Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Palm Foleo Revealed

It includes Wi-fi ... but you connect it to a smartphone? This device is very confusing. An incredibly small market.

The Foleo is less than a laptop, but not by much:

Foleo: $500
Smartphone: $150-250
Total: $650-750

You can get a used 15" G4 Powerbook for 799: http://lowendmac.com/ibook/deals.html
 
Well from all the hype in the last 24-48 hours, I guess I was expecting more from Palm's announcement.

However, I am not going to dismiss this out of hand. As a current Treo 750 user this is a device that is squarely between a couple market segments. I am hearing a great deal of chatter in this thread comparing this to Macbooks and the iphone. I have a Macbook and for 85% of my travel (which is heavy) it can be overkill. I don't carry DVDs or play many games while on the road (some of this simply b/c the Macbook can't hang graphics wise). I like the Office capabilities of this device. I think the battery life really needs to be better, but oh well.

I am still waiting to see what comes of the iphone. WiFi or no, the lack of 3G is a deal breaker for ME. Your needs may vary, so please don't interpret this as a n attack on the concept of the device, but I don't understand the rapid dismissal of what Palm is trying to do with this.

While I think Windows Mobiles sucks, It is released and has been for some time. Devices are available with 3G radios and having a large screen/full keyboard companion that can link up to near broadband speed internet on the go via the treo and leverage the Treo's Activesync capabilities for Exchange.... well that just might meet the needs of 40-50% of the road warriors out there. Especially if this device gets a full featured browser.
 
This is *kinda* cool. I have a Nokia tablet 770, and this is similar in the fact that it would be cool 2 years ago, but by now its almost pointless. I can see future sub-notebooks with Robson in a year doing exactly what this does, with the benefit of running a variant of Windows or OSX that can do much more than this.

At least it isnt "multitouch"
 
Thataboy said:
Mark my words... this will be the most panned, hated, reviled and mocked gadget of 2007. And all of that derision will be completely warranted.
Click to expand...

Seriously. What. The. Heck?

I can't believe Palm is so stupid to announce this. Stuff like this has NEVER panned out. As others have said, why get this when you can get a full-fledged computer at the same size? This will be a complete and utter flop of a product.
 
I could see some uses for it. A "niche" of people don't need to carry around a computer for other use than typing, email and internet. This does it. If I didn't need the power of my macbook, I would consider it.

Anyone have any specs on the machine? flash drive? capacity? processor?

Too small of a niche to be widely popular, but I could see it getting a cult business following.
 
can it play WoW? :D

you guys are a bunch of fools. If this had an apple logo on the top and was the rumoroed ultra portable you would eat it up, orders would be placed and you would be super pumped about this item instead of bashing it.
 
I could see how this would be nice for college classes. Just for taking notes and some internet browsing when the lecture gets stale. The instant on is a big plus as well as the long battery life.
Its kind of innovative in that it allows you to do all that Office doc stuff from you phone except with a much larger screen and a useful keyboard. Maybe people will actually edit Office docs from their phone with this... thing.

This is actually something I could use at work very nicely. I travel a lot during the day but usually end up back at my office by the end of the day. I really only need access to my email and my document folder on my PC. This would have fit the bill perfectly. Alas, I ended up with a Dell Subnotebook.

This would have been a killer idea about 4 years ago or so. Now? Not so much. It certainly is not an iPhone killer but then I don't think it was meant to be.
 
I see no purpose for this thing.For a couple hundred more you can get the iPhone and do a lot more.The days of qwerty keyboards and keypads is coming to an end.If folks don't jump on that bandwagon they're gonna miss out.Negative vote.Worthless device.
 
the device is quite beautiful actually, sure it's different from Apple's style which we love so dearly, but it ain't bad at all..

  • regular keyboard that extends end to end like on 12" PowerBook
  • I personally welcome the trackpoint
  • no unnecessary or legacy stuff like optical drive and harddrive
  • most likely runs on some efficient ARM processor / SoC - promising battery life
  • I bet the OS and apps are made lightweight on resources, proly no heavy X Window but instead proprietary, so it's like OS X in a way - *nix under the hood like Darwin/Mach and a proprietary GUI on top of it like with Quartz/Aqua
  • the idea of fullscreen apps only - makes perfect sense for ever so small displays and makes for a clean looking coherent GUI
  • the prospect of third party apps progressively closing the gap between this lightweight device and subnotebook for common tasks performed by average users - of course lots of us will still require certain specialized apps which will never be supported on such a device, but remember we're in minority in general population!
  • IT'S INSTANTLY ON! - I hate waiting even to recover from hibernation, let alone booting up!

of course I miss WiFi, let's hope for better future though.. as of now the device is nearly unusable for the lack of third party apps, but this will change.. if the Linux crowd fall in love with this based on the fact it runs on Linux (like if it was important in any way), we'll see a lot of apps being written or ported over..

don't be so negative to everything outside our favorite fruit supplier..
 
Skrilla™ said:
can it play WoW? :D

you guys are a bunch of fools. If this had an apple logo on the top and was the rumoroed ultra portable you would eat it up, orders would be placed and you would be super pumped about this item instead of bashing it.
Click to expand...

Hardly! This product will be referenced in the future only as the way not to do a hand held. It will be a perfect contrast to Apples hand held when it gets released.

Please get a clue...
 
Funny.

Went to some Windows forums where they argue that the Mac is a niche product.
Now I'm on a Mac forum where they argue that the Palm is a niche product.
I wonder what I'll find on the Palm forums? :D
 
Skrilla™ said:
you guys are a bunch of fools. If this had an apple logo on the top and was the rumoroed ultra portable you would eat it up, orders would be placed and you would be super pumped about this item instead of bashing it.
Click to expand...

Um, no. If Apple had designed and release THIS, I would be selling my Apple stock IMMEDIATELY. ;)
 
its cute, and looks like it could be killer for note-taking and writers.. What i'd really like though is a reasonably powerful tablet device for art on the move instead. Even more of a limited market though.

Reminds me of the Newton Emate 300 a bit. :)
 
so to sum it up:

the people who are happy with just a smartphone/iphone complain it's too big and unnecessary

the people who want to carry their itunes and iphoto libraies all time complain it's too limited.


but you are not married to that damn thing!

if you go to a trade show, scientific meeting, vacation trip, across the street to give a presentation, go to class to take notes, take a business trip to NY and read some pdf publications then you bring it with you. it's only $500 and 2.5 pounds.

in all other cases you leave it at home or bring your macbook pro.

i can see it as a nice gadget that you need once in a while. if 1% of smartphone users buy one then they sell at least 20 million of those. that's far more than microsofts zune can ever achieve. and that costs $300.
 
I was just about to write that this is unbelievably shameful for Palm.

But then again...

... I think it may make sense to some very big corporate customers, companies that have already equipped their field workers with Palm smartphones. For SUCH customers the features of the Folio make some sense (PRICE, zero boot time, long battery life, simplicity, integration with phone, controlled software environment).

This device makes no sense in the consumer market. So, overall, Palm seems to be focusing on the CORPORATE side, where the iPhone is perceived by some to be not very threatening.
 
*Yawn*

This is the ugliest thing I have ever seen.

It looks rather cheap, a plastic folding thing that requires a smartphone to work or do anything serious. Why get a smartphone AND this? This thing isn't small enough to carry around, if anything, it only makes the syncing between smartphone and computer easier. HOWEVER, knowing Palm, there must be some bugs in there.

It's another unnecessarily piece of equipment. I travel quite a bit and I don't like having to carry anything more than I have to.

And the argument that students would want to take this for presentations and note taking. WHY? Unless you are mighty rich, students rarely need this sort of gadget. It's limiting and I believe most students would eventually find out that a pen and paper beats any gadgets especially for those diagrams or images or any doodle, note passing we love to do.
 
As a long-time Palm customer (since my old Palm III) I have watched this company make many confused and dumb moves, but this one takes the cake!!!

I can't figure out who this is targeted at...

Is it at the home user that wants a light and somewhat cheap way of getting online? A la a WebTV for the new millenium???

Or...is it for a business user that already carries a Treo/Blackberry and a laptop...where the hell does this thing fit in???

I don't get it...I think my Macbook will be the perfect iPhone companion!

:D :apple:

-- N
 
Changed my mind. I want one now!
Looks like it's running on linux...so it's open.
Give us the specs, if it has something like 128-256MB RAM and 1GB onboard mamory, I'll gladly get one!

Install fluxbox on it, some IM client. It would totally ROCK! I think this is hackers' dream...hackers like cheap embeded devices they can tinker with ;)

foleoterm.png

it has a terminal, woot :p
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back