Celio REDFLY for BlackBerry tested: it's not the solution you weren't looking for anyway
By Ross Miller 
posted Nov 11th 2009 3:39AM
posted Nov 11th 2009 3:39AM
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Bow chika wow wow...
I'm only adding a comment here so it looks like more than one person actually cares about this thing.
Awhile ago, Josh did an article lamenting that the iPhone really wasn't a tool that you could actually do business with, complaining that it just didn't have the functionality necessary to do work remotely and that the available business tools really didn't offer quality solutions. I commented at the time that it sounded like he needed a Foleo, a device which Engadget, we all know, panned on sight.
What I don't understand is why the authors of this site have such a low tolerance for this type of technology. If you're carrying around a phone that's almost, but not quite, a full-fledged computer, why wouldn't you want a device that simply blew up the interface and keyboard so you could do some hardcore work without having two separate machines? Why wouldn't you encourage companies to make a tool that, for a lower cost (ideally) than a netbook, would boost the functionality of the computer you already carry around in your pocket? I just don't get it. Call me crazy.
One other thing... If Apple made a device like this that synced with the iPhone in such a way that the screen became the trackpad/secondary monitor, it would move off the shelves like wildfire.
If this is bad with the bold, which I understand (as the top range keyboard one) would the highest res screen (bar the Storm, which doesn't count :P ), surely the screen would be a lot worse on Curve/Pearl etc.
huh, what??? I didn't understand any of that...are we talking Apple or Microsoft here?
I don't think this person knows that much about Redfly... he refers to it as the "blackberry model" which isn't true, since it is the same hardware, just different software on the phone.
I'm no fan of celio at the moment, since i own two Redflys that are sitting around until Pre support is developed (living through the development of the touch pro drivers was very painful...). That being said, the author didn't even try... For some people just having the keyboard, even if it is with the smallish screen will be useful, in addition, I'm sure the trackpad tracking will get better.
That is pretty darn terrible.
Here is a more objective review that wasn't determined in 10 min.
http://www.brighthand.com/default.asp?newsID=15841&review=Celio+Redfly+Mobile+Companion+RIMM+BlackBerry
This is a cure for which there is no known disease. They should keep developing Redfly VIEWER, an app that connects your smarphone to a laptop or netbook. I'm not gonna start carrying a smartphone, a Redfly laptop AND a netbook, with all their power supplies, etc. when everything I need is a smartphone and a netbook.
For those who want to just use a mobile with a netbook, checkout MyMobiler it is free and rocks the Casbah. Why buy some crappy hardware just to use a keyboard on your phone when there is good free solutions out there.
Hate to break it to you, but the license for the viewer in the phone's software expired in August. I was curious as to why it wasn't working for me recently and then I checked the phone's "Licensing" option which says a license is only needed for the viewer and it expired on 8-8-2009. They don't even let you download it from their site anymore.
@robin
I've been using MyMobileR for quite a while now and both it and the redfly viewer have their ups and downs. I like the viewer because it actually changes the resolution of the phone's screen just like the hardware version of the redfly does. You can watch video on it at sort of good quality, but it's better than with mymobiler. The web browsing is pretty nice on it too, along with using the office stuff and some of the other apps. The downside with that is that you have to have active sync running and connected to the phone before you can connect to the viewer. What sucks about that is that the new version of active sync makes your phone go through your computer's internet connection. If you are like me and work somewhere that filters the internet with a proxy server, you won't want to do this. It also changes the proxy setting on your phone to match your computer's setting. You can use the viewer with a netbook and get pretty much the same functionality as the actual redfly, plus you'll have all of the storage and functionality of a netbook as well. I see this as only being really handy if you couldn't tether your phone to your pc.
MymobileR is freakin awesome for what you can do with it along with the fact that it's free. You can take screenshots of your phone and even make a video recording of what you are doing on the phone. You also don't have to use activesync to connect. You can if you want but you don't have to. If you do use it, the phone auto connects and starts mymobiler, but other wise you have to do it manually. I don't mind that at all. I do an IP connection to my phone and it's remoted. You can use your keyboard and mouse with your phone and even copy/paste text from the pc to your phone and vice versa. The issues with mymobiler are that video is VERY choppy, and when you connect and view at 100% it's the actual size of your phone. You can zoom in, but it's just that...a zoom. It doesn't change the resolution; it just makes things bigger. These are things that are easy to deal with. Since IMing isn't allowed through our network I use my IM program on my phone through mymobiler.
I would take mymobiler over the redfly viewer any day, but it would be nice to be able to use both.
Celio... might share the same fate as the Foleo...?