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The Palm Centro launched yesterday, and I was there to take a good look at what Palm had to bring to the competitive game of mobile handsets. Before the event, I'd already formed an impression about the Centro: I was expecting it to be a "female" phone (one for the ladies!), and was wondering what kind of pricing Palm would have for it, especially considering its tie-ups with network operators. Well, things turned out differently, and the Centro to a certain extent does win my favor.

A First Glance

At the table were some dummy models (1:1 ratio) of the Centro, and I picked one to get a feel. My curiosity was evident, and I was very soon holding a production model. What first caught my attention was that it's small, especially considering that the phone has a large touchscreen and a QWERTY keyboard. Compared to the Treo 750, the Centro is compact, but has a bit of an aura of being a power device. The QWERTY keypad is a bit cramped, meaning stout thumbs won't be pleased. The keypad keys are of a soft build, which reduces stress while typing, but the close spacing will eventually detract from the comfort.

Usability

The touchscreen is built to take finger-touch inputs and also those made using a stylus. Even without trying too hard, I was able to comfortably use the handset without the need to pull out the stylus for the most part. What makes the Centro thumb-friendly -- if you could call it that -- are the large icons that pop up on the screen in the case of events, or in the menus.

The Centro is primarily a handheld that promotes single-handed usage. The press of one button (or at the most two) should get you to any desired operation. The menus are customizable in Palm OS v5.4.9, wherein you're able to move the icons according to your priority of applications.

Talking of input, the touchscreen doesn't feature handwriting recognition, but you can get third-party applications for that, for around $10 to $30.

And The Rest Of It...

With the Centro, Palm is targeting the young crowd, which comprises almost 40 to 45% of the market. When I asked "why a business handset for the young," I was told it was for those just in the early stages of their career. The phone is intended to appeal to the 21 to 35 age bracket.

Keeping that in mind that young people like to stay online and share media, the phone features a Facebook application as well as a Vox blog app to upload images to your account once captured thorough the 1.3MP camera. The camera is basic and offers just 2x zoom, but has the ability to capture video.

An outstanding feature is the inclusion of "Map" in the contacts. This stores the GPS location of the contact. Clicking it will open the pre-installed Google Maps app and show you the contact's physical location.

We'll have more to say about the Centro when we receive a review handset.