This week has kind of been smartphone mania and it looks as though the week is set to finish the way it started, with a 3G smartphone announcement. However, that said, this one isn’t quite as spectacular as Monday’s.
Palm has announced that starting tomorrow, Friday the 13th, the company’s Centro handset will be available through Verizon’s 3G network.
The Palm Centro has been available on both AT&T and Sprint for a while and the company claims it has already sold 1 million of the devices between those two networks.
The Centro is a low-cost smartphone with a touchscreen displaying 64K colours at 320 by 320 pixels, a full QWERTY keyboard, Palm OS 5.4.9, a Bluetooth 1.2 radio, 64MB memory, a microSD slot, and a 1.3 megapixel camera. It comes with a built-in Google Maps Application and the battery can handle up to 3.5 hours of talk time.
The Centro will cost $99.99 after a $70 mail-in rebate with a new two-year customer agreement. Palm also suggests that customers may want to pair their Centro voice plan with Verizon’s E-Mail and Web for Smartphones service, which costs $29.99 per month and is an unlimited data plan. Customers can also tether the Centro to their laptop with a USB cable and if you’re willing to fork out an extra $30, can include a BroadbandAccess Connect plan in your service package.
For those of you who didn’t know, Palm offers the Centro in serperate colours for each service provider. It might seem like a girly detail but we kind of like it. Palm has said the Verizon handset will be cobalt blue.
