Struggling mobile-device maker Palm on Tuesday released a version of its popular Centro for AT&T, the first Palm OS-based product available for AT&T’s 70 million customers.
AT&T Vice President Michael Woodward said, “The Centro hits a sweet spot for many customers looking for a QWERTY device with a solid suite of messaging and multimedia features.”
‘Incredibly Important’ for Palm
From AT&T’s perspective, said analyst Avi Greengart of Current Analysis, the Centro is one of many consumer-oriented smartphones, several of them within $50 of each other. The AT&T Centro is $99 after a rebate and a two-year contract.
But, he added, “from Palm’s perspective, this deal is incredibly important” because it places its popular device with the largest U.S. carrier. Greengart said that, while Palm’s Treo phone is “big, clunky, expensive and dated,” the Centro “is a current-generation device.”
Greengart pointed out that this Centro is slightly different than the one available from Sprint, which is 3G. AT&T’s Centro is quad-band EDGE for the Internet.
“The value proposition is about the same for both phones,” he said, offering “a little more than a regular feature phone.” He did note that the Centro’s QWERTY keyboard is “unbelievably tiny and you’re astonished it works at all, but even a bad QWERTY keyboard is better than none at all.”
Other features on the AT&T-offered Centro include a one-touch speakerphone, conference calling, the ability to answer a call with text messaging, and Bluetooth. The company pointed out that the Centro offers text messaging in a chat-style view, so users can see the conversation unfolding. Supported instant-messaging services include AIM, Windows Live Messenger and Yahoo Messenger.
Microsoft Exchange, Mobile Music
For business users, the Centro supports Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync, allowing access to Microsoft Outlook and synchronization to Outlook contacts and calendar appointments. Xpress Mail enables access to Gmail, AOL, Yahoo and Windows Live.
The…