We don't mean to harp here, because we understand how long it can take to get a phone through a government bureaucracy like the FCC -- not to mention that little issue of Sprint exclusivity -- but we were just a little shocked to see that the Centro 685 (
the technical full name for the GSM Centro) was tested a hot minute ago. How long ago, exactly? Well, as early as May of last year, according to the test report documentation, though the label shows a first revision of December 11 of frickin'
2006. Ah well, nothing to get too worked up about; at least it's available now, right? Also notable is that someone in either Palm or the testing firm slipped up and made references to the Treo
800w in the label document, so yeah, we can pretty much gather that it's stone cold real at this point (as if there was any doubt).
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
DeeBee @ Feb 21st 2008 3:24PM
Eeem veeeeeery old news :(
Rich @ Feb 21st 2008 3:39PM
What's more interesting is that FCC *approval* was granted only last night, which - I think - means AT&T was selling it illegally for three days.
Malatesta @ Feb 21st 2008 5:47PM
Actually, this is not true--
The GSM Centro completed FCC testing in Jun 2007 with the review on Jun 28th.
Palm had a confidentiality request--when they market the device, they are supposed to notify the FCC to take the docs out of confidentiality--which is what happened and why all the "submitted" + "available" dates are 2/20.
Rich Brome @ Feb 21st 2008 5:57PM
Malatesta,
That's not how it looks to me. Right on the grant it says:
Date of Grant: 02/20/2008
Application Dated: 02/20/2008
It may have completed testing a while ago, but the FCC didn't finish reviewing that testing and actually grant the approval until this week. As soon as they issue the grant, a listing shows up in the public database no matter what confidentiality the company requested.
In fact, Palm DID request confidentiality for the detailed docs, and THAT doesn't expire until April 5, 2008. (Which, as you noted, shouldn't happen once the device goes on sale, so again they are breaking the rules.)
storino03 @ Feb 21st 2008 3:59PM
Isn't the GSM Centro BT 1.2 and not BT 2.0 ? I know the CDMA Centro is BT 2.0
--James
Malatesta @ Feb 21st 2008 5:34PM
The Centro's have BT 2.0 radios in them but the OS only uses the 1.2 stack.
"...though the label shows a first revision of December 11 of frickin' 2006"
Palm no doubt has devices in the works at least 12 months out from projected released as most manufactures are on a 12-16 month cycle..
However, what was actually submitted on Dec 11 was merely the FCC label + Location (Items 7 + 8 on their required list)--the FCC ID though wasn't added till May 06, 2007--which is right before testing started.
So the physical Centro was not submitted till May 07.
In other words, Palm submitted the most generic of "paperwork" to the FCC when getting ready to submit a device--equivalent to pre-labeling all of your homework assignments, without doing any actual work.