Palm has just raised the bar

Stefan Constantinescu

Stefan Constantinescu (@WhatTheBit on Twitter) has loved technology since as far back as he can remember. It started with computers, but in the past few years his passion has turned to mobile devices. As a mobile phone enthusiast who lives and breathes devices that connect to the internet, he knows he is not alone with this radical fascination of all things wireless. He is strongly opinionated and enjoys a good debate so leave comments in his posts and he’ll get back to you! Stefan began blogging as a hobby in the fall of 2006 and joined IntoMobile in the summer of 2007. Later he got a job at Nokia in March 2008, but as of June 2009 he has rejoined the IntoMobile team. He is currently based out of Helsinki, Finland.

• Steve Litchfield

  Eh? ‘Raised the bar’? The Foleo is a dumb idea and I can’t believe Jeff H is behind it. So people are going to have to buy a smartphone AND a Foleo in order to function properly? Well, that’s $1000 spent. I’d rather have a Nokia E90……

  grr…..

  Steve

• Stefan Constantinescu

  We should do a debate on this Steve, similar to your recent N95 vs E90 post.

• Milhouse

  Palm fanboys are already calling it the “Fooleo”.

  Spec: 10″ screen, 2lb device, 1024×800 non-touchscreen, WiFi, Bluetooth, solid state (no hard disk), flash memory expansion.

  Wow, I might as well buy myself a cheap laptop.

  The Foleo has the potential to bomb very badly. It might have been something good 2 or 3 years ago but today it’s a disaster of a product – what are these clowns at Palm thinking? If the Foleo had the N800 Internet Tablet form factor it could have been a very interesting concept but without a touchscreen and at 10 inches and 2lb in weight, forget it!

  See you in Chapter 11 guys…

• Ken Camp

  As the owner of more than ten Palm devices, I have to disagree Stefan. Palm didn’t raise the bar. They ran, jumped and hit their forehead on the bar then fell. This is a total yawner from my perspective.

• Advisor

  Eh? Raised the bar? How exactly? What’s so great about this device? Come on, it’s 2007, not 2000.

• Greg

  I can see where a device like this would be useful, however not at a $500 price point, for $199, I can honestly say that I would probably get one. Most laptops are definitely more than 2 lbs so it is certainly lighter. Something like this would be great simply because it offers pretty much all the same functions as a standard business laptop (office and internet support), while losing the large weight, low battery life, long boot times (when not in standby), and heat output. Obviously this wont be marketed to everyone, but if made cheap enough I can see this being a decent addon for business professionals who live on their smartphones.

• cybette

  The idea is great but the execution by Palm isn’t all that…

  My 10.6″ screen laptop is only $200 more, a tad heavier, and it can be a smartphone companion as well as have total functionality by itself. (Only downside is it’s not instant on.)

  The N800 form factor (with qwerty) would have been much better. I can stuff it in my purse. I’ll need a laptop bag for this Foleo thing.

  But yeah, if it were $200 I would probably take it for a spin. Sometimes what looks a certain way on paper may be different in practice.

  I think everyone is trying to find that sweet spot (in terms of size and price and features) between smartphones/PDAs and laptops. There may be a few (such spots), and N800 found one of them, but Foleo, imho, missed…

• Caspar

  Dude, it’s just a Psion 7 updated. That flopped, so will this. It’s twice as expensive and half as exciting as it should be.

• Vaibhav Sharma

  Didnt really make me drool either! I agree with Steve completely! N i like the Fooleo part too!

• sofiaa

  thank