If they can make them cheap enough, add some educational software and sell it as an OLPC competitor. Would have loved a machine like this when I was at college. Hate lugging a large expensive laptop around. Would still like one for sitting in front of the TV and surfing.
I hold by the judgment. The Foleo is not only twice as much money as the Eee PC, it also strapped Palm for resources when they should have been focusing on fixing what already ails them. They just had one of their worst quarters ever because they can't even sustain their cellphone business -- the Foleo is a bad distraction and would have been a major mistake that put them even further behind the game.
Now, if Palm spun off their Foleo business so it didn't impact their phone business, that'd be another story entirely. But they didn't.
Money and specs doen't matter when two different time frames are in consideration. What I buy a laptop for today is no comparison to 5 or even 2 years ago.
Asus is selling the eeepc by the boatloads. This has a better screen, keyboard and feel(according to various reports). This product would likely be selling just as well and helped swing the financials. Palm really needed to be relevent again. A new product category was the way to do it, not a new os for an old form factor.
I really think you missed the mark on this one, but most of the time I agree with you.
I'm gonna have to go with Ryan on this. If you look at the software hands on gallery, you can see that Palm is honestly confused as to what the Foleo is supposed to be used as. For instance the Foleo was built as a laptop, but Palm limited it by just creating the Foleo as a "companion" for your smartphone. If Palm had just stuck to making a laptop built for productivity, like most, or just something simple like the Eee Pc then the Foleo could have been more successful.
What people need to realize is that this is NOT a standalone laptop like the EEEpc or the OLPC. This was designed to work WITH your PalmOS-based Treo. So if you didn't already own a Treo (which is very likely considering Palm's diminishing market share), it doesn't make sense for you to buy a Foleo.
Palm had big dreams to use the Foleo to drive its sluggish Treo sales, but ended up with a product that at best could probably milk a little more money out of its shrinking existing user base.
That said, I am still a die hard user of my Treo 650. Aren't you guys supposed to give away what you review? If yes, can you please send it to me? Thanks!
This brings us back to a reveiw of the machien early on (I can't rmember who it was, if someone can find the link, put it up) where the reveiwer said the machien was nice and fun to use, but he thought Palm was going the wrong way in tying it to handhelds.
This could be an awesome Linux laptop with the incredible handheld compatibility just as an extra feature.
I don't really want Palm to enter the laptop business, but if I could get Ubuntu on this thing, and even keep the handheld compatibility, not only would I be taking this off to collage next year, but I would probably go out and buy a new PDA to complement it!
Ryan Block and Engadget really have to go into the douchebag Hall of Fame. Talk about bad journalism: they write a column that the Palm CEO evidently thinks is inflential enough to can the Foleo, and then Asus goes out and creates a runaway popular eeePC machine that fits into the exact same niche as the Foleo. Recently Palm laid off a boatload of engineers, one of whom is my cousin. Seriously, Ryan Block, if I could legally hit you with a car, I'd do it.
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.
If they can make them cheap enough, add some educational software and sell it as an OLPC competitor. Would have loved a machine like this when I was at college. Hate lugging a large expensive laptop around. Would still like one for sitting in front of the TV and surfing.
@David Clark
Wow...couldn't have said it better myself. Engadget was WRONG on this one.
Wow, what happened to David Clark's response???? Did Engadget delete it??
I hold by the judgment. The Foleo is not only twice as much money as the Eee PC, it also strapped Palm for resources when they should have been focusing on fixing what already ails them. They just had one of their worst quarters ever because they can't even sustain their cellphone business -- the Foleo is a bad distraction and would have been a major mistake that put them even further behind the game.
Now, if Palm spun off their Foleo business so it didn't impact their phone business, that'd be another story entirely. But they didn't.
Money and specs doen't matter when two different time frames are in consideration. What I buy a laptop for today is no comparison to 5 or even 2 years ago.
Thanx for the delete. I look forward to another.
Ryan,
Asus is selling the eeepc by the boatloads. This has a better screen, keyboard and feel(according to various reports). This product would likely be selling just as well and helped swing the financials. Palm really needed to be relevent again. A new product category was the way to do it, not a new os for an old form factor.
I really think you missed the mark on this one, but most of the time I agree with you.
I'm gonna have to go with Ryan on this. If you look at the software hands on gallery, you can see that Palm is honestly confused as to what the Foleo is supposed to be used as. For instance the Foleo was built as a laptop, but Palm limited it by just creating the Foleo as a "companion" for your smartphone. If Palm had just stuck to making a laptop built for productivity, like most, or just something simple like the Eee Pc then the Foleo could have been more successful.
What people need to realize is that this is NOT a standalone laptop like the EEEpc or the OLPC. This was designed to work WITH your PalmOS-based Treo. So if you didn't already own a Treo (which is very likely considering Palm's diminishing market share), it doesn't make sense for you to buy a Foleo.
Palm had big dreams to use the Foleo to drive its sluggish Treo sales, but ended up with a product that at best could probably milk a little more money out of its shrinking existing user base.
That said, I am still a die hard user of my Treo 650. Aren't you guys supposed to give away what you review? If yes, can you please send it to me? Thanks!
This brings us back to a reveiw of the machien early on (I can't rmember who it was, if someone can find the link, put it up) where the reveiwer said the machien was nice and fun to use, but he thought Palm was going the wrong way in tying it to handhelds.
This could be an awesome Linux laptop with the incredible handheld compatibility just as an extra feature.
I don't really want Palm to enter the laptop business, but if I could get Ubuntu on this thing, and even keep the handheld compatibility, not only would I be taking this off to collage next year, but I would probably go out and buy a new PDA to complement it!
Ryan Block and Engadget really have to go into the douchebag Hall of Fame. Talk about bad journalism: they write a column that the Palm CEO evidently thinks is inflential enough to can the Foleo, and then Asus goes out and creates a runaway popular eeePC machine that fits into the exact same niche as the Foleo. Recently Palm laid off a boatload of engineers, one of whom is my cousin. Seriously, Ryan Block, if I could legally hit you with a car, I'd do it.