Finally, the “Hawk” has taken flight… right into a power line.
This is Palm’s mysterious third business line? This is what Palm and Treo inventor Jeff Hawkins called the most exciting product he’s ever worked on?
In case you haven’t seen it yet, the Palm Foleo is a laptop without a brain. It’s a clamshell device with a 10 inch LCD sceen and laptop-sized keyboard that relies on a Bluetooth connection to your smartphone for not only internet access, but for document storage as well (it does have WiFi and a bit over 100MB of local storage, but it’s really designed to sync with a smartphone). Essentially, it’s a wireless keyboard and screen rather than just a wireless keyboard.
All the hassle of a laptop, none of the utility
I already stopped carrying my Stowaway Sierra Bluetooth keyboard because it was too much of a hassle for the limited stuff I can do with mobile apps. The Foleo is at least twice the size of my Stowaway, and far more power hungry, yet it doesn’t offer much more. You get a bigger screen, sure, but you’re still limited on what you can do with it.
And at $499 (after a $100 rebate), as a mobile tech colleague of mine put it, “they’ll sell dozens of these.” If I’m going to go through the trouble of carrying something decidedly not pocketable around–and keeping it charged–I’ll spring for the extra Benjamins to get a real laptop that can run OneNote, Word and Outlook, thanks.
Essentially, that sound you hear is Palm’s stock dropping through the basement. Let the takeover rumors begin!
9 Comments
Actually, I think this a great idea that is unfortunately way ahead of it’s time. If you had a smartphone running a full version of Vista, OSX, or Linux, this would be a useful thing to have. You wouldn’t need to buy a notebook. However, since it will be paired with a crippled OS like Garnet or Windows Mobile, it is exactly as you describe.
Ah, but at least Jeff Hawkins has finished and released the thing he was working on. Unlike yourself.
Ow. Okay, officially not feeling the love.
Jeff,
some of your comments are not right, at least technically speaking.
The Foleo is not a dumb machine dependent on your treo. It can work standalone and has enough processing power to run a Linux kernel, some kind of GUI layer, and Opera on top (even with DOM, JavaScript and Flash). So, even if you won’t be able to edit photographs with Photoshop or play the latest fancy 3D game it will have enough power to run normal mobile applications.
I think we need to look with a bit of distance to get all the possibilities of this machine. It’s too soon… but with the right third party software it looks promising to me…
Imagine you’re on vacation… you could connect your small 120Gb HDD to the USB port, insert your SD card and transfer all your photographs to your HD, review them, classify them and get your cards ready for next day. You can even write blog posts, resize them and publish them through its wi-fi connection (or bluetooth DUN to your mobile phone -it doesn’t have to be a treo-). Part of this can be done with a Treo or a Lifedrive, but the bigger screen and keyboard is what I need to not feel so lazy and really do it (it feels so cumbersome to do the same thing in my Lifedrive, with Blazer accesing wordpress and the graffiti II for typing the post…. ugjjj).
…and you don’t need a big bag to carry it….
…and it doesn’t have spinning or moving parts… so it won’t be as fragile as a normal laptop… You can probably put in your everyday bag with no hassles and worries…
…and it’s “instant on” feature means it’s always ready for action, much faster than even the “hibernate” thing…
I admit I was a bit down at the first moment, but now I’m feeling more and more interested on the possibilities of this little machine (specially at the introduction price). Maybe Hawkins it’s not as crazy as we all think.
I’m hopeful. Of course, I haven’t really been happy with my very-mobile writing options since I abandoned my Tungsten with keyboard and Wordsmith for a Treo. I generally carry either my primary computer, an IBM thinkpad which requires I carry more weight including padding and power cables, or I use my ancient Alphasmart.
It’s my experience with Alphasmart which is an indestuctable, instant-on, very light and small word processor that makes me think Foleo has real potential - at least for my needs.
What I really need though is a feature that won’t let me web surf or check email until I have written a certain number of words.
Originally, that was one of the things I liked about writing on my Palm: there wasn’t much else to do on it, so my distractions were minimal. Now I have so many other things to do on my phone that I’m better off writing on my PC. Weird.
Jeff, you forget that you were the one who had the vision of future mobile computing as not having to take all your data and documents with you. If the “Foleo” is a device that allows you to access data from your home or office PC by using a direct link to the Web or through your phone, then this what some business users will want.
I freely admit that if you do everything via Google (Gmail, Gdocs, Gcal, Gnotebook, Gporn, etc.) then the Foleo starts to look like a pretty good option. Except that you can get a “real” laptop from Best Buy for $400 (a Benjamin cheaper than the Foleo, even after the BS rebate) if you shop around for a good sale.
The problem with the Foleo is that no matter what market segment you’re aiming for, the Foleo comes just short.
Aging boomers who just want to do email while they watch Boston Legal? Screen’s too small for sixtysomething eyes.
College kids who would benefit from a lightweight and very durable (due to having no moving parts) laptop to schlep to class? No multimedia, especially YouTube.
Road warriors who already have smartphones (the Foleo’s actual market, if you believe Palm)? Already have a laptop, thanks, some of them ultralights not much bigger than the Foleo but nonetheless able to run Vista and Office 2007.
This could be a new platform, it could be the first really viable Linux consumer PC, it could be a rethinking of what a laptop should be in the Web 2.0 era, but… it’s just not very good. Nice idea, Hawkins, pretty laughable execution.
I’ve been thinking about it more and I am convinced that Palm is trying something very bold; re-defining our concept of a personal computer as a set of smaller cheaper devices that divide up the functions… none of which require Windows.
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