As you can appreciate from the image above, the rather attractive Centro2 offers a huge touchscreen (480x320 or higher resolution) along with dedicated Play/Pause + Back/Forward music buttons at the top of the device. Under the screen is the 5Way navigation button along with the flat Call Answer/End (in green and red respectively) along with four new buttons that mysteriously do no correspond to either a traditional Palm OS or Windows Mobile smartphone…
The rather fun advertisement above with a stretched arm filled with handwritten notes does not provide us with any more clues as to what operating system this new Palm Centro2 may be running. Although some people have suggested that the Centro2 may be running Windows Mobile I think that it’s not likely as there is no WM logo in the above ad.
This leads me to conclude that we’re either witnessing the first NOVA OS device (unlikely at this early stage) or more likely an enhanced non-touchscreen version of the existing Palm OS. Either way, the fact is that I can hardly contain my excitement at seeing these images and the thought that very soon Palm will have an even more effective smartphone to compete agains the iPhone… Although there is no additional information about this Centro2 for now, the device appears to be wider than the existing Palm Centro (size comparison below) something which would suggest that the Centro2 will benefit from a huge touchscreen that may provide a +200% larger footprint than the existing Centro.
Additionally, it appears that the Centro2 will be available in five colors (Black, Red, Pink, Yellow and Blue) the moment that it starts shipping. There is no ETA whatsoever at this stage but rumours are floating that Palm may once again use the forthcoming Digital Life show in NYC in September to make an official announcement. Among others I hope that news of this forthcoming Centro2 will help to demonstrate that Palm is clearly not sitting still but instead aggressively continuing to enhance its position in the consumer smartphone market against the likes of Apple’s iPhone. As with the original Centro I also expect the Centro2 to be very competitively priced and thus just as successful – particularly now that it has a huge touchscreen.
UPDATE: I guess that my excitement was unfortunately short lived… News is that this entire ad is quite fake and the work of a rather talented Korean student for his marketing class… Having said this, if my sources are correct we should still all have news of a possible new Palm device coming out in the next few weeks…
