The PDA Guerilla: The Palm Foleo

Big news today: Palm is announcing a totally new device, the Foleo, designed to be a companion device for Treo (and possibly other) smart phones.

For those who haven't caught up with this yet, Palm accidentally leaked its own press release, dated today, announcing ths new device. Those who want to see the entire press release can read it in Evan Koblentz's most recent blog entry here on Computerworld.

No one has seen the new device yet, so it is early to make predictions of its potential for success. The release describes it as a Linux device that:

• ...has a large screen and full size keyboard to view and edit email and office documents. Edits made on Foleo automatically are reflected on its paired smartphone and vice versa.
• Foleo and its paired smartphone stay synchronized throughout the day or at the touch of a button.
• Foleo turns on and off instantly, features fast navigation, a compact and elegant design, and a battery that lasts up to five hours of use.
• U.S. availability for Foleo begins this summer with pricing expected to be $499 after an introductory $100 rebate.

Without actually seeing the device, the thing that excites me most is that it is based on Linux. I have hoped for a long time that we would see Linux-based PDAs/smart phones enter the market. I still hope for one that has the Palm application and user interfaces built in so that it will run my 30-odd third party PDA applications.

On the physical design side I like the approach of the Apple iPhone, which actually looks like a PDA. Instead of taking up half of the precious real estate of the face of the device with a keypad and/or thumb board, it uses a virtual keypad and keyboard that you can display when you need it. So when you are making a call you can turn the entire screen into a large keypad. When you want to look at a photo or video, the entire front of the device becomes the display screen. I personally use the Fitaly virtual keyboard for most of my writing on my PDA, and again I can display it when I need it, but when I am reading a book I can make it go away and have the entire screen to display the book page. When I need a physical keyboard I have a full-sized one, that folds up and that connects via Bluetooth and sets up in less than two minutes. It isn't perfect, but it is a lot better than a thumb board.

I think the big question with this device is will people spend that much extra for it, and will they carry it around with them, or will they connect their Bluetooth-enabled smart phone to their Bluetooth-enabled laptop to receive and manage email when they are out of the office or home? The advantage of the smart phone in handling e-mail is that you can do it anywhere, without needing a desktop or even a chair. This will require that you carry an extra device, which will probably be too big to fit in a pocket (judging from the description) and which apparently only functions as a terminal for the smart phone. Most people who need computing power away from the desk already carry a laptop, so this becomes yet another device to stuff in that computer bag.

Then we get into the question of battery drain, which is always the limiting factor in small device design. Bluetooth is low-power compared to Wi-Fi, but it does drain a smart phone's battery pretty quickly if it is on for a long time.