Palm Centro Going To Rogers First
Though it isn’t available on US carriers yet, it looks like the Palm Centro will be making its Canadian debut on Rogers. Rogers’ customers will be able to get their hands on it now for $199 with a three-year plan and a minimum $45 monthly service fee. New customers will have to shell out $299 and go over some contract details.
iPhone-like Interface For Palm OS
Palm OS users who might have been drooling over the iPhone interface for some time now have a way to pretty up their launcher to look like the iPhone interface. This is achievable via TouchLauncher, which is a new Palm OS launcher app that can make users Treo or Centro (along with older Palm PDA’s) look and feel much like the iPhone.
Users will be able to start their applications in the “iPhone manner”, and also scroll between multiple screens with their finger, and get the number of unread text messages appearing as part of the SMS icon. TouchLauncher also supports iconsets and wallpapers, rearrangement of applications in a drag-and-drop fashion, categorization and renaming of applications, addition of web and contact links and more.
At $6.99, it’s fairly cheap, and a simple way to make a Palm look like an iPhone. So if Palm users are envious of iPhone users because of the interface, hopefully this will help ease their envy.
Treo 755p users on Alltel have got a new firmware to play with. The new 1.03 version of the firmware has been officially launched, though there aren’t many details regarding the changes. Palm is currently saying that it resolves a “reset issue” under “specific and rare conditions” without giving details as to what those conditions are.
So if users have been experiencing spontaneous resets during an eclipse, perhaps it’s time for a firmware update.
Palm Centro Coming To Verizon At $99
Verizon has as expected, announced their Palm Centro today, which results in the top three US carriers carrying the Centro, which Palm says is “off to the strongest start of any smartphone in Palm’s history”.
The Centro is also the first Palm phone that is eligible for Verizon’s “unlimited E-mail and Web for Smartphone” plan, which is going for $29.99. After all the juicy rebates and discounts, Verizon’s version will cost the same $99 (on contract) as those from Sprint and AT&T.
Facebook Comes To PalmOS
Facebook lovers out there rejoice, there is now a native Facebook application for the PalmOS. The application can be downloaded at http://go.palm.com/facebook or over the air at http://mobile.palm.com/facebook. The Palm Centro has been rather popular with the youth market, even though it didn’t have the killer Facebook app. Palm users probably always wished they were in the same boat with Blackberry users who have a native Facebook app, and iPhone users who have a iPhone-specific version of Facebook, but Palm users can heave a sigh of relief.
Some of the cool features of this new app are:
- Send and receive Facebook messages, and respond to friend requests.
- Capture video using your smartphone and post it to your Facebook profile.
- View and post photos, right from your smartphone, or snap and send off new ones.
- Receive News Feeds, change your status, and get friends’ status updates on the go.
- Browse friends’ profiles, post messages to their wall, and send friend requests or search for old friends through Facebook.
- Open your Contacts and dial your friends with just one touch.
Portable Mini Charger Available For Palm Devices
Palm handset users haven’t been too lucky with the selection of portable chargers that support Palm’s Multi-Connector, until now. Tech Center Labs has come up with their Tiny Emergency FuelCell, which accepts a single AA battery and enables power to be passed along to Centro’s and any other Palm / Treo device with that proprietary connector.
The best part is that this pocket-friendly device is going for just $9.95, or $10.95 with the bundled battery.
Verizon's Palm Centro Going For $269.99?
There must be some kind of mistake here, as the information coming out from Verizon at this moment seems to indicate that the Centro will be going for a whopping $269.99 before a $70 mail-in-rebate when it hits the retail channels next Friday.
Considering Sprint’s Centro was going for just $99, this seems a more than a little extreme. Hopefully this pricing is just a technical glitch of some sort.
According to the latest Treo rumor, the 800w will be heading to store shelves on July 13th, and will be priced at $249.99 (after instant discount and mail-in rebate).
This is of course, a rumor, so it remains to see whether details will be accurate.Verizon Presentation Shows Treo 800W
Though it’s not official, this slide looks promising. It shows Palm’s Treo 800W slated for Q3 of 2008, and confirms that the device will support Rev. A, as well as have WiFi. The funny thing is that the slide says Windows Mobile 6, though Sprint is obviously releasing it on 6.1, so it’s probably just a slip up.
Aside from that, it also has a 1.3 megapixel camera, which is a little dated given the megapixel count of most camera phones nowadays, but it’s still better than nothing. On the plus side, A2DP is also supported.
Treo 850 Specs Sniffed Out
There have been spy shots, and rumors. This time, we’ve got the specifications for the upcoming Treo 850. Earlier reports indicated 100MB of RAM, though it looks different this time. And even though its not official yet, the possibility of WiFi and HSDPA is a very tempting feature to include in a Treo, which traditionally doesn’t have WiFi.
Though this is far from an official specification, but normally these initial reports aren’t too far off the mark.
- 14 mm in thickness, width 60 mm and length 113 mm
- GSM, EDGE and UMTS HSDPA 3.6
- GPS
- Wi-FI b/g
- 320×320 screen, touch panel
- micro-SD slot under the battery
- 2 MP camera
- 1500 mAh battery
- A micro-USB connector for both power and sync
- Bluetooth 2.0 EDR + A2DP, 256 MB NAND-Flash (> 175 MB for user), 32 MB SDRAM
- Windows Mobile Pro 6.1
Treo 850 Live Pics Found!
Live shots of the Palm Treo 850 have been spotted! The design of the device looks rather pleasing. Though no official details are in yet, its rumored to have a 400Mhz processor and 100MB RAM.
TreoSpot Gives Users Location Based Reminders
Palm Centro owners have a new reason to rejoice! A new freeware app that utilizes current location information for reminders! TreoSpot, the program, uses cellular towers to determine the current user’s location, and allows the user to set reminders based on the present location.
First off, users define the towers, and then create reminders for when they enter a certain area. This is very handy, especially for those situations that the user wants a specific reminder for the location. Such as setting up a reminder to do the laundry when the user is nearing their home, though some may not find that reminder pleasant!
On a slighter sour note, TreoSpot needs to be installed in the internal memory to work properly, which isn’t really a serious issue, until Centro users are reminded of their phone's limited internal memory.
