Redfly Ressurects Foleo Concept; Is Also Flawed

for Foleo faithful -- the Celio ...

Celio Corporation hopes to avoid the Palm Foleo’s fate with its new smart phone companion, which was designed to give Windows Mobile devices a larger screen and keyboard for surfing the Web, viewing and editing Office documents, and more. Unlike the Foleo, the 1.9-pound REDFLY doesn’t have its own processor or operating system; it syncs over USB or Bluetooth 2.0 with your smart phone and extends Windows Mobile to an 8-inch display. This device looks like it has potential, but the high price may give some pause.

Business users will like the built-in VGA port for putting on presentations with PowerPoint Mobile, as well as the up to 8 hours of battery life. You can even plug in USB drives to access files on the go. This clamshell should be available sometime in the first quarter for $499. The company told us that it was targeting enterprise users first, especially those who use sales force automation applications, but that it expects at least some cross-over with early adopters.

Now that you can get a full-fledged computer like the Eee PC for $399, the REDFLY might not fly with consumers, but we think it could make some waves in the business market if the synchronization works as promised. Stay tuned for a full interview with Celio later this week.

As long as they dont expect to sell more than 1 to 2 thousand they will be OK ;)

Surur

what I really don't understad is:

"Unlike the Foleo, the 1.9-pound REDFLY doesn’t have its own processor or operating system..."

how can any device -- especially a semi computer-- not have its own processor or operating system ???

Because it doesn't need it. The Celio is basically a external keyboard, battery, and monitor. Garnet as it is could not have done that (simply), hence what Foleo was trying to do. WM can support serveral resolutions, and so it would be merly a matter of a driver that is saying that "when the Celio is conneted make the screen show this resoltuion." After that, it would just be up to the smartphone itself to drive the package. And seriously, today almost any smartphone should be able to do that just fine.

Palm is a bit vidicated in this (and iMate's similar) announcement. But, this also shows a bit of why it looks bleak, until people get out of the idea of the laptop/PC being the center, and not the mobile as the center, ideas such as this will not be understood.

waste of money to spend $499 on a keyboard and a screen... you could get a decent LCD and a PS3 with that money already...

Palm was on the right track with Foleo. Proof of this is the popularity of the Asus PC Eee. They did alot of things right IMO, but went wrong in that they went with a PDA level processor.

Palm likely had a rock sold product from an ergonomic standpoint and the effort they put into instant on. Lack of mainstream software support killed them.

This device is even at more of a lost than the Foleo.

Let's hope Palm keeps the Foleo I form factor and design, but moves to a mainstream hardware base with Foleo II.

For most mobile computing tasks, these ultra mobiles (specking of my Eee) are wonderful.

[quote=~Q~;1393789] This device is even at more of a lost than the Foleo.


I agree to the extent that the utter absurdity of the price makes it look like Palm were cutting us a good deal with the Foleo. :D Both are targeting the same niche, people with too much money to care.

But, in principle, as an on-the-road travelling solution, this is actually exactly what I wanted the Foleo to be, i.e. a processor-less device. If one is working with a total computing system - like I imagine many EEE users are - of at least three units (EEE/SmartPhone/MainPC) the complexity of keeping everything in sync, and maintaining three potentially very diverse operating systems, raises up a few notches, not just one. That I can live without. Then again, if it's just for fun, around the house, well I guess syncing etc is of little consequence.

Of course, there's no reason why Palm or someone couldn't produce two different devices, to satisfy both of us, since we are looking at very different needs. Mine is basically an accessory, and the popularity of foldable keyboards, suggests it would be a very desired accessory.

I was interested to hear Antoine's explanation of why Garnet couldn't do what this one does though-- thanks!

cheers

Assuming Hawkins reads tech news (for some reason, I think he doesn't, lol), he must be sooo pissed to see all of these other kids take his idea and run with it while he was basically grounded by the new parents at Palm.

It's a shame too, you wonder if they had delayed the original announcement of the Foleo long enough, Elevation might have still killed it but before the proverbial cat was let out of the bag, letting Palm refine the concept and release it in a more refined, cost effective and feature packed form.

Despite RedFly's faults, it's just a matter of time before someone really gets it right and Palm, who would have basically invented this device category, will be seen as having to catch up. I think that is a text book case of irony, lol.

What is the point of enlarging a pocket IE or reading a HTML email with full of links?

I am still thinking the Foleo concept is one of the best. The original idea is to sync all the PIM data from ALL phones and reformat it to a more readable format. The only drawback of Foleo is it cannot be worked standalone device. If the Foleo II can work independently and also work together with ALL phones, I don't see why it will fail, especially the EEE sales is so good.

^_^

Good.....Good..