Palm Centro Smartphone

For an executive summary, see only bolded items. This is my final update, as at 11 months of under 30min daily use, I found power and other issues that reduce my recommendation.  Power issue has been a big complaint from other users, but no single issue or fix cited for it.  See bottom of review for details.  My prior Motorola phones would hold a charge for over 3 days still after 1 year and never gave a power consumption issue other than worn batteries.  Centro calls and reception are far weaker in low reception areas versus any Motorola phone I've owned.  The earphone jack has difficulty reconnecting the Centro speaker after any jack is removed, this has never happened on any phone I've owned and it was difficult to fix.  The sync jack is exposed and unprotected, and has gotten dirty, preventing cable based syncing without cleaning. Bluetooth headsets work nicely but the Centro does not accept voice dialing via Bluetooth. I'm lowering my final rating to 3 stars because these issues would be difficult to solve for users new to PalmOS.  Centro is durable and reliable, i.e., taking drops to concrete and working consistently even with its bugs, as my  debugging fixes has resulted in a permanent repair.

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 not 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 not 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 and bug free, it Centro functionality comes at higher costs.  It may be effective if one is not a tech savvy user.   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.



Power Consumption Issue, Read in Entirety

Some reviews mention an unusually high power consumption from their Centros, and prior Treos, and no clear single solution.  Palm support FAQ was useless.  Verizon or online forums suggest its an app interacting with the phone; a browser, chat or email client linking too frequently with the server; finally a defective battery or phone.  However, my problem appeared 6 months into using the phone and had no issue other than power consumption.  All the suggested remedies were done, to no avail.

To diagnose this problem you need at least a tiny 12k RAM app, treobattery.prc, a program meant for Treos.  It can be found circulating freely via google, and is not meant to be used by Centro users.  It will reveal power consumption when the phone is open, in REM sleep, and sleep mode.  You can repair the problem easily with Power Hero, a $15 program, but its less helpful in diagnosing the problem as its graph covers a shorter time span, and it logs only the largest single REM sleep drain, not when it occurs or how often.

REM sleep is the culprit.  Its Palm's term for background tasks in operation with the phone off, for whatever reason.  Set treobattery.prc to turn ON the orange LED whenever the phone enters REM sleep.  In the Centro this turns on the Green LED.  treobattery.prc has a graph function that spans many hours.  Typically the phone uses 1-10 mA when asleep, giving a standby time of an 1150mAH battery of excess of 4 days typically, to 40 days theoretically.

REM sleep normally engages for a few seconds after you turn the phone off, then the phone sleeps.  The phone enters REM sleep during weak signal reception events with the phone OFF, as expected, and if you turn on events that should happen while asleep, such as you set treobattery.prc or Power Hero to log battery drain periodically.

After shutting off many applications and optimally setting Power Hero, some time later the Cento entered REM Sleep during a low signal event and stayed there, this was easily noticed because the Green LED came on and remained lit, its off when the phone sleeps.  It stayed lit over 5 minutes, and the battery graph showed over 100mA drain for over 5 minutes even when signal strength was now 5/5 bars.  Shutting the phone off did not stop this event.  The only way to stop it was to pull the battery and reset the phone.  This now let the phone sleep properly.  This issue, or bug, is not documented anywhere and it occurred during a brief instant the phone went into a low reception area.  I have since set Power Hero to shut off the phone during 1/5 bar signal reception and the issue has not reoccurred.  My battery life is now back to normal, requiring charging once in 3-4 days once reaching to 50% capacity.  



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.  However, its bugs and tech support is typical of old Palm management and cannot be recommended for new users.  At least, Palm should have given Centro users treobattery.prc or its equivalent, given this vexing complaint about power consumption can have a simple solution. 

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