Usability & Performance
First off, Sprint’s Centro worked great as a phone. Signal strength was excellent virtually everywhere I went in the San Francisco Bay Area, and calls came through loud and clear on both ends. The speakerphone was decent for a cell (i.e. Usable in a pinch), and I appreciated the “Ignore with Text Message” feature for deflecting incoming calls I didn’t want to take. Calls may be dialed via the touchscreen or dedicated keys on the QWERTY layout, which are color-contrasted to the rest of the thumbboard for ease of use.
The handset features a 2.5mm headphone jack, and I was also able to easily pair it with a variety of mono Bluetooth headsets. Unfortunately, A2DP for Stereo Bluetooth is not supported on Centro. Voice quality and wireless range were good when using Centro with a wireless earpiece. Centro’s Bluetooth support also supports “Phone as Modem” for tethering which, combined with Sprint’s 300Kbps + data speeds, makes Centro a pretty decent go-to option for getting online with your laptop when there’s no LAN or WLAN to be found.
Centro’s QWERTY keyboard is a bit of a mixed bag. Initially I was really pleasantly surprised by how usable it was given the diminutive size of the buttons. Frankly I was expecting the thing to be all but useless to me and my big hands and thumbs. I was wrong - I quickly found myself able to tap out messages and URLs without making all that many mistakes. However, once I settled into a thumb-typing groove I began to experience fatigue in my hands and thumbs. Both the device itself and the keyboard are small enough that I had to bend my hands, fingers, and (most of all) thumbs in an uncomfortable way to effectively type on the QWERTY board. I wound up with hand and thumb cramps.
To be fair, I think many people could adjust to the device with reasonable success so long as they pay attention to how they’re holding the phone and don’t plan on regular writing of pages-long missives using the tiny buttons. But if you’ve ever tried an HTC Tilt or Mogul or a BlackBerry 8700 or Curve, Centro’s keyboard will pale in comparison. I’m not saying it’s a deal breaker, but I am saying you should get the device in your hands and type on the keyboard awhile before deciding it’s the smartphone for you.
4.3
