A New Palm Product to Watch

By Gerry Morris

I use my Palm Treo for email when I’m out of the office and am not carrying my laptop. It works fine for receiving and reading emails. However, composing or answering emails is a challenge on the small keypad. I sometimes carry a folding IR keypad for my Treo but the two models I’ve tried don’t work reliably. Palm has just announced the beginning of a new product line designed to make the smartphone more useable for email and other tasks requiring typed input.

The Foleo is a device that looks like a small laptop computer. It has a 10 inch screen and a more or less full sized keyboard. Since the item won’t be available for sale until the Fall, its full capabilities are still somewhat unknown. However, the Palm website, www.palm.com, has a flash media presentation that let’s us in on its basic functions.

The Foleo will sync email folders with your smartphone, either Palm or Microsoft based, via a Bluetooth connection. Emails can be read, edited and composed on the Foleo and then sent through the smartphone’s Internet connection. Additionally, users will be able to surf the web on the Foleo’s screen utilizing the smartphone as a modem or through its built-in Wi-Fi capabilities.

Additionally, email attachments, such as Microsoft Office documents can be opened and edited. Palm’s website lists Powerpoint presentations as one of the device’s capabilities. Adobe pdf files can be viewed. I can’t tell from Palm’s info or from the numerous web articles about the device whether it has the capability of creating a new Microsoft Office document or of just editing one downloaded as an email attachment. Photos can also be transferred from the phone to the device and viewed.

The Foleo runs a Linux based operating system. Its stripped down functionality allows it to be “instant on” at startup. Palm says its battery life is about 5 hours between recharges. The device weights just a tad over two pound.

The initial price tag for the Foleo will be around $600. As an introductory offer Palm will include a $100 rebate to bring the price down to $500 for a while.

Palm’s founder, Jeff Hawkins, touts the Foleo as the beginning of a new generation of devices. He describes the product as the extension of the smartphone that users have long asked for. Judging from the blog articles about the device, its reception in the techie community has been mixed. However, the criticism has been of an interesting sort. Those who have actually been able to try out a prototype haven’t complained about its functionality but rather what it won’t do. The main criticism from those who’ve tried it as well as those who have simply read about it is that it won’t do what a laptop will do. But, as one blogger pointed out, that’s the whole point of the thing. It doesn’t have all the software and operating system components of a laptop so it can be “instant on,” go for five hours on a charge, weigh two pounds and cost around $600.

Still, the bloggers critical of the Foleo ask a legitimate question. “Why would you want one?” If you have a laptop, you can download your email and do anything else your software allows. Why get a device that only does a few things? Some writers go so far as to predict that the Foleo will turn out to be a serious boondoggle for Palm. Given Palm’s past success, I expect the future will be brighter for the Foleo.

Palm and Jeff Hawkins have displayed a genius for developing simple devices that perform popular tasks well. The Foleo is set to be the latest edition of this tradition. Yes, a laptop can do a lot more. But, a two pound laptop costs three to four times as much and has shorter battery life. And, laptops don’t turn on instantly.

In my day to day professional life, I am out of my office frequently. When I’m out, I often communicate with my office and others throughout the day via email. I also make notes to myself and for my files by sending myself emails. I can’t do this very effectively on my Treo keypad and I don’t like carrying my relatively heavy laptop with me all day. I think a device like the Foleo could be real handy for me. Most of the time I simply don’t need to do anything with an Internet enabled device but send and receive email, or view an email attachment. Given Palm’s past history of making good products I expect that the Foleo will do these simple tasks well. I’ll probably give one a try.