Upcoming From Palm – The Foleo

Today Palm announced their new product. Palm Foleo (press release)

Lots of news has been floating around the interwebs about this new product. Some people think this is a great?innovative product from Palm. I think its not that useful.

What?is it?

The Foleo mobile companion turns on and off instantly and features fast navigation, a compact and elegant design, and a battery that lasts up to 5 hours of use. Its applications include email, full-screen web browser, and editors or viewers for common business documents such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint and PDF files. The Foleo stays synchronized via Bluetooth(R) wireless technology and uses the smartphone’s radio or the Foleo’s built-in Wi-Fi radio for general Internet connectivity.

In simpler terms:

The Palm Foleo is an extension of your Palm Treo Smartphone. The two devices are connected via Bluetooth to provide you all of your smartphone data on a larger screen with an attached full-sized keyboard. The Foleo is NOT a stand alone product but works in tandem with your Treo. What it does is basically gives you a larger screen and a keyboard to enter information into your Treo.

Do you need one?

I don’t see the point in getting this product. If all this thing does is make your Treo experience easier by getting a larger display and a keyboard then whats the point. Isn’t that the purpose of your laptop? If you are looking for a small portable computer then why not get the Fujitsu P1610 which is a small Tablet PC. Yes the Tablet will cost more but it will do MUCH, MUCH more than the foleo.

According to some commenters in the post from JK on the Run?the Foleo is not a companion device and can be used as a stand alone device. If that is true then I can see this being a neat little product for the estimated 500 bucks. It will be cheaper than any other Ultra Mobile PC. Still I don’t see the need for the device if you already have a Laptop and a Palm or Windows Mobile Phone.

Loren Nason
Future of Real Estate Technology

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