Sprint’s Palm Treo 800 Gandolf will be launched as the Palm Centro
By Will Park on Friday, August 17th, 2007 at 12:33 PM PST In Announcements, Devices, Palm, Palm OS, Sprint
Rumors should be taken with a grain of salt. We speculated that the new Palm Gandolf could hit the US as the Palm (NSDQ: PALM) Treo 800. But, it seems that Palm is going to do away with the “Treo” moniker all together. Andrew over at Treonauts got the chance to sit down with the new handset at a recent Sprint (NYSE: S) press event. Apparently, the Palm Gandolf will be launched as the Palm Centro, not the Palm Treo 800.
The Palm Centro will be marketed towards “a younger demographic, new to the smartphone space.” The Centro will be the smallest mobile phone to run the Palm OS yet. And, as such, the screen and keyboard will be tiny (we hear that it’s actually painfully small). The Centro will rock a small, square screen and an EVDO connection.
Availability is not yet known, but we expect that the Palm Centro will be launched at a $99 (with contract, of course) price point, on a 90-day exclusive with Sprint.
Why don’t they just call it the Palm Treo Centro? Well, if Palm is aiming at a younger demographic, it might do them well to get away from the stodgy Treo brand and try to market a more youthful, less business-oriented brand. Because, what comes to mind when you think “Treo?” Nothing that would appeal to the youthful-set, right? But, get rid of the “Treo” name and sell it for a penny shy of a C-note, and you’ve got the young and hip crowd’s attention.
Stay tuned, we’ll keep you updated.
[Via: Treonauts]
Looks very bad!
Information for all of you. I was told by a extremely reliable source that the Palm Centro’s Gryphon (black) and Gandolf (white) will hit Sprint stores next month in October. Also, Palm is not abandoning the Treo line. In fact, the new Treo 800 will launch Jan/February of 2008.
Well, coll3ctiv3, it looks like your “extremely reliable source” isn’t so reliable after all. Since the Centro is being released in black and red, not white, I’m wondering if the rest of your information is flawed too, i.e. your info on the Treo 800.