Palm unveiled a new smart-phone, dubbed the Centro, that will be available next month for about $100 – not only is that the lowest introductory price yet for a Palm handset, it will be the least expensive smart-phones on the market. Oh, but wait. There"s always a catch. It turns out the price comes to $100 only after a $100 mail-in rebate and is available only to customers who sign up for a two-year service agreement that includes data access plan of more than $25 a month.
Initially, Palm will offer the phone exclusively through Sprint for about three months, and it will be able to tap into the carrier"s high-speed EVDO network. Despite having a different name from its Treo siblings, the Centro will share with them the Palm operating system, a colour touch screen, a full keyboard and the ability to access e-mail and surf the Web. The Centro is the Sunnyvale company"s first new U.S. product since it killed its Foleo notebook-like device earlier this month.