Palm Announces Foleo Mobile Companion with 10-Inch Screen, Wi-Fi

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Palm, Inc. has just formally unveiled the Foleo, the first in a class of devices it is calling Mobile Companions.

This device will be significantly larger than Palm's handhelds and smartphones. It will have a clamshell design with a 1024-by-600-pixel, 10-inch display and a full size QWERTY keyboard.

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In another departure from Palm's typical products, the Foleo will not include a touchscreen. Instead it will be controlled with a track point, forward and back buttons, and a scroll wheel.

It will weigh 2.5 pounds, and Palm says it will offer up to 5 hours of battery life, even when using Wi-Fi .

Works with a Smartphone or Alone

Much of the time, the Foleo will work in conjunction with one of Palm's Treo smartphones. It won't have cellular-wireless access itself, but can be synchronized with the Treo. It will also be able to piggyback on the Treo wireless Internet connection via Bluetooth.

The Foleo will give users access to much of the same information as is on their smartphone, but will let users work with it on a larger screen and keyboard.

This device will synchronize with both this company's Palm OS and Windows Mobile based Treos.

In addition, the Foleo will be able to synchronize its PIM information and emails with any Windows Mobile device, and Palm would like to add BlackBerry and Symbian support.

Plus, a smartphone won't be required. The Foleo will also have Wi-Fi short-range wireless networking.

As expected, this device will run a version of the Linux operating system, and will be open to third party software. It will come bundled with the Opera web browser and a version of DataViz's Documents To Go, allowing users to create, view and edit Microsoft Office documents.

Those wanting to use these Office documents to make presentations will be pleased to learn that the Foleo will have a VGA-out port.

However, at this point it does not appear that this device includes a Garnet compatibility layer, which means it will not ab able to run current Palm OS applications. All software for this device will have to be specially written for it, or ported from other Linux versions.

Some Information Still Unknown

The Foleo will include an external SD card slot , but it won't stop there. It won't have a built-in hard drive, but it will sport an internal CompactFlash card slot, allowing consumers to add many gigabytes of storage.

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At this point, though, Palm is not saying how much storage will be built into the device.

It also hasn't said what processor it will use.

Jeff Hawkins, co-founder of Palm and the one who led this product's design team, said, &quot;Foleo is the most exciting product I have ever worked on. Smartphones will be the most prevalent personal computers on the planet, ultimately able to do everything that desktop computers can do. However, there are times when people need a large screen and full-size keyboard. As smartphones get smaller, this need increases. The Foleo completes the picture creating a mobile-computing system that sets a new standard in simplicity.&quot;

Pricing and Availability

The Foleo will cost $600, but Palm will offer a $100 rebate at its introduction.

Palm says this device will be available this summer, but does not give any more exact date. To sign up for notification about Foleo availability, visit www.palm.com/foleonotify.

 

 

I really wonder how the instant on off switch works. Does it never shut down when off? Even the most basic phone takes a few seconds to boot up.

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I do not think the whole "in between smart phone-laptop" concept will work very well.

 

It stores everything in memory, that's what makes for the quick loads. If you want to see more conversation on the topic, there's a very active thread on Brighthand.

http://forum.brighthand.com/showthread.php?p=1532639

 

An instant on laptop (which is really what this is) that allows you to quickly access the web and weighs 2.5lbs would actually be quite handy for me. Really though I'd want to try this out to see how the usability is and how the keyboard and pointing stick are -- on paper it looks pretty cool in my book, but that theory could crumble if the keyboard feels like mush and the software is impossible to use.

All the same, interesting to see a new device by Palm that's a pseudo-notebook and that runs Linux.

 

Interesting device. Looks very cool.

 

Some things to take into account ---

1) No video?
2) No Hard drive?
3) Docs to Go still isn't as good as office. Formatting still gets lost. I wouldn't want to depend on docs to go -- if they had office built in, then it would be something else...
4) Why no touchscreen? I don't think this form factor will work. The lightest ultraportable laptops are only a little bit heavier, albeit much more expensive. I just don't know how successful it will be.

 

I'd only use it for web usage, as limited as that might be. At $500 it's about 25% the cost of a regular ultraportable, so that's appealing. It'd be at least $200 more with a touchscreen. I agree though, it's not going to be for power usage. Keeping price in mind is pretty key here though.

 

I believe this concept has much potential, especially since it does most of the basic tasks as an ultraportable notebook for a small fraction of the cost.

If everyone looks as good as it does on paper, I would be very interested in this subnotebook.

 

Meh, what a pointless product...

It's as expensive, if not more so than a lot of mainstream laptop.

It doesn't do a whole lot -- essentially it's just a Treo extension with a BIGGER SCREEN and a keyboard.

But it doesn't REPLACE the Treo...

So what's the point?

I mean, when I go on business trips (pretty frequent), I will be bringing my laptop cuz it's got all my crap in it and I can work on my projects en-flight or watch a dvd or play a game or... I will of course have my smartphone or a regular cell. I see absolutely NO place for another 2.5lb... "mobile companion" or whatever, not only don't i need to carry another 3lb of weight, I dont even know what purpose it really serves? I mean I STILL need my cell and I STILL need my laptop...

cheers,

yass

P.S. Yea to echo above: If this thing has a touch screen, and can actually REPLACE either the Treo or a real laptop, maybe there's a market for it. But as it is -- it's just another 2.5lb of deadweight that nobody would want to carry. Didn't Microsoft tried for something like this 10 yrs ago and bombed? lol

 

Soo.... it's a watered-down subnotebook that costs thousand dollar less? I would buy it if it costs like $299, given it's limited functionality. Either that or it's 60% smaller and 80% lighter.

I see Starbucks as picking up a bunch of these if they ever plan on putting an internet kiosk in their coffee shops.

 

I'm with you Andrew, but only partly. It might look cheap in comparison to other subnotebooks, but it is extremely limited. Someone asked about Youtubing and the guy said it could but would be very slow. I guess the ARM-based processor that's probably in it is just too limited to do much more than browse some simple web pages and write some email.

A cheap subnotebook I'll go for, but this? No way, not for $500-600.

 

This is silly man.

Why would I want a half working laptop when there are plenty of ultra portable around?

Palm should go back to designing phone.

The latest Treo 755 is nothing more a repackage with lesser battery juice.

 

yeah, the price is good. but with no touch screen, and no possibility for external mouse....

If manufacturers starting making more barebones UMPCs they would wipe this thing out...like if they had a UMPC that was only 1-200$ more expensive but that ran a full version of windows and had a touch screen, Palm would go out of business practically!

But I can understadn the appeal this device has - the main complaint about documents to go on PDAs is simply the fact that the screen is too small, and any integrated keyboard on the device would be too tiny to be efficient on.

The weight is pretty good, and a 10" screen is good for this machine. I can't wait for a real review to see how it is.

 

I predict there will be a bunch of very cheap and small linux laptops on ebay within the next year.

 

Although a horrible implementation, I think Palm has opened up a new market - a very cheap, subnotebook that runs a more stripped down version of an OS that is mostly for web browsing/email/word processing. I'm thinking something like the UMPC but in a laptop form factor. It doesn't need very fancy hardware, in fact ARM-based CPUs would probably suffice and help battery power. It doesn't need a hard drive, just maybe 2-4GB of NAND for work when not connected and when it is, it can act basically as a terminal back to a corporate VPN. The ultimate business machine.

Shouldn't be too hard to do for most manufacturers at all. They just need to make sure it's not implemented like Palm's version.

 

Not quite a laptop(it doesn't even have the power to play flash videos?!! )

Not quite a phone(well, it isn't)

A glorified typewriter(read: Alphasmart Dana http://www.alphasmart.com/products/dana-w_In.html)

$600?

All I can say is... meh.

cheers,

yass

 

It reminds me of the same hardware spec as the OLPC. I am wondering if other manufacturer like Quanta and Asus may jump into this spot as well.

Does this thing have a wireless or does it need a Treo around for connectivity?

 

I'm a Palm fanboy. Love my Treo and ther other Palm devices I've owned. But the Foleo is underwhelming for a number of reasons:

Specs:
- 10.2-inch color screen (1024x600)
- SD card slot
- CompactFlash slot
- VGA out (1024x768)
- USB Port
- Bluetooth
- Wi-Fi (802.11b only)
- 256MB of RAM
- Additional carrier charges
- No real OS support
- Limited PIM management
- Syncs only with a smartphone - not a computer
- Security - easy to steal, but can be password protected

Just off the top of my head. I expected something more from Palm. There's a possibility this will turn into a very usable tool. Just not right out of the gate (or for several more years).

 

It would be somewhat usable as a portable web browsing/email checking device if it weren't for the fact that it's severely underpowered. I mean it can't even do YouTube properly. What else can it not really do?