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AT&T Centro Speculation
Posted January 29, 2008 6:59 PM by Tadd Rosenfeld
This week the blogosphere lit up with rumors of an impending AT&T Centro release. Palm's CEO Ed Colligan indicated on a recent investor relations conference call that we could expect the Centro smartphone rolled out on a second carrier prior to the end of February. However, Palm has not specifically announced any new device or carrier agreement.
Generally Palm provides carriers with three months of selling exclusivity. It's likely that Sprint's Centro exclusivity is about up.
Articles appeared on Engadget, SeekingAlpha and Treocentral about the possibility T-Mobile or AT&T would be next. However, T-Mobile hasn't carried a Palm device in over three years.
The image shown below appeared on a number of other sites. Treocentral indicated they believe it's a non-working demo model used to show off accessories at CES. The image has appeared in different places with T-Mobile and AT&T branding. We believe the logos are photo-shopped. We're not sure if the illuminated LED was also added.
Palm's Centro smartphone has been significantly outselling company expectations in large part because of the low $99 price point. If current speculations prove true, AT&T or T-Mobile would be the first GSM network in the United States to support the device, and represent a significant customer acquisition opportunity for Palm. AT&T currently offers Palm's Treo 680.
Although Palm markets the Centro primarily to younger demographics for its text messaging capabilities, it's a fully featured smartphone, with email, camera, MP3 and web browsing features as well as support for tens of thousands of third party software programs.
For more information on the Centro smartphone, please refer to our Sprint Centro review.
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