by Gary Yates

Created on: February 05, 2009

When cell phone provider Sprint released there version of the Palm Centro Smartphone, initially it looked like a fantastic buy. At $49.99 with a tailored $99.00 family plan housing 1500 minutes of use per month, extra cell phones tagged to the main account for only $10.00 per user the offer seemed very reasonable.

The overall family plan deal by Sprint is very fair in comparison with many competitors. The handset itself looks and feels ergonomically sound, with a large touch screen easy to use functions on the qwerty keypad and some handy features as with most Smartphones. There is access to the internet which is remarkably fast for a Smartphone, not forgetting on board camera and video cam. Which you do need a good amount of memory on a micro sd card to gain the full benefit of saving any footage.

You can download games, ring tones and applications to the Palm Centro as with other Smartphones. Applications that are useful for notepads, entertainment and reading. Overall the features are many and depend on just what the cell phone is being used for such as business or pleasure.

Features built into the Sprint version of the Palm Centro include:

My Centro - Internet.

Sprint Email.

Nuance Voice Control - A feature to use the voice dial facility on the cell. You get a 30 day trial.

Multimedia messaging and text messaging.

Instant Messaging.

ptunes - download music to the cell phone.

On Demand - Various entertainment and applications over the internet.

Sprint TV.

Sprint store for downloads and features.

Voice Memo.

Sudoku - The one game built into the cell.

Web - Internet connection.

Google maps.

World Clock.

Hot Sync - Connect your Palm to a PC, MAC or Laptop.

Bluetooth.

Various sounds and security features.

Then we get to the lifetime of the actual Palm Centro which for this review is based on two cell phones purchased at the same time on the Sprint network family plan.

Within 14 weeks of aquiring the cell phones, issues and glitches started to arise firstly with the battery.

The recommendation is to purchase a backup battery as the battery life is very short. After experiencing four to six hours of battery life this can get frustrating if you are away from your home or office without your charger. Then there is the glitch if you allow the cell phones battery to expire fully. If you try to charge the phone the battery tends to take around 4 hours to charge fully, if you can get it to charge at all. Charging the Palm Centro's battery has proved to be a nightmare, this was on both the

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