After months of speculation and rumoring, the Palm clamshell has arrived a few minutes ago…nicknamed Foleo. To start the report off, here are a few pictures of the box:
Specifications are not available at this time – Palm’s web site gives a few pictures and a bit of blah-blah, but no real information as of now. Palm says that the machine’s color screen is 10 inches wide. The machine does NOT have a touchscreen – one of the images above shows a trackpoint and a cursor – things typical for non-touchscreened machines.
As for the OS; Palm has said that the Foleo runs on an “open Linux OS” that developers will be allowed and encouraged to program – the machine should be an “open platform”. However, as of now, the PluggedIn web site contains no SDK for the Foleo. Also, Palm has not given any information on compatibility with existent Palm OS apps…
Foleo’s reason-d-etre is “smartphone enhancement”. Palm repeatedly mentions the “one touch sync” capability of the Foleo, both screenshots show the Foleo’s email program. Palm’s web site also mentions that the machine should be well-suited for web surfing. Last but not least, DataViz provides an office suite for the machine – but there’s no word on multimedia capabilities as of now!
The machine will cost 500$ when it first hits the streets(with a 100$ mail-in rebate) this summer…
Here are a few links with further information:
Palm’s own Foleo web site
Palm’s press release
BusinessWire image gallery
DataViz announcement
Tune in soon for more information and an editorial on the machine’s potential!
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Tam,
There may be no SDK availiable as of yet, but if you sit through the announce ment at pdn.palm.com you can register to be ntified by mail when it arrives.
Just FYI,
Ryan
I also requested a notification.
Folio…well doesn´t sound cool but may be a good attack on UMPCs … Ultra Mobile Palm?!
Well if it has good stats, such as 100 % office support, good connectivity (wLAN & BT) long batterylife and light weight it may actually be a very usable travel-notebook.
But I expected something a bit more out of the “normal” after these announcments …will change mobile world etc.. ….
Just watched palms presentation. So as they show the foleo it seems to be an extension for smartphones(treo only?) – what it is capable of on its own is left unsaid. IF it can only get email through the smartphone and surf only via smartphone-internet connection it is a bit expensive, if it can do those things alone it may really be an alternative to the 12´´ superexpensive travel notebooks.
Will be really interesting to see the final stats on this one.
No modem? No hard drive? It requires a Treo to be fully functional? That makes it considerably less useful than a notebook PC of the same size.
And it’s way too large to beat a UMPC.
Boil it down to the size of a T|X, hinge a small keyboard on it to make it a clamshell, and chop 1/3 off the price… they maybe I wouldn’t have to go looking at Windows Mobile devices.
My initial reaction was that if this device is to rescue Palm, they are looking at abject failure. I was extremely disappointed with the announcement. Palm has made *nothing* for me to upgrade to (from my T3) for years now.
This is just another “me too” product, unless…
Maybe the smartphone connection really is a big deal. How many times have you seen people with a 3G smartphone in their pocket, and a separate 3G data card in their notebook. Even thinking that these devices have a synergy is beyond most people, let alone actually setting them up work together.
If this works with any smartphone in a way that is foolproof to set up, this might fly. This is going to be very price sensitive – otherwise people will just buy a notebook.
No modem is not a problem (the phone takes care of that), neither is no hard drive – it is easy to store your content so it is accessible at all times, from anywhere, and a hard drive stops people from thinking of doing this.
Looks like Palm have ceded the handheld/PDA market to PPC/WM (yuk).
rjhinde,
I get what you’re saying, but for me spending $200 more to get a fully-functional notebook PC and synching to a Treo over Bluetooth (or wi-fi) makes more sense.
Foleo seems to be nothing more than a 10″ display added to one of the BT keyboards already available for Palms.
It runs linux and has a command line (FUN!) so,
I am kind of thinking of gettin gone but then my common sense kicks in…
Someone will eventually work out how to run Linux apps on it (either through some Hackage or just recompilign the code) and then it may be worth something… If we got PRC-Tools going on it, think about /that/! I have been thinking, and though I will never have enough money (I want a Treo real badly), it would definaitely be fun after about a year of others hack at it a bit.
It still seems gimmicky, but who am I to say if it will be succesful?
I think it’s far too big, personally. I have a T3 and used to install basically any hack I could find to make it as powerful as possible, but nothing renewed my interest in buying another Palm (there are too many issues with the TX etc., plus my T3 had more dynamic heap etc.), which forced me to look elsewhere. I bought a Zaurus (SL-C3200) and will probably never buy another Palm device again unless they really make a good Linux-powered device (although I still use my T3 for PIM stuff).
This could have been good news if it was a 5-7 inch screen with a keyboard in clamshell format, but this looks even bigger than the Kohjinsha which is a full UMPC and not too expensive (although I would hope that this is cheaper).
I hope they do better with their second generation Foleos.
http://www.dynamism.com/sa1/pricing.shtml: 999-1499
Foleo Price (no link. google it): 499 after 100 rebate.
So your hopes have been answered. I am still stuck in the middle of my two voices in my head arguing… I just listened to 1Src podcast 131. so that didn’t help.