Palm’s GSM Centro unlocked: $299 and no contract
I know I caught the press release for this in my mail a few days ago, but I’ll be darned: I completely forgot to pass the info along. Thank goodness the Official Palm Blog reminded me in my feeds! If you’re allergic to long-term contracts or have general commitment issues, this GSM smartphone might be just the ticket. Since there’s no subsidy, you’ll pay the full $299 for this small but efficient handset. But of course, you’ll have the freedom to use it with the SIM of your choice on a network supporting the 850/900/1800/1900MHz radio for voice and EDGE data. I see that if you order direct from the Palm store by July 1, your Centro will ship free.
One other tasty tidbit: the Centro is gaining the My Location feature in Google Maps for Mobile. While the Centro doesn’t include intergrated GPS, it can use the local cellular towers with this feature to approximate your location.
I downloaded the Google Maps update to my Centro yesterday morning.
It works as well as it did on my Pearl, which isn’t all that well. It’s a neat update, nonetheless, and it’s nice that Palm isn’t getting ignored.