Screen

The 65K-color screen, which measures 2.2 inches diagonally, provides bright images but with many video-focused devices delivering 262K- to 16.7 million-colors, it falls short.

The 320 x 320 px touch screen, with TFT (Thin Film Transistor) LCD technology, offers brighter imagery and faster response rates than older STN (Super Twisted Nematic) screens.

The screen was very sensitive to touch, both with a finger and the stylus, and responded very quickly. It was easy to toggle through applications and make selections with the touch of a finger but as mentioned earlier, users cannot swipe their fingers across the screen as they can with the iPhone.

Audio

Users of the Centro from Sprint can download music from the Sprint Music Store and organize their purchases with the Sprint Music Manager, a Windows application included on the Palm Software Installation CD. Once the music is downloaded onto the phone, users can listen to it with PocketTunes, easily accessed with the applications key.

The Centro comes with 37 ring tones to showcase its sound quality, and Palm's software designers were even nice enough to warn users when they crank volume up to its highest level that they may damage their hearing. The large speaker on the back of the phone produces strong, crisp sound.

Through the Sprint Music Store, users have access to more than 1.8 million songs which they can download directly to the phone. Users can also access internet radio stations through the applications key.

Messaging

With the Centro, users can access email from POP3, IMAP4, SMTP and Microsoft Exchange Direct Push. This last option is convenient for business users, who can receive email through Direct Push the instant it arrives in their inboxes on the Exchange Server.

Instant messaging is also available through AIM, Yahoo! and Windows Live. As mentioned earlier, the tiny keys of the QWERTY keypad can be difficult to master, but the rubbery texture and raised keys do help.

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