Palm "Gandolf" becomes Centro - launching soon

New Palm Treo "tiny", aimed at youth market

17 August 2007 8:56 GMT / By Amy-Mae Elliott

Rumours of a new Palm Treo have been doing the rounds for a while now - we reported on leaked pics and specs of the device a while back when it was known by its "Gandolf" pre-production name - but it's now been confirmed as real.

American journalists were briefly shown the device at a wider Sprint press event yesterday and although they were not allowed to take photos it's confirmed that it does look similar to the leaked shots (pictured here) we previously published.

As yet still officially unnamed, but supposedly called the "Centro" this will be the smallest - and cheapest - smartphone offering the Palm OS from Palm yet.

A completely new design, this is nonetheless described a "shrunk down 755p" and is going to be firmly aimed at the youth market, particularly those who are new to smartphones.

Other than that, we now know that it runs on the fast EVDO network, has a toushcreen and a very small, but full QWERTY keyboard.

A journalist who bagged a hands on with the new phone says: "The Centro has possibly the tiniest QWERTY keyboard I've ever seen. It's infinitesimal: it's actually impossible to type on this thing with two thumbs".

Helping target that audience, in the States the device will be just $99 when it launches exclusively to Sprint in the Autumn, no word on a wider launch.