Mainstream

• Today, Blackberrys are a common sighting amongst young and old. Gone are the days of corporate executives being the only ones able to carry such a device. Palm's new WebOS platform is a complete rewrite poised to take aim at the Blackberrys, iPhones and Google Android phones of the world, debuting solely on the new Palm Pre. Though not too long ago, these smartphones were not part of mainstream culture and Palm and Research In Motion worked hard to develop devices that would work as crossovers and land in the hands of the average consumer. Enter Blackberry Pearl and Palm Centro, both devices a bit slimmer and sexier than their corporate counterparts
  
  

Centro vs. Pearl

• The Palm Centro has a full qwerty keyboard while the Blackberry Pearl has a numeric pad/condensed keyboard with two letters per key laid out in standard qwerty fashion with SureType auto-correcting technology to help with typing. The condensed full-qwerty keyboard of the Centro may prove to be too cramped for some, especially those with larger fingers. The Centro has a touch screen about the keyboard and comes with a stylus to navigate. The Pearl has a glowing trackball--hence the name Pearl--used to navigate the system. The touch screen comes in handy over the incessant scrolling of the trackball. The Centro has a brighter and larger screen over the Pearl, at 320 x 320 and 240 x 260 respectively. The Centro is slightly larger than the Pearl and weighs a little over an ounce more than the Pearl at 4.2 oz. The battery life of the Centro is better than that of Pearl at 12.5 days of standby time vs. the Pearl's 9.
  
  

Verizon

• Palm Centro for Verizon comes in a cobalt blue color, while the Pearl comes in silver. Both devices run on Verizon's EV-DO data network bringing broadband-like speeds to the smartphones. The Pearl has a GPS receiver and can be used with Verizon's VZ Navigator GPS-navigation system. The Centro does not have GPS capabilities, though can be paired via bluetooth with a GPS unit. Neither of the devices support Verizon's VCast mobile entertainment portal. Both devices support Microsoft Exchange, but the Centro has support for Verizon's Wireless Sync service to keep up to 3 email accounts in sync.
  
  

Operating System

• The PalmOS that runs on the Centro has been around for nearly a decade without much of an overhaul, initially developed to run Personal Data Assistants. In the beginning of 2009, Palm unveiled its new WebOS platform that is light years ahead of PalmOS and upon deployment in middle of 2009 with the arrival of Palm Pre--the first WebOS-based phone, it nearly instantly rendered the PalmOS obsolete. The new operating system is not backwards compatible with previous Palm devices. The Centro is still being sold, but it sits in the shade of the large shadow of its newer, younger, sleeker brother--the WebOS-run Palm Pre. The Blackberry Pearl on the other hand runs Research In Motion's Blackberry OS that is still relevant and being updating today.
  
  

Winner

• Had the Pearl and Centro just come out, picking a clear winner would have been a much harder decision. The Centro's touch screen allows for much simpler navigation and application control, the battery life is significantly longer and the initial price tag was half that of the Blackberry Pearl at only $99 with a two-year contract. With Palm abandoning the PalmOS software, the Pearl will continue to evolve while the Centro simply stagnates. For that reason, the Blackberry Pearl is much better choice for Verizon Wireless service over the Palm Centro.