Palm Foleo
Palm has released their Foleo, a companion to smartphones. The Foleo has a 10 inch screen and sports a full-sized keyboard. With wireless and Bluetooth connectivity, it’s main purpose seems to be to provide a better mobile computing experience, without sacrificing usability. Instant-on technology is provided, so there’s no delay in getting up and running. A smartphone is required as the Foleo does not contain a GSM radio. If you’re outside the range of a wireless network, a Bluetooth link to a modem is required to gain online access.
The unit is priced at around USD 500, which is not too bad. This may be an alternative to the Nokia N800 Internet tablet for quick and easy Internet access at home. The problem is, this device is exactly what the press blurb mentions: a mobile companion. It’s basically an extension to document viewing and editing on a smartphone and transfers edited documents back and forth using Bluetooth connectivity. With a form factor that is effectively a notebook, there’s little to recommend it, other than the instant-on. With flash cards of decent capacities available soon, current notebooks may be able to provide the same functionality and then some.
I must say I struggle to see the point of this a bit. If I need this functionality at my traditional work space, I already have a laptop that can do far more than this. If I’m mobile, do I really want to lug around something as large as this just to be able to view things on a larger screen but with a heavy device (compared to a PDA) that has limited functionality? Kind of defeats the purpose of a mobile device – I’m prepared to put up with limited functionality for ease of carrying around. It’s kind of like lugging an unwieldy pair of speakers everywhere to listen to your iPod.
I agree – a smartphone already does everything, albeit on a smaller screen. Text entry is often an issue, but external BT keyboards and mice offer some convenience. In any case, heavy note taking is still the forte of a notebook. Or something like the Genius pad that digitizes ordinary scribblings and lets one download it to a PC.
No doubt the other readers were thinking, “The teacher is like the candle which lights others in consuming itself..”.