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My affair with Palm occurred years ago, before Handspring merged with Palm, Inc to form palmOne. The original inventors of the Palm Pilot and founders of Palm Computing did good – I had a modest Visor Deluxe that saw me through my student years. I paid that off with money earned from scooping ice-cream at Swensens, just for the record.

When I finally graduated from school and held my first job as a struggling Account Executive, Handspring has since re-married Palm,Inc. to for palmOne. In the most cost effective way possible, given my technical background in web design, my then Agency made me play a producer role on top of that as an AE, supporting the lead producer in the maintainence of Palm’s APAC websites. Proofreading in Traditional Chinese was a killer but having five Palm PDAs to play with made up for the pain.

A few years passed since then, and I had joined TBWA – the Agency of Record for Palm. Yup, I was reunited with Palm yet again. This time, it was advertising in 5 markets. A piece of cake, until you have a major product launch. Like the Treo 750v smartphone. Yes, that famous one that introduced the Windows-yuck-Mobile operating system in his body. I missed the birthdays of my grandma, dad and my own because of the launch. The affair became fairly bittersweet.

It almost felt like fate, when Samantha Chan of Fleishman-Hillard invited me to review a couple of new Palm boys I’ve not had the chance of fooling around with since my departure from TBWA. Astute as she was, she spotted a comment I made on DK’s blog pertaining to his review of the Palm Treo™ Pro smartphone, asking if someone could repair the Treo™ 680 I’ve kidnapped as a souvenir when I left TBWA. You see, I love the Treo™ 680, but he was sick. As a result, I ended up seeking solace in my Apple iPhone. And the latter was starting to piss me off with his temper.

So here I am, not only with a fresh recovered Treo™ 680, but a couple of new Palm boys for company. Blankettes, meet the Palm  Treo™ Pro and Palm® Centro smartphones.

Now, I’ll say this upfront. If you want a typical techie review, from a typical techie geek, I’d much rather you visit the following sites:

Palm Treo™ Pro

1. Hardwardzone
2. Tech65
3. DK

Palm® Centro

1. CNET
2. Engadget

You don’t need me for that. Sure, I can edit my own HTML files and write a decent poem in CSS, but truth is, I’m not a Nicholas Aaron Khoo. I’m probably a diluted Xiaxue with less hair. Hah.

Before you read any further on my product review, it is only fair to the Palm boys if you understand what my needs are:

• Ease of use: Often or not, I’m doing 3 things at any one time. I need a phone that allows one-hand operation and allow me to execute whatever I need in 3 steps or less.
• Style: For the same reason why I wear a Rolex and not a Swatch in a black-tie event, I need a phone that commands respect, not chuckles. And oh, small enough to slip into my back pocket please.
• WIFI: I’m one of those shameless cheapskates who tap into either Wireless.sg or someone elses’ wireless. I need WIFI because I refuse to commit to Singtel’s ridiculous 3G data plans.
• Email: If you haven’t got email support in the cutest UI possible, you’re out. No buts.
• Threaded SMS Messaging: Like Facebook’s birthday alerts, I like to appear seemingly more thoughtful than I otherwise am. I will forget conversations sometimes.
• Reliability: I’m a virgo. I get paranoid all the time. I cannot afford to have my phone break down on me when I most need it.

Here’s what I think of the new Palm boys.

Who would I go for? The Palm® Centro most definitely. I’m a stickler for reliability. And unlike most women, I haven’t got the urge to fix anyone. Or the patience for that matter.