James Kendrick (of jkOnTheRun) got to spend Twenty minutes with Palm and Foleo, where he covered the Palm Foleo, the not-quite-a-laptop-but-sure-looks-like-one device.
If you’ll recall, the Palm Foleo was introduced at the end of May (with availability sometime later this year) to much debate. It’s not a traditional laptop. It’s not a PDA. It’s not a UMPC. It’s a “mobile companion” and James discussed with Palm just where it fits (or doesn’t).
Some quick info:
– 10-inch widescreen display (1024×600)
– Weighs 2.5 pounds
– Linux based, with Opera browser as a main interface
– Instant-on and Instant-off
– Can easily use a Windows Mobile or Palm OS-based Smartphone to stay connected to the internet.
James had a very interesting discussion with the Palm folks, especially in regards to what their target audience is:
# The target customer is “the mobile professional”. Folks in sales, IT and other enterprise areas that are on the go and occasionally need more than a smartphone to see the latest sales figures in Excel or need to hammer out an e-mail that would take too much time on a small QWERTY keypad.
# The core competencies of the machine are to tackle the three items that mobile professionals need the most: e-mail, Internet capabilities and document management. It’s not meant to be a be full and complex computing experience.