A World Of Centro Colors

"people in the Netherlands appear to have been given preferential treatment as they benefit from the availability of Black, Pink and Red Centro smartphones…"

Where have you seen this?
I just visited the NL site, but could only find the black one :-(

// Egholm

Egholm - the three colors were there when I last checked but they now indeed appear to have been removed... Strange...

Cheers, A.

An article in The Financial Post last month illustrates why these discussions irk me no end. It's like slait of hand - "watch the pretty colors in this hand while I make our value and brand equity disappear."

Talking about "fruit" - Apple vs Blackberry, they made no mention at all of Palm as a competitor, except for one paragraph that ends with the statement "In particular, Palm has seen its market share plummet and the one-time smartphone leader is now teetering on the edge (or even past it) of irrelevance."

The ever-growing angst amongst us dwindling loyalists is not meant to annoy, Andrew! It's just that to come to terms with Palm's "irrelevance" is painful, it wasn't supposed to be that way, and management burdened with restoring Palm to its rightful place in the industry have failed.

We'd love for them to get back on track, but each new rearrangement of the deck chairs does not encourage us to believe this ship will miss the iceberg, but rather plow headlong into insignificance and doom us to have to accept the invaders as the new monarchy.

The king is dead...long live the king...? Say it ain't so, Palm, but hurry up before the market place loses all patience.

dgarts - I recall a company called Apple that not that long ago was also given for dead only to make a complete turnaround...

Yes, I absolutely agree that the time has come for Palm to deliver and between the launch of 1) the Treo 800w in July; 2) the unveiling of the new Nova OS and SDK by the end of the year and 3) the release of entirely new devices at the start of 2009 we will finally know for sure if Palm has managed to deliver on its promises or not.

Cheers, A.

Hi Andrew,

Bummer :-)

Thanks anyway,
Egholm

I see three colors listed via the link below...

http://66.54.37.157/nl/nl/products/smartphones/centro/

I am starting to lose my patience with Palm. When is Palm going to officially release any unlocked gsm centro in the usa? I also want a blue gsm centro!

If Palm doesn't officially release an unlocked gsm centro in the usa b/f the next Iphone release, I'm thinking about leaving the palm family.

zack:

I bought an unlocked, black. gsm Centro on Ebay that was being sold by Expansys. It had been released in the UK and then sold in the US. Works great. Search Ebay.

Hi Zack,

Not when I enter that link... Maybe Palm tracks your IP and makes sure you only see what you _can_ buy in your contry...

// Egholm - annoyed! I wan't a white and pink!

Zack/Egholm/Andrew:

As of this second, you can follow Zack's link, get to the black-only page, but click on the link for the Centro at the left of the row of buttons and you'll see the vestigial three color buttons there in small. I say vestigial because the red and pink now dead-end as hyperlinks.

Congrats, you all seem to have caught them in mid-revision of their website for the Netherlands! Probably just in the middle of pulling the red and pink because the limited stock is out or because they aren't selling well. Both are at opposite ends, so it shouldn't be hard for someone in the Netherlands to verify that.

What sticks out in my mind is remembering an interview conducted of a Palm rep during a trade show. Palm decided originally on the Black and Red because, repeatedly, they'd been told that people wanted more color choices BUT when it came to actually buying ... people shunned the color choices.

I think what people are more likely to go for, if any company manufactures them, are third-party covers to recolor them. Remember when Motorola shunned the idea because they wanted business people to be able to take their phones "seriously" and Nokia was kicking Motorola's behind in the marketplace because even businesspeople liked recoloring their phone?

So maybe some entrepreneuring company will eventauly decide there's enough Centros out there to start making replacement cell-phone covers for the mall kiosks? That would be different among smartphones. It would certainly be a sign of their popularity among the younger market.

Don't know if I would go for it. But then again I already "modded" my 700p by replacing the antenna, confidently voiding the warranty, and I'm going to have to hang onto it a while yet.

It's BS that The Netherlands has colour choices. There is only one color and that's black. It also doesn't make sense, because Palm has only a very marginal market share in The Netherlands, just like in the rest of Europe. They can barely sell any black Centros, let alone the colored ones.

Yippy, the most interesting news nowadays for Palm is the abundance of colors of a single low-end model in their lineup. Meanwhile, they are bleeding money and losing all remaining customers.

Aw c'mon, Gaz and all doomsayers! Lighten up a little, smile at the colours and recognize the fact that with the Centro, Palm has managed to get some cash to reinvest and has made the smartphone market fun for a change! Who is going to print football pitches behind an HTC or a Blackberry? I am a business user and perhaps my new Centro (black alas, since I bought it in Europe) does not have every feature I would like yet, but it is the cutest critter on the boardroom table and runs everything that I like Palm for!