PhoneMag.com reports: [edited]
Building on its vision that the future of personal computing is mobile computing, Palm announced the Palm Foleo, its first smartphone companion product.
The Foleo mobile companion has a large screen and full-size keyboard with which to view and edit email and office documents residing on a smartphone. Edits are made on the Foleo are automatically reflected on its paired smartphone and vice versa.
Features include:
* Instant on, instant off
* 10-inch screen and full-size keyboard
* Web search and browsing via Bluetooth or Wi-Fi
* Editors for Word, Excel and PowerPoint, plus a PDF viewer
* Lightweight at 2.5 pounds
* 5-hour battery life
* Linux OS for easy application development
U.S. availability for the Palm Foleo mobile companion will begin this summer. The price of the Foleo mobile companion is expected to be $499 after an introductory $100 rebate.
BRETT'S THOUGHTS:
The Foleo may fill a niche for a few people. However, the future of portable computing is convergence, not divergence.
Mobile phones are the most popular form of computer because they are so effortlessly portable. People put up with their second-rate user interfaces, tiny displays and shoddy cameras because they love the convenience.
Second-generation telecommunication devices like the iPhone will steal market share from both the mobile phone and the laptop computer sectors... what is needed are better portable displays and text input devices. And when it arrives, and one day it will arrive, it will sell in quantities that make the iPod sales statistics look puny.
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2 comments:
Foleo is a miss... It is too big to put into the pocket, so you need a suitcase anyway. Once you have suitcase you have a full featured laptop. There is no reason to have a bad one if you can have a good one.
Foleo is not going to be one of the three: Keys, Wallet and Cell. So, it is a miss...
Yep - agreed - what a waste of time and effort developing this.
I can't believe Palm have even gone down this route.
They should have spent all their research dollars wining and dining me, and I could have told them it would be a flop.
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