Palm introduced its first "non-Treo" phone today, the Palm Centro. And, you know what? It's a freakin' Treo!!!
If you look at the specs for the Centro, you'll find they very closely match the Treo 700p specs. Same screen, same camera, same version of the Palm OS operating system. The main differences seem to be a smaller, sleeker case, an included instant messaging application, and an hour less talk time on a full charge. Oh yeah, and the price is around $100 less with a 2 year contract.
The reason I got the 700p instead of the 755p was because it was cheaper and the main difference between the two was that the 755p didn't have the stubby antenna. The 650, 680, 700, and 755 ALL have the same processor. Yup, folks, Palm hasn't sped these things up under the hood in years. And critics regularly cite the stagnation of the Palm OS as a reason why Palm is destined to be an also ran against hot new smartphones from manufacturers who know how to allocate their resources.
Don't get me wrong. I love my 700p. I can talk to people, do some basic web surfing (and run Opera Mini when I find the built in Palm browser annoying), keep my calendar, address book, to do list, record voice memos, listen to music, and connect to my web server via secure shell terminal in case of emergency. If I wanted to pay the extra monthly charge, I could use it as a high-speed road modem for my laptop. It's got a lot going for it.
But it's getting old and the Centro looks to just be a facelift that can't really cover up the withering innards. As everyone steps up their game to compete with the iPhone, if this is the best Palm can do, that company is going to go bankrupt and it's going to deserve it.
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