It is a frustrating experience reviewing a new Palm smartphone, and especially frustrating in the case of the Centro. It took a few days for the battery to settle down and the GPS issue has been solved.

The form factor is brilliant and this is the first Palm device, since the Palm V, that I really like the look of. The OS is still the best in the market in my opinion and allows me to do the crucial PIM stuff while many other devices fall flat. The keyboard is indeed small but perfectly usable and overall I was impressed with how quickly I could input data. Call quality is excellent and it genuinely does feel like a phone, rather than a smartphone compromise.

The Centro is a consumer orientated device that on the face of it should do very well- it looks good, is easy to use and has something very special about it. Almost everyone I show this phone to likes it and some 'really' like it. At last Palm has built a phone that people do want and managed to find a design that is different enough to create widespread interest.

I re-wrote this article over and over again as I gradually solved the little niggles that annoyed me at first with the Centro, but have come to the following conclusion. I was sitting at home the other night and just looking at the Centro- it has the potential to become and iconic smartphone and has already produced the kind of emotional response from me that no other phone has in the past year. It's not perfect by any means, but it is special and one of the best smartphones I have used to date.

PDA247 is 6 years old!

As is traditional, we are going to celebrate by holding a competition, and this time you can enter whatever content you like!

It's completely up to you what you send in, but there are some specific areas that are worth remembering. We need a new forum banner (400x45 pixels maximum size) which should fit the current design, we are tempted to try new web site banners (1 for each site needed) and besides those you can send in software, hardware or accessory reviews. You can send in articles about the PDA world in general or maybe a few items that are newsworthy.

Whatever you choose to send in please make sure that you title your email "6th Birthday". You can also enter via the forum thread detailed below. Here's the prizes so far-

To enter please send an email with your entry (entitled "6th Birthday") to shaun (at) mailstm.co.uk or post your entry in this forum thread.

The closing date is midnight (UK time) 21st March 2008, so you have some time to think up a good entry.

AAS has published the Nokia N78 Hands-on Preview. Not quite sure what to make of this phone.

The Nokia N78, announced at Mobile World Congress 2008, is a candybar form factor Nseries phone with a 3.2 megapixel camera, integrated GPS with WiFi and HSDPA connectivity. It is Nokia’s new entry level Nseries product (a relative term when it comes to Nseries – the N78 comfortably qualifies as a mid to high-end product when seen in the context of Nokia’s complete device portfolio). In terms of hardware, the N78 is a step down from its Nseries sisters – less out of the box memory, smaller screen size, smaller camera resolution – but for the most part the actual functionality is still there, making the N78 a compelling proposition for those on a budget.

In terms of positioning, the N78 is a successor to the Nokia N73 (which was a successor to the N70). The Nokia N73 has been one of the best selling of Nokia’s Nseries, partly due to its price point, but also because it was, and is, a great all round handset. I’ll be drawing some comparisons throughout this preview as I suspect the N73 to N78 upgrade path will be a popular one.

infoSync has published a comparison of $100 QWERTY keyboarded phones- "A $100 smartphone was previously equivalent with a refurbished smartphone. Now you get brand new QWERTY smartphones for the same price.

Since Palm introduced the Centro at a $100 price point, there's been a significant price drop in similarly targeted Windows Mobile smartphones. We won't speculate whether Microsoft has taken matters into own hands and decreased its licensing fees for this kind of phones, or if carriers are hungry for more data plan customers. It's regardless nice to see a more healthy pricing policy across the market on such mid-range devices nowadays.

A side-by-side comparison of the contenders' specifications can be found here. All three of them features high-speed networking by means of either HSDPA or EV-DO, but we've also put together a comparison between four QWERTY smartphones with EDGE networking (and Wi-Fi on some) that can be found here."

Luca spotted an interesting article called Adding a 1.2GHz Pentium M processor to the Eee PC which will presumably speed thing up a bit...

While there are several variations of the Eee PC, with different amounts of storage and RAM, each Eee PC ships with a relatively slow Intel Celeron processor. One Eee PC owner who goes by the name of Gurywha decided that the he wanted a bit more juice in his tiny laptop. So he popped out the 900MHz Celeron chip and soldiered in a 1.2M Pentium M processor.

Keep in mind, this is not an easy modification to make. I know you're all proud of the fact that you were able to upgrade your RAM, but it doesn't mean you're qualified to attempt this hack. But if you know your way around a soldering iron and a miniscule circuit board, it's apparently possible to replace an Eee processor.

Today's free eBook is The Support Technician Tango by Daniel Abraham- "By its nature, a self-help book is written by someone who thinks they know what to do and read by someone who doesn’t; there hasn’t been a better setup for the pompous to fleece the credulous since Rome stopped selling indulgences. The saving grace is that the bad advice of the authors is almost always ignored, misunderstood, or abandoned by readers who go ahead and do whatever they would have done anyway. Some people knit lace, some people improve themselves; self-help is a pointless hobby but harmless.

There are, however, exceptions.

In among the hatchet-faced, unhappy women who advise on matters of love, the avuncular sports nutrition PhDs who advise on matters of love, and the Jungian analysts whose advice on love may perhaps pay off their divorce lawyers, there is a deadlier breed."