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Palm's popular Centro smartphone is now available from AT&T. Until now, you could only buy the budget-priced Palm OS-run handset from Sprint in the U.S.

The AT&T Centro is very similar to the version offered by Sprint, except for one important difference: AT&T's Centro, unlike Sprint's, does not support 3G cellular-wireless networking. So while you can speedily surf the Web, stream multimedia and download content to Centro on CDMA-carrier Sprint's EV-DO 3G network, the same can't be said for GSM-operator AT&T.

Rather, Centro tops out at AT&T'S 2.5G EDGE network, which is far slower than the carrier's UTSM/HSPDA counterpart to Sprint's EV-DO network. The reason for this disparity is, apparently, the lack of support for GSM-style 3G in the Palm OS.

As with Sprint's Centro, AT&T's is small and light at 4.22 x 2.11 x .73 inches (10.7 x 5.4 x 1.8 centimeters) and 4.4 ounces (119 grams). Even so, it sports a 2.2-inch, 320 x 320 pixel resolution touch screen and a full, if tiny, QWERTY thumb-keyboard.

At first, Centro only comes in "glacier white" with a dash of green to highlight its numeric keypad for AT&T. Since multiple color options are available to Sprint customers, we expect the same to eventually become true for AT&T.

There's also a microSD slot for memory expansion—for up to an additional 4GB of storage on top of Centro’s 64MB of RAM—Bluetooth wireless for personal area networking (i.e. connecting to a PC, a headset, car kit, etc.), a 1.3 megapixel camera with 2x digital zoom for taking pictures and video, and a 1150mAh-removable battery.

Centro is the first Palm OS device to support certain AT&T-specific wireless services, such as XM Radio Mobile, Push to Talk and MusicID.

    

AT&T is selling Centro for $100 with a 2-year contract and after a mail-in rebate. Unlimited e-mail and data access is available for $30 a month with AT&T's PDA Personal data package and a corresponding voice plan.

Palm just started shipping Centro in Europe last week. While you could by the similarly small and light Treo 500v there, that smartphone runs on Windows Mobile and not the Palm OS.

There’s 64M of internal storage and a microSD slot for up to 4GB of additional storage per memory card. It also sports Bluetooth, a 1150mAh removable battery, and a 1.3 megapixel camera with 2x digital zoom digital camera. Fore more on Centro, see here.