Unlocked Palm Centro Now Available

Palm, Inc. announced today the availability of an unlocked version of its popular Palm Centro smartphone for the US market. Now offered unlocked for use on Sprint, AT&T and Verizon Wireless (three of the US's largest carriers), Centro gives U.S. customers the ability to choose the mobile phone service that fits their needs. Palm concurrently announced the availability of the Google(TM) Maps service for mobiles with My Location builtin on the unit itself, giving users faster access to local maps and driving directions.

The unlocked Centro will be available in a slightly updated white color with grey accents. Available in 25 countries worldwide, the Centro offers customers flexible ways to keep in touch with friends, family and co-workers through voice, SMS text messaging, email or the web. The Centro is Palm's smallest and lightest smartphone to date. The Centro is now available from the official Palm Store (online) for $299.

Palm Centro Give-away Contest

I received an email from Palm announcing the Palm Centro. I was intrigued, needless to say. So I checked the Palm Philippines site and sure enough it was already there! the email even contained an invite for a contest, and up for grabs is a Palm Centro. Anyone can join. Catch is, you'll need to be sent an email invite by someone who was previously sent an invite. This must be a campaign by Palm to see if word-by-mouth marketing still produces the buzz they need when launching a new product. So post a comment here (with your email) and I'll send you an invite. Don't worry, my comments are moderated, so if you do not wish to have your comment published just say so.

Palm Launches Centro

Palm announced that it will make the Palm Centro smartphone available to StarHub mobile customers in Singapore. This follows an announcement last week of the Centro's availability in Mexico through the mobile services of TelCel and Movistar. So far, the Centro has sold a million units in 6 months.

I'm eagerly awaiting the Centro's launch in the Philippines. The Centro isn't cutting-edge technology anymore, owing to the fact that it's connectivity is limited to EDGE networks and it still uses the now aging Palm OS 5.4 (Garnet). However, I think it still provides excellent value to first-time smartphone buyers and fans of Palm products. I just hope that when they do introduce it in the Philippines, they'll maintain the low price. A low price point will spur wide adoption in the now crowded smartphone market segment.