SlashGear Japan
If Palm were hoping for a rapturous welcome for their Foleo smartphone-companionthen they were probably sorely disappointed. Opinions on the compact emailing/surfing device have ranged from “nice, but is there a market?” to “they’ve seriously lost their way and are no longer contenders”. Here at SlashGear we don’t quite feel as strongly as that, but all the same it’s good to hear some hands-on feedback from your friend and mine, Kevin C. Tofel, after he played with the Foleo at the Digital Experience show.
Apparently Kevin is resolutely “not the target customer” in Palm’s opinion; that’s him as typifying someone wanting a far extended portable experience beyond the scope of a smartphone, not as an individual (I hope!), since the company is targeting the Foleo at “mobile professionals” who’re pretty much looking for a bigger keyboard and Excel-friendly screen.
Whether you agree that there’s a sufficient demand out there for the $500 device or not, it certainly looks appealing. Kevin was impressed by the simplicity (and, thanks to some Outlook theming, familiarity) of the apps, while the keyboard, mouse trackpoint and mini scrollwheel were all comfortable. Instant-on is apparently true to its name. Personally, I think the key point is this:
“We both agreed the biggest challenge for the Foleo is to get people to understand what the device is intended for, similar to UMPCs. Sure I use my Q1P as a true laptop replacement, but I’m the exception. Expecting it to be that is too high an expectation for some; the same goes for the Foleo. If you can accept the device for what it’s intended to be and hold it to those standards, it’s quite capable for that feature set and use case.”Kevin C. Tofel
The Foleo still smacks of a slick device looking desperately for a market, especially when you compare it to mini-laptops like ASUS’ Eee which is going to seriously undercut it (starting at just $199). I’m looking forward to trying one, but I can’t see myself ever opening my wallet.
Twenty minutes with Palm and the Foleo[jkontherun]
2 Responses to “Hands-on with Palm’s Foleo reinforces niche nature”
Joe July 3, 2007
ASUS’ Eee, let see, it is slow, with chances of Spyware/crap infecting it. Reliability issues for sure. Another jack of all trade laptop, but a very slow one.
Palm Foleo, instant boot up, no spyware to worry about. Focuses on what it wants to do, with the options to do way more since it is linux based. I’d get the Foleo because small laptops are useless(i’d think they are very slow, and heavy maintainence), faster laptops are big, if small, they are in the thousands range.
I’d pick the Foleo when 3rd party software starts to churn out, just like what 3rd parties did to the Treo/Palm Pilot, make it way more useful than it was intended for.
Neutralnate July 6, 2007
Asus has always been good for me as far as the hardware quality goes. I never ever use any of the bundled software I get with any hardware, so I don’t know how much spyware they add on to their stuff, but I realy doubt they do at all.
As far as the Folio running Linux.. it’s running the Linux kernel and I expect the UI is all Palm. Depending on who you ask this is a plus or a minus… but the Asus is suppose to run a full Linux distribution by default, with the ability for end users to install to XP on their own or something like that. It’s using bog standard Intel parts, except for the flash harddrive with as far as I can tell no proprietary drivers. So it seems that anybody can do what they want with it. It has 2D and 3D acceleration, wifi, card reader, vga out, solid state storage, and UMPC-style display.
If you want the option of using a larger display with keyboard with your smartphone or PDA or whatever then the Folio is what you want. This is for execuative folks that tend to travel. They live off of their smartphones with most of their corrispondance with other people going through that. They will percieve this device as just a way to make it easier to draft longer emails and surf the internet while they are at the airport or whatnot. It’s just a nicer display and keyboard for times they are sitting down. That’s all.
If you look at the price people are charging for just bluetooth keyboards and such then this device is not far priced off. This is a display AND keyboard, so it’s double-good. At least for it’s target audiance.
It’s a nitch product. I think comparing it with the Asus EEE is a bit unfair. I think that if it wasn’t for the EEE then you’d have people mucking around with it trying to turn it into a miniture laptop, but it’s not what it’s designed to do. Hell the EEE doesn’t even have bluetooth, so it’s not even expected people will be trying to use their phones with it.
They are different beasts. It’s a apples and oranges comparision.
If you want to do EEE vs ____. Then look at the existing UMPCs out on the market. Feature comparisions, OS vs OS, price differences. Another one is EEE vs OLPC. Even better, since the OLPC is never intended for the open market, you can go EEE vs Via’s Nanoportable prototypes.
Via 1.2 vs Intel 900mhz.
Intel 910G graphics/sound/IO vs Via’s onboard stuff.
Via’s 1gig of ram vs EEE’s 512
20-30gig laptop drive vs 4-8gigs Intel solid state disk.
Asus/Madriva’s “Easy Linux” vs Vista-compatable/XP
etc etc.
Now that is a more interesting comparision. Low-end Nanobook should be around 600 bucks. The 8gig model for the EEE should be around 400, if rumors are correct.
The Folio is off in left feild. If you go looking at that you might as well through in PDA, Tablets, and Smartphones into the comparision.
If your going that way then it may be interesting: If you had to choose, what would you use for ultra-mobile computing device? You have all of these to choose from. Which one is best for what budget? What if your using it for business or pleasure? Do you need to work with a Windows network or is it just for your own use? Do you want to rely in hotspot wifi or do you want to have access to data services over cell phone networks?
Neutral