Looking for a Palm Centro. Does anyone have one?
 

Hello, I was a Palm user for the first time with a Palm Pre 2. I really liked this phone, for the quality of its construction and the amount of things that could be done in webOS.

I was recently curious about Palm's past and started doing some research. I read about Palm OS and its PDAs. I was especially impressed to find out that there are also phones with Palm / Garnet OS.

I saw several phones with this old system, in search of the best phone. After several hours of reading on forums and wikis, I found the winner: Palm Centro.

It is curious that today there are not many for sale, since apparently it had its golden age in the USA.

On eBay from the USA I saw a few, but they don't ship to Spain. The most curious thing is that I found this mobile for sale:

https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/~vgAA...1o/s-l1600.jpg

A pink Palm Centro! And I love it! Haha, I don't know how to explain it, I've always been the classic dark phone user. Actually, the Palm Centro is beautiful in its own right, regardless of color.

Does anyone have one?

Re: Looking for a Palm Centro. Does anyone have one?
 

In the event that I can't find someone else to sell one, I could try to buy the cell phone in the picture (on eBay USA). The seller allows shipping to Germany (not to Spain, although I have sent him a message now). Is there someone who is reading me right now and is from Germany? I have really fallen in love with this phone!

(Sorry for my bad English).


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Update:

They have already sold the latest pink mobile from eBay. :(

Re: Looking for a Palm Centro. Does anyone have one?
 

From UK

https://www.ebay.es/sch/i.html?_from...entro&_sacat=0

Re: Looking for a Palm Centro. Does anyone have one?
 

palm treo 500v is very similar

Re: Looking for a Palm Centro. Does anyone have one?
 

Thanks. Yes, I saw it yesterday, but it is very expensive and used. Does not include box or charger. In addition, shipments from the UK are now much more expensive since Brexit.

I would like to find one for sale in Europe, it is strange that I do not find one in Europe, right? There are a lot of Europeans in this forum and it is the best forum for rare phones with alternative / outdated systems!

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The Treo 500v is aesthetically almost identical, albeit with a wider body and screen. The big difference is that the 500v uses Windows Mobile 6.

Aesthetically, the Palm Centro seems more beautiful to me, since it is thinner (the 500v seems like an old BlackBerry to me). But the most important thing is that it uses Palm OS 5.4.9 (the latest public version of Palm OS installed on an official mobile). What really interests me is the operating system (although I love the aesthetics of the Palm Centro).

In addition, the pink version (and also the green version) are exclusive to the Sprint operator. The big advantage (regardless of whether someone likes color) is that it has twice the user-accessible storage of the other Palm Centro (the Sprint version is 128MB instead of 64MB).

I also read that there is a version of the Palm Centro with GSM unlocked (most Palm Centro are CDMA). This version is white with gray accents on the keyboard.

Anyway, it is a mobile that I want to have at home, so I would not use it with a SIM. For this reason, I do not need the GSM version (which is compatible with the Spanish networks). So the best version for me is the Sprint version (with 128MB) and hopefully in vibrant rose!

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/pr...CtD12bk97JatQU

http://www.brighthand.com/news/palm-...ck-comparison/

Re: Looking for a Palm Centro. Does anyone have one?
 

There are a few here:

https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_fro...entro&_sacat=0

Re: Looking for a Palm Centro. Does anyone have one?
 

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...18ccd58e_h.jpg

I love the box logo: "Your shortcut to happy hour."

The label is: PALM, CENTRO, GSM/EDGE, EU, QWERTY, BLACK

And it's unlocked. It's got all the parts, including multiple adapters for the power supply. I'm not sure the model number, it just calls itself palm centro, but the EAN is 7640111464600.

It was my wife's back in residency, pretty sure she'd be willing to part with it. In those days, the mobile app she needed for patient and drug info ran only on palm, blackberry and wince. Androids and iPhones were considered "toys" and not serious devices for serious stuff by EMR software companies. ;)

It's in the US, guess I'd have to confirm that lithium battery shipping requirements on both ends are mutually compatible.

Re: Looking for a Palm Centro. Does anyone have one?
 

Thanks. I had already seen those ads too. I really don't understand how they sell them so expensive. I also do not understand why there are so few available (it is assumed that many units of this phone were sold when it was released).

I do not want to spend a lot of money and, also, the prices I see are too high for an old phone (also, it was not a high-priced phone 10 years ago, it seems that now they are trying to sell it high because there are few units for sale) .

Right now the only one that I see as a good price is the Red one, from Sprint (on eBay). Interestingly, it seems that this model (red), despite being from Sprint, only has 64 MB (instead of 128 MB). The big disadvantage is that this ad is from the USA and, in addition to the € 20 shipping cost, I am sure that I have to pay € 30 more for the import (very common to have to pay a high price from Customs in Spain for a product from the USA or from outside the EU).

The listing also does not include the box, charger, or back cover. Although for that price I would buy it if the ad was outside the EU (€ 20 is a good price for an old phone and shipping would be around € 10 or € 15).

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Upgrade:

Well, I have seen that it is very difficult to get a Palm Centro for a not very high price. I love this mobile aesthetically, but what really interests me is Palm OS 5.4.9. So I have seen again the phones that I had discarded (and that have Palm OS 5.4.9):

(There are also some PDAs (Palm TX and Palm Z22, as well as other non-Palm PDAs) with this version of OS, but I'm only interested in phones.)

Palm Treo 680: GSM. PXA270 312 MHz. 64 MB available for the user. SD.

Palm Treo 700p: CDMA. PXA272 312 MHz. The antenna sticks out of the body (negative point for me). 64 MB available to the user. SD.

Palm Treo 755p: CDMA. PXA272 312 MHz. 64 MB available to the user. MiniSD.

They are very similar, the decision would be between the 680 (GSM) and the 755p (better CPU and miniSD). As they are almost the same, here I would choose the 680, since it has GSM and will be easier to get in Europe.

Re: Looking for a Palm Centro. Does anyone have one?
 

My happy hour!

How beautiful and elegant is that Palm Centro in black! It is the GSM version, compatible in my country (something very positive, since the Palm Centro do not have WiFI).

Could you ask her a price for the mobile?

In my country they usually charge quite expensive to ship products from the US (Spanish Customs are very expensive and shipping agencies are not very honest with prices). A trick that sometimes works here is that the product has a value of € 20 or less if it is an old or small product. This way, sometimes you don't have to pay as much to pick up the package.

By the way, I did not know that story about the iPhone and Android! I like these curiosities.

A few years ago I received a phone from the US and there were no problems with the shipment. I think the important thing is that the battery is inside the phone and that it is not lead or other very harmful batteries.

Re: Looking for a Palm Centro. Does anyone have one?
 

Her response was "I didn't know we still had that! Do whatever you want with it".

So if you want it, it's yours for the shipping cost, which USPS estimates is about $25 US (assuming I can package it up under 2lbs/900g, and I think I can), because I'd hate to see you have to pay more in duties than it's worth!

It doesn't show up well in the photo, but the case actually has a subtle black pearlescence to it. I don't know what the onboard storage is on this one, but there is a micro SD slot, which IIRC can take up to a 4GB card. Memories of before-times fading . . .

Re: Looking for a Palm Centro. Does anyone have one?
 

That's the spirit!

Re: Looking for a Palm Centro. Does anyone have one?
 

Wow, you guys made my day! I am very grateful.

The truth is that I no longer expected to buy more telephones (I like old telephones with obsolete systems), since the economic situation in my country is not very good. In addition, I believed that no more phone was going to attract my attention again (I thought my collection was already finished). However, I've been reading like crazy about Palm OS and its phones for two days. I fell in love with the Palm Centro and the history of Palm OS. I have had more than 100 tabs open at the same time in my browser, haha.

I discovered this forum in 2017, thanks to Sailfish OS. He was previously an active user of the official Jolla/Sailfish forum. However, I found that this forum (TMO) was actively talking about other operating systems and older phones. It has been and is my reference forum for old Nokia phones, for Maemo, MeeGo and Sailfish. And also to ask about some other weird phone.

I am a user of other forums, but TMO is a family.

Thanks a lot.

Re: Looking for a Palm Centro. Does anyone have one?
 

OK, I plugged in the phone to the wall wart and it charged up and it turned on to the "select language" screen just as it's supposed to. GSM/2G has been dropped in my area, so I can't test the phone functionality, but I'm pretty sure everything was working when taken out of service. IIRC, my wife needed to have a windows mobile :( phone for some reason beyond her control. That HP "whatever" was a POS, frequently needing the cover removed to pop out the battery for a "red button" reset, as it were. She got really good at doing that quickly!

I've always had a soft spot for Palm, and didn't stop carrying my Visor Prism until I got GarnetVM for my N900. At that point, the N900 replaced (or mostly replaced) most of the portable gadgets I carried regularly or occasionally. Somewhere on the forum here, I think I've got a group photo of all the things the mighty N900 displaced: another phone (of course), the Visor, a compact solid state camcorder, a toshiba music player, a small digital camera (for all but "artistic" stuff), my N800, and my Sharp Zaurus.

Anyway, send me a PM sometime with your contact info and I'll get started on packing and shipping this cute little phone.

Re: Looking for a Palm Centro. Does anyone have one?
 

PM sent!

The N900 could do it all, haha. I have an N900 that I was playing with last year. Thanks to this forum there is a lot of information to continue using this great phone.

My experience with Windows phones has also been strange. WP8 and W10M worked fine on my Lumia 535. Later I got a 950, as they were very cheap after the death of W10M. I also have an HTC HD2 that I got to test the old Windows Mobile 6.5 system. This last system is more or less from the time of Palm OS 5. I probably like the Palm system more, I read that there are people who are very fond of it and nostalgia (quite the opposite in the case of Windows Mobile).

Re: Looking for a Palm Centro. Does anyone have one?
 

You can also try to get a Palm Pre 1 or 2 (not the 3rd one). They have a "Palm-sanctioned" PalmOS simulator, more or less like GarnetVM except that it has a Centro ROM.

Of course the biggest problem is that damn capacitive screen instead of resistive...

A couple years ago there was no shortage of Palm Pre's in ebay.es

Re: Looking for a Palm Centro. Does anyone have one?
 

I have a Palm Pre 2, a gem, I was impressed by the build quality when removing the back cover. I also really liked webOS.

When I gave up hope of finding a Palm Centro or a Palm Treo 680 (my second choice), I thought about using a simulator. But what I really want is to try Palm OS on a device from the past, feel myself go back over a decade, and see it in my hand. I would have loved to have a Palm Centro when it came out, but maybe I was too young to appreciate these gems.

What's wrong with the HP Pre 3? I thought it was better than the Palm Pre 2.

Why would a resistive screen be better?

The shortage of Palm phones is very strange to me these days. They are phones that sold many units. Other phones from the past are easy to find.

Re: Looking for a Palm Centro. Does anyone have one?
 

As a heavy PalmOS user I think you are heavily overstimating what you'll find in a real PalmOS device. :) But I know that curiosity feeling so I'll shut up...


The problem with the Pre 3 is that due to the strange screen resolution cannot run Classic, while the Pre 2 has no problems doing it, and of course the Pre1 came with it.

Search around in this forum for the issue about resistive/capacitive screens. After about 15 years of capacitive screens I still keep the same opinion that resistive screens are just better. They work with cheap and small stylus out of the box, precision is orders of magnitude better (specially compared with even expensive capacitive stylus), and there is no issue whatsoever regarding unintended touches in the center or at the borders of the screen.

I was pointing it out because with PalmOS as it is (designed for stylus), it is a really bad experience on a capacitive screen.

Re: Looking for a Palm Centro. Does anyone have one?
 

Good to see you again javispedro!

Re: Looking for a Palm Centro. Does anyone have one?
 

A resistive screen and stylus for a system running a GUI with more than say, four, touch points (for me) on a tiny screen is just plain essential. Maybe nine points with less fat fingers than mine. Or maybe more if you could get your fingers surgically sharpened. Even on the N900 with the relatively large screen, there were apps that could be easily used with fingers (like the telephone), but plenty that were way beyond the precision of my fingertips (and patience), like gnumeric. It was nice to have a pocketable spreadsheet. :)

Re: Looking for a Palm Centro. Does anyone have one?
 

Very nice review from 2021
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QvaFGGOUud4

Re: Looking for a Palm Centro. Does anyone have one?
 

I hesitate to claim the Centro to be either representative of PalmOS or even "best of an era". For most long-term PalmOS users it was probably one of the worst -- I think they will still see OS < 5.4 (before NVFS and the like) as the PalmOS-peak era.