south past Key West. Verizon has never failed with the Motorola phones I've used: my companions on their other services has been hit and miss.  As for a PDA, I use it stand alone.

The Centro is a smartphone, but its really what most Verizon cellphones can be.  The majority of Verizon phones are capable of using 'Get-it-Now' downloadable software that, at best, provides a caricature of the Centro's capacity. BREW apps are far fewer in number, and more costly per app since they must all be loaded through the network.  The Centro is not limited by the Verizon UI and works as a typical Palm PDA or a cellphone or coordinated together.  Its the best of both worlds, if you need it.



Phone:

The Centro is as large as a typical mid-2000s Nokia non-flip phone, weighs about 4 oz and fits a pant pocket without pulling or bulging. The design is such that I have not turned the phone on accidentally while in my pocket. The all metal body provides a good feel, and easily slips into my pockets.  If one finds the phone slippery, silicone covers provide more grip, and are sold for under $1.

The Centro has been around for over 1 year, and its reliability has been established since inception by many reviews since 12/2007.  With Centro, many of the bugs plaguing the first Palm OS Smartphones have been ironed out. It does what its designed to do, and refined further since, a new owner today will be very likely to get a perfect unit, out of box. 

Centro provides at least 3 hours of talk time, at least 3 days of standby time to 50% remaining power, sensitive reception, and good quality sound as a phone or speakerphone.  Centro's battery meter takes getting used to, its not linear: past 80% of remaining power, it rapidly drops to under 40% in a day, whereas it took 2 days to drop from 99% to 80%.  I tested the phone by calling friends and hearing the reception myself: I left messages on my land-line voice-mail boxes and comparing the quality.  I checked cell reception during peak work hours and late night.  Centro is at least equal to all the Motorola cellphones I've used.

Palm's PIM Address Book integrates well into Centro and provides greater storage of contact data beyond business card information. 

You can talk on the phone while working on Palm Apps or PIMs. As example, if you want to take notes, use PIM apps, or play a game, while talking on the phone, Centro lets you.  This works well with the speakerphone on. 

You can dictate memos and record phone conversations.  This helps when you can't write down something while on a the call.

Centro includes a voice dialer that is a work-a-like to many Verizon Motorola phones.  Its far easier now to navigate Address Book, nee Contacts, that using the keyboard or stylus.  Its at least 90% accurate for me.  The Voice dialer also launches Palm apps.

You can turn off the phone without turning off the PDA, just hold the red END button until the menu appears.  This saves battery power and stops receiving calls when you wish.

The phone includes a navigator that supplements the Palm interface, making it easier to jump to apps while on calls.

Holding the SEND button before a call will pop up a list of the last 10 calls, making it easier to call-back missed calls.



PDA

Centro's strengths are:

Its data are easily exchanged with programs from other OS, and its able to edit Microsoft Office files and read pdfs

Large base of developers and tools from the Palm OS camp

Library of over 50,000 Palm programs [ per Wikipedia], over 6000 listed in freeware libraries

OS requires less memory to run and creates small Palm OS files, beyond multimedia files which are the same size as a PC

The absence of a Graffiti pen interface requires dedicating part of the limited device size to a keyboard.  Graffiti allowed phones to dedicate more space to screens, useful in multimedia rich apps. I found the Graffiti writing area wears with age, increasing the error rate for entering characters.  In Centro, the old screen based keyboard is still available from the menu of various apps.

The Centro keyboard is workable but cramped.  A quick test using the phrase, "The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog" shows I can type with Graffiti or Centro's keyboard with similar speed, 30 seconds.  On a full sized keyboard, I can type the test phrase in 9 seconds.  Overall,  the keyboard adds functionality at the cost of screen space.  I presume Palm found that most users learn a fixed keyboard easier, and made this trade off.  As a benefit, Centro hard keys can be made into shortcuts to launch apps, using the Phone app to assign key presses.



Documentation

The Users Manual does not document many features of the phone.  The "Tips" or "Help" within the phone provides information not on the manual.  There is no technical documentation on the inner workings of the Centro publicly available at this time.



Compatibility Issues

I transfered programs from a Clie running Palm OS V4.x listed below to represent a sampling of Palm OS apps.  All these programs are free or shareware.  "Currently maintained" means author updates program.  From this list, 12/14 apps or 86% work as is or with minor changes, while 2/14 or 14% are incompatible.  This doesn't include many apps listed as a DA or hack, which as a category are likely to cause problems since they hook into the OS and interrupt normal OS processing.  Many hacks have apps written the standard way and can easily be substituted, such as Cipher, listed below.

Epocrates: a 1000+ database of drugs and represents how well text is manipulated by the Palm.  Currently maintained and problem free.

Planetarium 2.2: an ephemeris that provides a graphic presentation of the location of celestial bodies on any given date, relative to Earth.  Currently maintained for PalmOS 3.5 and up, problem free. 

Filez v6.8.3 : a file manager that works at the OS level.  It locates, beam and edits file attributes not normally allowed by the OS.  It can beam files not meant to be beamed.  Last updated on 7/05 but is problem free.

JPlan 3.0: a diving decompression program that is calculation intensive.  Palm joystick navigator will lock up the pull menus.  It works fine via stylus input when using pull down menus.  Last updated in 2005.

Mixer 1.2a: used to partial blend diving gases.  Not updated since 2001.  Problem free.

Acid Solitaire 2.76a: Graphic intensive games work without issues, version written in 2002.

Bejeweled 1.56: Graphic intensive game. The Centro 5-position navigator does not work.  Written in 2002.

Atom Smash 2.2e: keys need to be reassigned through the options to allow the program to exit.  Written in 2002.

Cipher 2.0.3: IDEA based encryption program.  Works through clipboard.  Problem free.

Dive Log 0.77: dialogs lock up when invoked.  Program is non functional.

E&M Coder: Maintained by StatCoder.com.  Problem free.

Parens 1.5: Scientific Calculator last updated in 2001.  Problem free.

Weasel Reader 1.59: text and doc reader last updated in 2002.  Problem free.

CIC Dictionary: spelling checker.  Program is non functional.


Centro versus iPhone, Worth the switch to AT&T?

Assuming identical network availability with Verizon, the iPhone seemlessly interacts with wireless networks.  For road warriors, this means cellphone data networks as a universal conduit, while WiFi is offered, cell signals are more ubiquitous.  iPhones excel at web surfing and integrating with wireless networks as a 'thin client'.  If a pocket sized thin client is your need the iPhone clearly wins if you are willing to pay for a mandatory $30 monthly data plan separate from your phone and text plans: it costs like a 1 MB/s landline DSL and while G3 speeds are claimed to be 1 MB/s, in reality its typically far less, but at least you can surf most anywhere.  For an iPhone's 3x5" screen to read a document made for an 8x11 paper, which is 6 x 9" of data, requires up to 3.6x more scrolling.  Centro screen is 1.6" square, scrolling may be 21x longer.  Centro Blazer browser is clunky, functional, but its monthly data plan is optional. iPhone has the tools to attract programmers to re-write many of Centros apps for iPhone, but many are still due and most may not be free: Documents-to-go is promised, iPhone has no copy/paste clipboard to pass data between apps, no native PIMs that sync with desktops, no free voice dialing; all such functions that are available today in Centro, free.  Centro accessories from eBay are cheaper: 4 types of chargers and a spare battery all for under $20, shipped, the internal iPhone battery is at least $10 alone.  It takes 50+ seconds to do the 'quick brown fox' typing test on an iPhone keyboard, versus 30 seconds on the Centro.  While the iPhone is visually appealing, it Centro functionality comes at higher costs.   There are other issues that make the iPhone inconvenient, such as the screen size is big enough to crack if not protected with a case, its overall too big to pants pocket, its power consumption, all already reported, but it can be lived with if one truly needed a pocket thin client.  Its not for me.



Painful Migration

The Centro worked out of the box as a phone and PDA, and I beamed some apps to test them without an issue.

Migrating my Clie to the Centro, I followed the install disks' instructions which claims to isolates good and bad Palm programs during a Windows XP install.  My PIM apps are well populated: 500+ contacts, 100+ memos, 30+ tasks, and 3+ years of continuous schedules, all unpurged.  Installation stalled at a hotsync with "Memo" for over 30 minutes.  On canceling the hotsync, the Centro rebooted endlessly and required a hard reset.  Restarting hotsync caused hotsync to bomb.

Uninstalling the Palm applications and reinstalling did not fix the hotsync issue, nor did reverting to 'virgin' PC state by a System Restore in WinXP.  The installation proceeded only after I located then deleted the Palm directory left after an uninstall, and this is done before a System Restore, to return registry settings.

I reinstall Centro's desktop without the 'upgrade' path. This worked.  I beemed all the PIMS from the Clie to Centro, then hotsynced the Centro.  I installed apps one at a time from the Clie to Centro, to test for compatibility, with the resulting list mentioned earlier.



Conclusion:

For a Palm PDA user, the Centro is a worthy upgrade.  The final cost to users is less than buying a dedicated PDA, such as the Zire or Tungsten E, and one gets a good cellphone too.

The phone was a free upgrade from Verizon, I paid $4 in taxes before a rebate.