Palm Centro phone coming to the UK!
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Yeah my Photoshop skills really are teh shT, i agree. But no hate in it, simply educated industry comment. Shame really, I quite like the people from Palm I've met, though they've all left the company now. Wonder why?
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hiraethified
There's also been several ex-Apple big cheeses joining the company too, but what's that got to do with this well-reviewed, big selling, well specified cheap smartphone (and a proper smartphone at that) that can do more than some phones costing a lot of dosh more?
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hiraethified
I've got no hate for Apple but snobbishness from some of its users can get my goat sometimes. Imagine being that bothered to have a dig at Palm you have to go of and make a piss poor graphic!I dunno why not tell us about apple
Yeah Rubinstein. He'll have an affect as well, as he's damn good. Though whether he's a stalking horse and there's an acquisition on the table's a moot point, Palm's patents must be worth something to any company on a mission to shake up the smartphone market.
In the words of Perry Farrel, but articulated with a Dick Emery-like twist:
"Oh, here we go".
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hiraethified
So, to get back on topic, instead of posting up sneering graphics, how about you list your damning criticisms of the Centro, keeping the price, available software, targeted consumers and functionality firmly in mind?
I'd say £199 (and under) for an unlocked, SIM free quadband phone sporting a high-res 320 x320 touchscreen, a class-leading set of Office apps, user-friendly interface, and a fair smattering of multimedia gizmos (great music player, decent video player and, of course video recording and MMS) it's a mighty fine deal in a compact package.
Kid_Eternity
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
The Centro?
Kid_Eternity
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
GarfieldLeChat
fucking awesome but wrong
dude it's the internet if you or i complained about the seriously large amount of time people spent making shitehouse graphics for utterly spurious reasons then we'd have to go into plumbing...
GarfieldLeChat
fucking awesome but wrong
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hiraethified
Don't get me wrong - Palm's management have been fucking useless and it's only the fact that their system was so ahead of its time when it came out that the Centro is still worth a punt. I certainly won't be buying another Palm in a year's time unless they deliver on their promises of a massively upgraded OS.
However, the OS is still infinitely more pleasurable and faster to use than Windows Mobile or Symbian IMO, there's an absolute ton of excellent software available for power users like me, and right now the Centro represents remarkable value for money.
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hiraethified
What are you doing on this thread, Garf?no one's...
no one's.....
Good things
3G
QWERTY keyboard
$99 in the US
Microphone
4.2 ounces
Replacable battery
Good Bluetooth (no AD2P)
Can use as wireless modem for computer
Can record video
Good IM - AOL, MSN, Yahoo support - BUT - in the US at least you are charged for each IM message sent
Google Maps
Easy email set-up (POP and IMAP)
YouTube mobile
Bad things
It's ugly (personal aesthetics though, so totally trivial)
QWERTY keyboard (Treo 755p seems easier to use to me)
£199 in the UK (I'm confused on price, can this be clarified
Dated OS (effectively still Palm OS 5, just rebranded)
Poor battery live (3 days standby)
Plasticy
Poor Bluetooth (no AD2P music streaming support)
Battery compartment door is flimsy
Stylus (yuck) is flimsy
18.5mm thick
Weeny 320x320 pixel screen
Poxy 1.2MP camera
Poor web browser
I think that's fair. For me there are better alternatives, and I can't see this device matching the Treo's impact on consumer markets, even though it's effectively just a product iteration or two on that former Handspring product.
Can I post another graphic now?
Kid_Eternity
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
I thought it didn't have 3G?
Interestingly, Palm was launched by former member's of the Apple Newton team, if my recall is correct.
I found a reference to 3G.
Let me double confirm.
Alright here's what Palm says
Dual-band CDMA2000 EvDO backward compatible with 1XRTT and IS95
Which is meaningless to me
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hiraethified
What?! Hello?!
Show me a single phone in the same price category with a bigger touchscreen. Or even the same size.
Not even the mighty N95 - which currently retails for 2.5x the price of the Centro can't match that resolution - and that's not even with a touchscreen!
As for the other points, I have never used AD2P music streaming support, never will and I doubt if many people in their target audience will either, the OS is so well designed I can't remember the last time I used my stylus so that point is more or less irrelevant, I don't think it's ugly compared to most rival phones (I rather like it to be honest), the cameras may not be high res but it's of reasonable quality and the price is very keen for a new unlocked phone.
Crispy
The following psytrance is baṉned: All
I don't think it is.
Nor do I, now I've checked - there's Donna Dubinsky, I guess, who went to Apple with Claris and then to Palm.
Thats the CDMA version. (Which won't work in the UK)
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hiraethified
Eh? Palm was founded by Jeff Hawkins, Donna Dubinsky, and Ed Colligan and none of them worked for the Apple Newton team.
Define 'price category', please.
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hiraethified
Err, she wasn't involved with the Apple Newton or any design work. She had a desk job.
"She went to Apple Computer where she started work as a customer-support liaison. By 1985 she was running part of the company's distribution network. However, she became unhappy due to turf warfare within the company."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donna_Dubinsky
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hiraethified
Launched at £199, unlocked. Can't see why you need that defined.
Crispy
The following psytrance is baṉned: All
I think you might be thinking of Graffiti, the old palm handwriting tech, which was transferred from Newton. It was the one-letter-at-a-time method, with some custom shaped letters, that was developed to overcome the rather shoddy natural handwriting recognition on the original newton.
Crispy
The following psytrance is baṉned: All
£200 +/- 50 quid I guess.
So why is it apparently £50 in the US and £199 in the UK?
Dalight robbery, rip-off Britain, etc. etc.
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hiraethified
No, I'd say £200 and under because it's the keeness of the pricing and the Centro's feature set which is likely to set it apart from the competition.
To punters, it's a considerable leap from £199 to £250.
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