I'll make it short, sweet, and to the point. I work for Palm as one of the field reps going around to the stores, and I love the company. I love the products. I do believe they're a bit too stagnant, but I still love the company and their products. I also recognize that they've turned out some turkeys. The 650 and the original 700w had hardware issues, the 680 isn't 3G and has a VGA camera (which you CAN'T blame Palm for, Cingular specifically requested the stripped-down specs for it, don't ask me why), and the 750 is...well, it's Windows Mobile, what do you expect from it? And now, we have the Foleo. Looks great on paper, but it's a total niche product. From day one I was excited about it from a tech geek perspective, but I still rolled my eyes because it sounded like Palm was pidgeon-holing themselves. Then I got my demo model to feel out, get comfortable with, and get ready to demo to my stores after it launches.
I'm posting from my Foleo right now. This thing is addictive. It's convenient, bloody more convenient than my Thinkpad was before it caught fire. I used to check my email out of necessity but now I actually kind of enjoy it. Really, this thing isn't full of innovative technology or even anything we haven't seen in one form or another before. There's no real rhyme or reason for it, but I genuinely enjoy this product. And so far, so has everyone that came to the demo events or seen me use mine in passing. The Palm Store in my territory gets daily inquiries about it from people chomping at the bit. This thing is a little grey diamond in the rough. Is it going to fly off the shelves and go into production droughts like the Nintendo Wii? Probably not. But it's not going to flop, at least not without a fight. Now, I'm going to go check my work email and catch up on Homestar Runner.
Thanks for this post. Personally, I like this idea, after spending time trying to use a miniature bt keyboard with my PDA. There is definitely a niche for the Foleo, snide comments on this post notwithstanding. It will be MUCH easier to use on a plane than most laptops, and the instant-on feature will make it handy for casual use.
PDAs/smartphones are small and convenient, but at times it's handy to have a full-sized interface. Yes, I can see this filling the same kind of niche the Journada/TRS-80 portables used to sell to. If Palm can follow through with iPhone/Blackberry compatibility, it could be huge.
I just hope the damn thing works the way it's supposed to.
Here's the thing, D... for the most part I think people want to agree with you. However, it sort of seems foolish when your flagship products are in deep doo-doo (those you mentioned and those you didn't -- like the 700p...).
I personally think the foleo *could* be a great way to get out-from-under the carriers and enabling Palm to innovate independent of the current carrier-constipation that messes up any changes or innovation that Palm tries to introduce.
I just wish it were lighter, a bit smaller, and had beefy enough specs to shut people up... so far, I can't see that they have this in place.
Even with instant-on, if the capabilities aren't there and the battery life falls victim to hype it won't take but ONE misstep, ONE flawed patch, ONE case of data-loss for this initiative to fail.
IMO, 2+ pounds in this day and age is just too heavy (unless the specs are KILLER otherwise). - John Carter
Right back at you, in some ways I agree, but not entirely. Regarding your wishes, it wouldn't be practical at that point, not for what it's supposed to be. Lighter, not unless you want to compromise the battery, at which point you lose one of the key promises, extended battery life. A bit smaller, again, not possible. The inside is packed pretty tightly, so you can't shave it down thickness-wise. The margin of room to either side of the keyboard is mere milimeters, the bare minimum width they could support while offering the full-size keyboard, and the key size and spacing was tested at all different measurements (smaller keys, smaller spacing, etc), and they went with the size they did for maximum comfort-of-use to minimum-space ratio. Believe me, the designer was very proud to talk about the amount of care he took to design its form-factor. And shaving the depth decreases the space for the internal guts AND cuts down the monitor size, which, again, removes from the overall promise of the device. Trust me, a lot of thought went into designing this thing. And as for the specs, I personally wish they'd gone with a slightly stronger processor, but if there's something the computer industry is teaching us lately, it's that MHz mean very little, it's the practical and efficient application of the power that counts. Sort of like how 1,000 horsepower is nice, but without the torque to back it up, it means absolutely nothing. They're doing a good job of harnessing what it has, and much more would produce undue heat, which is very bad for a system without a fan.
As far as fatal mistakes go, battery life is, so far, exactly as promised (can't say it'll stay that way with media software loaded on it, as I don't have it yet to test). Flawed patches are, unfortunately, a hazard of ANY software venture and you're right, they could spell demise for the Foleo, so they need to be EXTRA careful about that. But data loss...the only time I have encountered that, so far, was installing the compact flash card to expand the storage. Doing so, the Foleo transfers system and user info the to CF card, wipes the internal storage back to factory, and shut it down. If you remove the CF card, all the data will still be on it (your email, your personal files, etc.), but they will no longer be in the internal storage. So long as Palm BEATS that into the customer's head forcibly, it shouldn't (you can't see me, but I'm knocking on wood) be a terrible issue. Otherwise, I have yet to lose a single file.
And really, 2.5 lbs. is still far better than most laptops, as your standard hard drive weighs a good portion of that.
But I certainly do feel where you are coming from, these are issues that the average consumer probably won't consider and it may in fact spell doom for the project, but, forums aside, prospects really do look good so far. Doesn't mean I'm not crossing my fingers, right?
"I'm moving to a small studio and for some reason the cable connection is in an awkward place and I need a way to transmit HD quality video and audio no more than 20 feet away. What is the best wireless HDMI transmitter / receiver for this situation? Thanks!"
The most commented posts on Engadget over the past 24 hours.
Now that we've thrown 'em off the trail, use the form below to get in touch with the people at Engadget. Please fill in all of the required fields because they're required.
I'll make it short, sweet, and to the point. I work for Palm as one of the field reps going around to the stores, and I love the company. I love the products. I do believe they're a bit too stagnant, but I still love the company and their products. I also recognize that they've turned out some turkeys. The 650 and the original 700w had hardware issues, the 680 isn't 3G and has a VGA camera (which you CAN'T blame Palm for, Cingular specifically requested the stripped-down specs for it, don't ask me why), and the 750 is...well, it's Windows Mobile, what do you expect from it? And now, we have the Foleo. Looks great on paper, but it's a total niche product. From day one I was excited about it from a tech geek perspective, but I still rolled my eyes because it sounded like Palm was pidgeon-holing themselves. Then I got my demo model to feel out, get comfortable with, and get ready to demo to my stores after it launches.
I'm posting from my Foleo right now. This thing is addictive. It's convenient, bloody more convenient than my Thinkpad was before it caught fire. I used to check my email out of necessity but now I actually kind of enjoy it. Really, this thing isn't full of innovative technology or even anything we haven't seen in one form or another before. There's no real rhyme or reason for it, but I genuinely enjoy this product. And so far, so has everyone that came to the demo events or seen me use mine in passing. The Palm Store in my territory gets daily inquiries about it from people chomping at the bit. This thing is a little grey diamond in the rough. Is it going to fly off the shelves and go into production droughts like the Nintendo Wii? Probably not. But it's not going to flop, at least not without a fight. Now, I'm going to go check my work email and catch up on Homestar Runner.
Thanks for this post. Personally, I like this idea, after spending time trying to use a miniature bt keyboard with my PDA. There is definitely a niche for the Foleo, snide comments on this post notwithstanding. It will be MUCH easier to use on a plane than most laptops, and the instant-on feature will make it handy for casual use.
PDAs/smartphones are small and convenient, but at times it's handy to have a full-sized interface. Yes, I can see this filling the same kind of niche the Journada/TRS-80 portables used to sell to. If Palm can follow through with iPhone/Blackberry compatibility, it could be huge.
I just hope the damn thing works the way it's supposed to.
Here's the thing, D... for the most part I think people want to agree with you. However, it sort of seems foolish when your flagship products are in deep doo-doo (those you mentioned and those you didn't -- like the 700p...).
I personally think the foleo *could* be a great way to get out-from-under the carriers and enabling Palm to innovate independent of the current carrier-constipation that messes up any changes or innovation that Palm tries to introduce.
I just wish it were lighter, a bit smaller, and had beefy enough specs to shut people up... so far, I can't see that they have this in place.
Even with instant-on, if the capabilities aren't there and the battery life falls victim to hype it won't take but ONE misstep, ONE flawed patch, ONE case of data-loss for this initiative to fail.
IMO, 2+ pounds in this day and age is just too heavy (unless the specs are KILLER otherwise).
- John Carter
@JohnCarter
Right back at you, in some ways I agree, but not entirely. Regarding your wishes, it wouldn't be practical at that point, not for what it's supposed to be. Lighter, not unless you want to compromise the battery, at which point you lose one of the key promises, extended battery life. A bit smaller, again, not possible. The inside is packed pretty tightly, so you can't shave it down thickness-wise. The margin of room to either side of the keyboard is mere milimeters, the bare minimum width they could support while offering the full-size keyboard, and the key size and spacing was tested at all different measurements (smaller keys, smaller spacing, etc), and they went with the size they did for maximum comfort-of-use to minimum-space ratio. Believe me, the designer was very proud to talk about the amount of care he took to design its form-factor. And shaving the depth decreases the space for the internal guts AND cuts down the monitor size, which, again, removes from the overall promise of the device. Trust me, a lot of thought went into designing this thing. And as for the specs, I personally wish they'd gone with a slightly stronger processor, but if there's something the computer industry is teaching us lately, it's that MHz mean very little, it's the practical and efficient application of the power that counts. Sort of like how 1,000 horsepower is nice, but without the torque to back it up, it means absolutely nothing. They're doing a good job of harnessing what it has, and much more would produce undue heat, which is very bad for a system without a fan.
As far as fatal mistakes go, battery life is, so far, exactly as promised (can't say it'll stay that way with media software loaded on it, as I don't have it yet to test). Flawed patches are, unfortunately, a hazard of ANY software venture and you're right, they could spell demise for the Foleo, so they need to be EXTRA careful about that. But data loss...the only time I have encountered that, so far, was installing the compact flash card to expand the storage. Doing so, the Foleo transfers system and user info the to CF card, wipes the internal storage back to factory, and shut it down. If you remove the CF card, all the data will still be on it (your email, your personal files, etc.), but they will no longer be in the internal storage. So long as Palm BEATS that into the customer's head forcibly, it shouldn't (you can't see me, but I'm knocking on wood) be a terrible issue. Otherwise, I have yet to lose a single file.
And really, 2.5 lbs. is still far better than most laptops, as your standard hard drive weighs a good portion of that.
But I certainly do feel where you are coming from, these are issues that the average consumer probably won't consider and it may in fact spell doom for the project, but, forums aside, prospects really do look good so far. Doesn't mean I'm not crossing my fingers, right?