Centro now GSM

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areanynamesfree

秀才
Hi all Palm-Plecophiles,

I am not sure about you guys, but I have been dying for the GSM version of the Centro to come out I am very glad to hear of both the AT&T and Euro unlocked versions shipping. :mrgreen:

I really wish I had of bought a 680 when they first came out, as my 650 died recently and I have been stuck in a Pleco-less hole.

I am checking my local Hong Kong Palm shop in Wanchai frequently for news, although it is already showing up on Expansys Hong Kong for the suprising low price of HKD$2880 and six day estimated shipping date. I will let anyone who cares know when they can be obtained locally.

I hope they ship a local version with CJKOS burnt on the ROM like the local 680, although I won't hold my breath.

Are there any US users that have got Pleco up and running on the Centro?
Have there been any major changes to the Centro design that might impact running Pleco?

I get the feeling that this will be the last old school Palm OS based phone given the limitation of the operating system regarding 3G (UMTS) support. Lets hope that Pleco will running on whatever Linux based OS Palm (Nova??) might one day ship.

Richie
 
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areanynamesfree

秀才
Just following up on my last post - I just got my new centro and Pleco dict seems fine so far, although the small screen takes some getting used to.

My only complaint is the flimsy stylus :? but I am loving the smaller form factor.
I might have to order a replacement metal one, apparently someone is making these now.

The Centro itself is white and is going for HKD$2880 and cam be found in Fortress or those little shops in Wanchai computer market. It comes bundled with a 1 gig MicroSD card which is a nice bonus.

The best news is that CJKOS and Pen Power are pre-installed on the ROM!!! :D

Now just to download and install the pinyin phrase input system for CJKOS..
 
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Davin

Member
Thanks for the updates on the Centro; I've actually been considering getting one, so it's good to read your posts.

One of my biggest concerns is the screen size, especially for Pleco or other things like PIM, games, etc. I'm using a TX now, so the Centro is definitely smaller. How are you finding it? Also - I have read conflicting reports on the keyboard; is it usable?

I live in Beijing now, so I actually have never seen a Centro yet!
 
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ipsi

状元
The Centro looks pretty cool, but I find it a bit sad that this is the fourth post on this topic, which has been running for a while, and yet the iPhone topic has garnered a huge number of posts in only a few days... :(
 
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areanynamesfree

秀才
Sorry for the late reply, I thought I was writing to myself before :D and stopped checking the thread.

The screen size isn't a problem for me at all, but it might be borderline for someone with eye sight problems. In Pleco I am finding myself using the the large font database is installed for zooming a little more.

The small form factor is really a welcome, I used to hate the clunky size of the 650. The smaller size make the screen look any crisper, especially with video and games. The camera is a vast improvement as is the five way navigator button. The keyboard is suprisingly easy to use, you tend to push the little buttons with the side of your thumbnails.

Other welcome addition is the new keyboard input method included on the ROM, it's much prettier than CJKOS.

Probably the most noticeable different is the lack of reset crashes, they just don't seem to happen. Only the phone app seems to cause the handset to freeze and this is only happened about three times. In Palm terms that's light years ahead :?

My only gripes so far is that I can't seem to get PenPower to work with Pleco unless the character starts within the text input section in Pleco, if it starts on any part of the definition it won't start. This is the exact opposite of the problem I had with with the 650, where selecting text could be a problem. I am sure it's something I am missing, but no setting in either Pleco or PenP seems to change it.

Another recent issue seems to be battery, I think I might have run it too low one day and shorted it because just two weeks ago I was getting 3 days standby, now it's below 50% after one day of medium voice/pda use and no data. I am inclined to think this is just a once of dodgy battery, not a problem with the Centro per se. I am going to try and get a new battery under warranty.

All in all, I am very happy with the Centro. It's great having all my treasured Palm apps (like pleco, collins dictionary, anki (now freeware) doc2go, worldmate in a size you can wear with jeans. Also, RAM just doesn't seem to be a problem any more, I still have 40Mb left!! :shock:

I was also glad it was reasonably priced at HKD$2880 (USD$370) with a free gig microSD card, I was afraid it might be twice that.

hope that helps/
 
B

badr

Member
as my lifedrive is getting a bit older, i've been eying the centro for a little while now! We have the HK model for sale in Beijing already for roughly the same price 2800 RMB but i have yet to make up my mind on that....
 
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areanynamesfree

秀才
By the way, it seems my batter drain issue was fixed. Seems it was the demo version of WorldMate draining the battery. Not sure why, I didn't allow it to auto connect to wireless, but as soon as I deleted it it's back to three day standby.

So now I am loving my Centro again, I just wish it had UMTS so I could use it in japan.
 
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Dan_78cj5

举人
So, how do I input characters with CJKOS on the Centro? I bought a US AT&T model that did not have CJKOS pre-loaded like the HK version. So I downloaded the newest CJKOS from online, and it had checkboxes for a 'localizer' of some kind based on your PDA/smartphone model. Of course Centro was not an option. Anyway, now all I can do is set the preferences for the CJKOS input keyboard to pop-up upon taping 'abc' or '123' but since the Centro doesn't have a graffiti2 area, it doesn't have the 'abc' or the '123' key on screen. This must be the same issue on a Treo, how do you get a CJKOS input keyboard or if no CJKOS input keyboard how do you input characters into your programs other than Pleco on a Treo or Centro?

Has anyone else loaded CJKOS on to an American purchased Centro? Did you pick a Treo model to tell the software it was a Treo when you loaded it - or leave all model selections blank since the Centro was not listed?

Thanks,
Dan
 
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ipsi

状元
option+space, or menu+k will get you to the virtual keyboard, and allow you to input CJK characters, provided you've installed everything correctly :).
 
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Dan_78cj5

举人
Thanks ipsi, neither was working - but I reloaded CJKOS and told it my machine was a Treo 680, and now that works. The keyboard comes up on 'Menu K' and an input field with no keyboard comes up with option space. In either the physical thumb board works for input - a pretty smooth set-up and very clear screens. Very happy so far.
 
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Dan_78cj5

举人
Another question for Centro or Treo users. The e-mail program for POP e-mail retrieval won't acknowledge Chinese characters. If an e-mail is sent or forwarded to my address with Chinese in the body or subject that message just shows blank on the phone's e-mail retireval program. Any idea on how to get that program to accept Chinese characters, or if not is there another e-mail app I can upload that does better with Chinese e-mail? The program I have is Versamail 4.0.1

Thanks,
Dan
 
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ipsi

状元
Dan, do you have CJKOS installed? If not, then there's obviously no way you'll be seeing them.

However, even if you do, I suspect you'll find that Palm's pretty poor for that sort of thing.

The basic problem is that emails tend to be encoded in UTF-8, which CJKOS doesn't support. It only supports GB2312, GBK, and Big5 (and a couple of others for Japanese/Korean). As such, if you're lucky you will see that your emails contain some funny text which looks like Chinese but makes no sense (that would be CJKOS trying to display UTF-8 text as GB2312 or whatever text). Otherwise, it will appear as question marks, or not at all.

This is basically a limitation of Palm's, and there's nothing that can be done about. I'm not sure why, but CJKOS displays the subjects fine on email I get from ChatterEmail (fantastic email client), but it can't display the characters in the body. I'm not sure why.

If you can get people to send you email encoded as GB2312 (for simplified) or Big5 (for traditional), then you should be able to read them, depending on what your email provider does to them (I believe Google turns everything into UTF-8, for example).

Blazer seems to have some support for it, and that's quite strange. Versamail may as well, but if you've got CJKOS installed and there's still nothing, then you're basically out of luck I believe.
 
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Dan_78cj5

举人
OK, I found and loaded a new e-mail program called "Agendus" from Iambic. The program is a bit smoother and better to look at than Versamail, and... IT DISPLAYS CHINESE E-MAILS with little trouble. Without me doing anything, the majority of the text in the body of the message was received and displayed without me needing to make any adjustments or settings (perhaps a few odd characters here and there). I have had the subject line of a few messages come through all messed up, but the body has been readable. I don't know if it reads UTF-8 or if it converts it to GB-2312 because I can't find any language settings, but it reads the Chinese e-mails downloaded directly from my server - the same messages that Versamail could not. The program has a localized Japanese language version, but no Chinese version (yet?). The one downside to Agendus so far is that I had just gotten used to the very easy way you can scan and delete e-mails with the 5-way button on the Centro in Versamail, and with Agendus I haven't figured out a way to work through my e-mail without using the stylus. Anyway, at least I can read Chinese e-mails again.
 
A

airmoose

Member
Where in Beijing find Centro?

Where in Beijing have you found the Centro for sale? My students have no idea where I can find a Palm smartphone here. My old Tungstun T is just about dead and I need something new, might as well be a phone since I need to carry one anyway.

airmoose
BLCU
 
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Dan_78cj5

举人
Well, I found my Centro in Virginia, and the last time I was shopping for Palms in Beijing the Centro didn't exist... But I bought my Palm T|X at Zhong Guan Cun 中关村 in NW Beijing. I usually rode the sub to that corner of town, then grabbed a local cab. Every cab knew it by 中关村 or at worst 中关村电脑城. Chaoyang also has a 电脑城, but I don't recall finding PDAs.

At Zhong guan cun hey have a whole mess of multi-floor electronics shopping malls. Ground floors are usually computers, MP3 players, cell phones common to China, etc., but if you work your way up the towers past the computer component stores, etc., I always found a few small stores who had Palms, PDAs, etc.

I recommend searching for what you want online through Palm Hong Kong first. You can search in English, switch it to Chinese and print out what you want with a competitive price in HK$. This helped me a lot in negotiations. You may also want to buy a Hong Kong model rather than a U.S. model, as it will come pre-loaded with CJKOS, penpower, and other programs that help make your device bi-lingual. If your not up to having menus and everything localized to Chinese, ask the sales person and they can switch the display to English, but it will still have better Chinese capability than one off the shelf from the U.S.

Oh, one last thing, I think the Centro is a U.S market only device. When I was last shopping I saw a very similar device bearing a Treo name (forget the numbers Treo 900 Treo 500 or whatever) in European and/or Asian websites. So asking for it by the model name may not get you as far as just asking for PDAs or Palms.

Good luck.
 
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pdmagnan

Member
Just bought a Centro yesterday at 中关村 for CNY 1400 including a 4GB mini SD card. I previously used a Palm TX but liked the idea of having phone / Pleco in one device. The sales man said that he is THE palm guy at 中关村. He claims to import them from Singapore. Nothing about it indicates that it is anything but authentic.
 
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