Palm Centro brings touch screen and keyboard to traditional mobile phone users in India

Mumbai: Designed for individuals and traditional mobile phone users looking for a better way to manage their social and professional lives, Palm, Inc. has introduced the glacier white Palm Centro smartphone in India.

With voice, text, email, web, contact and calendar capabilities, a full colour touch screen and full keyboard, Centro brings Palm simplicity and organisation to customers who want to stay connected with friends, family and colleagues.

With the Centro, users will find text messaging (texting) easier than ever before and managing email effortless. They can keep track of social engagements, check stock quotes and stay on top of the latest news,  all in one small, compact phone.

''The combination of keyboard, touch screen and Palm's ease of use makes Centro intuitive and easy to use for staying in touch,'' said Olivier Rozay, Palm's regional director for Asia Pacific.

''Consumers who are thinking about stepping up to a smartphone will find Centro the perfect first choice – it's rich in features but also comes in a small, cool design.''

With a fun, new compact design, Centro is the smallest and lightest Palm phone to date. Available in sleek glacier white, Centro has a modern, stylish look that feels comfortable in the hand, and discreetly fits in a pocket or clutch.

Centro was designed as a superior phone, messaging and organisational device, and is incredibly easy to use. It allows users to effortlessly connect with friends, family and colleagues by voice, email or text. With its full keyboard, Centro makes it easy to quickly and efficiently type text messages and respond to emails. Since Centro comes with Palm OS (operating system) by ACCESS, it offers all of the great organiser functionality for which Palm is renowned, such as a detailed and integrated contacts list. The calendar makes it easier to manage increasingly busy work and personal lives.

In addition to usual smartphone capabilities, Centro is highly customizable with thousands of applications available to help users with everything from maintaining a healthy eating plan to keeping track of golf handicaps or personal expenses.

The features of the Centro include:

• Superior Phone – Centro's touch screen and full QWERTY keyboard, combined with the simplicity of Palm OS, make it easy to use, with key features such as one-touch speaker phone, conference calling, ignore a call with text messaging and Bluetooth connectivity.
  
• Easy Messaging – Centro's full keyboard makes typing complete messages fast and easy when sending text, pictures, audio and video clips. Plus, Centro keeps all conversations in a chat-style view, just like Instant Messaging, so users can see the entire conversation unfold.
  
• Personal and Work Email – New users to the smartphone category now have an easy mobile email solution. Personal email, such as Gmail and Yahoo!, is simple to access right out of the box. And, if users have to check their work email, Microsoft Direct Push Technology gives users access to their corporate email, as well as the ability to automatically update work calendars and accept or decline meeting invites, all on the go.
  
• Web Browsing – The full keyboard and touch screen provide quick access to online information and allow users to directly feed their personal blogs.
  
• Multimedia – Pocket Tunes on Centro lets users ''sideload'' songs and manage music, audio books and videos easily.(3) Users can also shoot pictures or videos with the built-in digital camera and share them with friends.

The Palm Centro smartphone is available at a recommended retail price of Rs13,990 inclusive of tax and will be distributed through Brightstar Telecom India Pvt Ltd., the national distributor.

Centro will be available in IT retail stores in Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Calcutta, Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Pune and Chandigarh.