Following months-and-months of hinting and speculation, Palm confirmed the existence and availability of the Centro. The new device is in a new candybar case, that features a fully functional QWERTZY keyboard and touchscreen.

The Centro is powered by a 312MHz Intel XScale processor and it utilizes Palm OS 5.4.9 — not WinMo, which should make a lot of you happy. It will be available exclusively (at least for now) under Sprint, which means that it features acceptably fast EV-DO mobile broadband.

Like all Palm devices, the Centro has threaded messaging and access to a host of programs and peripherals. Dave Zatz of Slingmedia, for instance, says that Sling anticipates that SlingPlayer will soon be fully supported by the Centro. So there’s that.

Anyway, the Centro will be available soon for $99.

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