At first glance
Based on Centro's SKU (PTR690HK), it's a member of the Treo series; it's practically a 755p, placed in a smaller case. At first glance it's hard, or even impossible to tell that they are relatives, as the newcomer has a minimalistic design that I have personally liked – mostly in white! There are some problems with assembly quality; it's obvious that it's no high-end phone: it's made of a mediocre quality, thin, breakable plastic, a squeaking back; in some places the fittings are not very good, but the overall impression is not that bad. It’s a fact though that even a low-end Samsung has better assembly quality than this.
The front has something like a “pearl-coloring”, it’s made of black plastic, and in some parts a grey color also appears. On the top, near the small speaker, we can see an even smaller status LED, under this there is the high quality 2.2”, 320 x 320 pixels large display. The display diagonal might seem small, but it shouldn’t deceive anyone, as this is a square-shaped display, so it’s not as small as we would think. It’s about as wide as a Pocket PC’s 2.6” display; it’s just not as tall. Under the display we can find the main controls, which are all right both in terms of design and usability.
In the bottom we can see the 35-key QWERTY keyboard, which is the most spectacular part on the whole device. I have shown the handset to many of my friends, and everyone has asked about why is the keyboard so small and then they have said that they think it’s unusable. I have thought the same at first, but the situation is much better than we’d think, as the small keys are made of a very pleasant, rubber-like material, and they are even separated one from the other, so they are very comfortable to use with nails. After a short test everyone else’s opinion has changed, so I can say that Palm’s designers have managed to cram an easy to use keyboard in a small place. Congratulations!
The black, cracking back is quite discreet. To tell the truth Centro won’t be attracting attention with its features, so it would have been foolishness to print in large letters that there is a 1.3 MP camera on the back, but since manufacturers tend to do so, the lack of such a label is considered a positive nowadays. After taking off the back cover we can see the battery, under which we can find the SIM socket. It’s interesting that we can insert the card only if we pull the stylus out. This pen is worth talking about a bit: it’s plastic, it bends, and it bends a lot. As a matter of fact I was quite afraid to use it, as it bends even when tapping the screen, and I always had that feeling that it will break in the next moment. Just a couple days I broke my PDA’s stylus, so I didn’t want to take any risks: tapped the screen with my fingers.
The 107 x 53.5 x 18.5 mm large gadget that weighs 127 grams has a mute slider on its top, which has been quite overhyped at iPhone, although it has been nothing new. On the left we can see the volume control keys and the hotkey for the sound recorder. Since we’re already here, I’d like to ask something: why does the sound recorder have a hotkey on almost every PDA? Okay, it can be changed, but why does one of the least used features have a dedicated hardware key by default?
In the bottom, near the 2.5 mm jack output, we can see the completely unique connectors; we shouldn’t even be dreaming about miniUSB, as the phone can be charged and synced only with its custom cable. In the bottom right corner the wristband’s hook is placed, while over this we can see the infra port. The microSD slot is also placed in this area, but its protective cover can be opened only after taking off the phone’s back, so we couldn’t even tell at first that there is something under the IrDA. It’s a secret.
A cikk még nem ért véget, kérlek, lapozz!
