Palm Centro, the latest smartphone form Palm, available in the US exclusively via Sprint, was declared to have the "most appealing innovative design" by a report from Strategy Analytics, a leading international research and consulting firm. The research focused on newly released or pre-launched mobile devices on the US market and it revealed that Palm Centro is preferred by almost half of the questioned consumers that intend to buy a hew handset in the near future, ahead of Samsung i760, Nokia Prism, LG Rumor and Pantech C810.

Officially released in September this year, Palm Centro combines business, communication and entertainment features into a slim and compact CDMA device that provides a QWERTY keypad, a generous 320 x 320 pixel Transflective color touchscreen, HSPDA connectivity and other attractive features.

After the Palm device, consumers rated Samsung i760 as the most appealing handset, and no wonder, as the stylish smartphone runs on Windows Mobile 6 Professional, packs a QWERTY keypad, 320 x 320 pixel display, HSPDA and A-GPS navigation.

Nokia Prism, LG Rumor and Pantech C810 are also regarded by consumers as appealing phones, which is not a surprise since all three handsets look very well and bring nice features.

"The Samsung i760 and Palm Centro top the purchase likelihood table for those seeking a multifunction, fully integrated device", says Paul Brown, Senior User Experience Analyst at Strategy Analytics. "The Nokia Prism is perceived as the most feminine and fun new product, appealing to our Voice + Music segment."

Furthermore, talking about the latest LG smartphone, Mr. David Kerr, Vice President of the Global Wireless Practice, said: "The LG Rumor performs strongly across the Multifunction, Voice + Music and Voice + PIM (Personal Information Management) buyer segments. The Rumor is also positively reviewed by the Style Seeker and High Data Spend buyers."

Back to Palm Centro, it seems Palm did a great job with it and we must expect that in the future the company will release even more appealing devices.