Palm’s latest in its long line of smart phones is also its smallest, and probably its best looking.

It’s also returned to the Palm operating system that the company seemed to temporarily abandon with its recent run of Windows-based handsets (that would be the Treo 750v and 500v, in case you’re wondering).

Slim phone, streamlined features

It’s about time the company updated the Treo look, but while this comparatively sleek model has the good looks and petite proportions to look like a proper smart phone (as opposed to a PDA workhorse with a few phone apps tacked on), many of the features leave a lot to be desired.

There’s no 3G or Wi-Fi, for example, the 1.3-megapixel camera is below the standard you’d expect on a mid-range phone in 2008 and the music player could be kindly described as basic.

The screen is noticeably smaller than previous Palms but it’s plenty big enough for web browsing or viewing documents. A shame then that with 64,000 colours it’s not a bit sharper, though it’s certainly bright enough.

It’s touch-sensitive too, which gives a greater amount of options when scrolling through the menus, but it can be a nuisance switching between the hard keys and the virtual ones.

A closer look at the Centro's design

The Centro doesn’t feel as sturdily built as Treos of yore, the plastic battery cover on the back of our sample being creaky and feeling a bit loose. It can handle up to 4GB of MicroSD memory card, although you won’t find one of any stripe in the box.

The slot is on the side, fairly well camouflaged (we couldn’t find it until we took the back off) and quite fiddly to get into – but at least you don’t have to remove the battery. The too-flexible plastic stylus, meanwhile, which slips into a pocket on the top, is certainly practical but feels inexcusably cheap.

In typical Treo fashion, the snug QWERTY keypad includes the numerical keys and though the keys are crammed very close together, their protruding bulbous shape made from a sort of spongey plastic makes them distinctive enough to be easy to use.

They feel quite good too, and the D-ring with its central ‘Palm’ button and surrounding four soft keys are equally easy to use, with a minimum of slippage.