Pro Foleo

"It's a rare irony to chronicle the demise of an upcoming device by using the device itself." So writes Glenn Derene at Popular Mechanics in an excellent defense of the now-deceased Palm Foleo-1:

By foregoing a hard drive in favor of flash memory and using a stripped-down Linux OS, the Foleo can literally boot up as soon as you push the on button, making off-the-cuff e-mails and gotta-know-now Internet searches easy. Sure, there are handheld devices… but none of them split the difference between the comfort of a laptop keyboard and portability the way the Foleo does. …

Critics in the press (this means you, Engadget) have lambasted the device, saying that there is no point to a device that is shaped like a laptop but lacks the computing power. But I disagree—most laptops are bloated with fat-client software and high-powered chips that makes them run hot and slow, while chewing through batteries. This is the very reason why handhelds have taken off in the past few years. What people need on the go is e-mail, Internet access and light document software. That’s exactly what the Foleo has.

Once again, someone who has actually used the Foleo clearly understands it.

Glenn, I hope you aren't considering sending your Foleo back to Palm.

I'm a fan of the Foleo concept, but I do have some basic requirements before I get in the trenches with Palm. One of those requirements is a high-quality, full-size keypad that behaves like I expect a laptop keypad to behave. (The need for a good keyboard is why the current competition won't see my money.)

According to those who have handled the Foleo, Palm has put in a nice-feeling keyboard, so they're halfway home. But they seem to have forgotten something when designing the keyboard layout.

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I've been reading quite a lot of discussion on the Foleo recently, and I've noticed a common hope winding through the threads covering the Foleo's battery life: Without the WiFi or Bluetooth radios turned on, and with the display a couple of notches down from its brightest setting, the Palm Foleo should run a lot longer than five hours before needing to plug in the power supply. There are various estimates of what that life may be. Ten hours. Eight hours. Two days of average use. One fellow hopefully tossed out a guess of fifteen hours, based on his experience of how WiFi alone affects the battery life of his Dell laptop.

I plan to use my Foleo more as a writing machine than an Internet machine (or even a smartphone companion), so I'm interested in figuring out the Foleo's battery life under low-power tasks. I don't pretend to know much about what kind of power requirements the Foleo has, or the amount of juice that can fit in its tiny form-factor, but I do know this: Every laptop I've tried has had much longer battery life when the WiFi was turned off. Palm advertises a 5-hour battery life with both radios on, and the people who've gotten their hands on the Foleo seem to think that is an accurate guess. So it would make sense that one could get 7 or 8 hours of life out of the Foleo if the radios are turned off.

Lest I raise your hopes too high, please do remember that most of the time, tech companies have a tendency to exaggerate the battery life of mobile devices. But reviewers have suggested that Palm has been admirably conservative in their Foleo estimate, so there is some reason to hope.

Thoughts?

It amuses me to no end when I stumble across these blog entries declaring the Palm Foleo DOA because some other cool gadget has come out that is so much way more awesomer n' stuff. This time around, Aaron at the Morning Paper has a round up of reviews for the HTC Advantage:

…at roughly $900, the Advantage seems to be far ahead on connectivity, usefulness, installed applications and overall positive reactions. The fact it already has phone connectivity would put this as the real competition to the Foleo in my opinion.

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Ben Combee, working hard to iron out the Foleo's software before launch, stopped by the TreoCentral discussion forums to give a little more information on the Foleo's video capabilities:

The Foleo hardware is capable of playback of several video formats as the Marathon 2700G chip accelerates the operations involved in H.263, MPEG-2, and MPEG-4 video. It is possible to use the hardware to support a standalone video player like TCPMP…

As of the current system software build, Flash video isn't supported. We'd like to change that, but I can't promise anything yet.

It's interesting that the Foleo does have the grunt to handle video files. No YouTube, though. For those interested in the Foleo, that's probably not a deal breaker. Myself, I'll gladly trade Internet video for an instant-on device with great battery life. I can watch videos on my home workstation.

My, Foleo, what a small power supply you have!

Many of you have already seen Brighthand's Foleo preview, but if not, it's worth checking out. The video especially gives a nice look at the Foleo's compact hardware.

The Foleo's killer battery life will mean you won't need to carry around the power cable all of the time, but it's nice to see that it won't take up much room in your bag on longer trips.

Palm has responded to the Internet buzz once again, this time denying the rumour that the Foleo would be delayed until possibly October. Macworld has the update from Palm today:

“As stated on May 30, U.S. availability for the Palm Foleo mobile companion will begin this summer. We will let you know if this changes,” said Jim Christensen, Palm’s director of communications.

The report then goes on cite analyst Jack Gold, who argues that a small delay in the Foleo ship date wouldn't hurt Palm too badly:

“I’d be more concerned if their new phones were late; then we’d be talking about tens of millions of dollars. But at best it’s [Foleo’s] going to be a slow burn for them; this thing’s not going to take off,” said Gold.

Reminds me of what all the analysts were saying about Nintendo's DS and Wii machines. Nintendo laughed that one all the way to the bank.

Ben Combee is a Palm software engineer and is quite active on the Internet. Combee recently responded to the criticism that Palm should have figured out Treo compatiblity problems by now.

"We’re not stupid; we’ve been working on lots of complicated sync issues on lots of phones for the last year, including testing with a wide range of Treo devices. The issues haven’t been 'it doesn’t sync', but more like 'after syncing large numbers of emails over a four day time period, the operation fails 25% of the time and cannot restart without resetting the device.'"

Combee certainly puts my mind at ease here. Palm is not desperately trying to get core functionality going at the last minute. They're simply trying to make sure that the Foleo's software is stable in real-world use. (I wish more companies did that.)

Speaking of Combee, you really have to check out this video from LinuxWorld, where Combee gives a hands-on introduction to the device. The Foleo looks to be very snappy in use. Looks like the software is very efficient.

Unfortunate for Palm, that is. A comment on Engadget's story covering the Foleo delay reminded me again of how unpopular the smartphone companion angle seems to be among those interested in the Foleo. The comment comes from Yon, who really nails the needed marketing angle for the Foleo:

"I feel this would fair much better if it were to be advertised as a 'hip, instant on, reliable and cheap, take anywhere and throw around ultraportable notebook' for the college crowd, and mobile writing enthusiast.

Advertise it as such then, as a feature, list it's Treo connectivity. I mean, if you look at it as a stand alone product and get past the negativity surrounding it, it really does seem desirable, no? Did I mention it's one of the nicest looking $499 ultraportable slim-feature notebook around? I wouldn't mind being seen with it in public."

It does seem that almost everyone interested in the Foleo likes it for its abilities as a lightweight, instant-on laptop, rather than a smartphone companion. How about you? Do you want a Foleo for your Treo, or do you want a convenient laptop alternative?

The buzz in the blogosphere is that the Foleo will be delayed until late September or possibly early October. Deutsche Bank analyst Jonathan Goldberg dropped a note to Barron's Tech Trader Daily saying that his contacts tell him that the Foleo will be delayed a little longer due to software problems that need to be worked out.

"In a round of checks yesterday we learned that the Palm Foleo will be delayed. The product was supposed to hit Palm stores this week, but was delayed when software bugs were detected. These apparently included an inability to synchronize the Foleo with most models of the Treo, in particular the nominally high-volume Treo 680. Our contacts indicate Palm now expects the device will ship in late September/early October."

Disappointing news for those hoping to get their hands on a Foleo as soon as possible, but a late product with working software is better than an on-time delivery with massive glitches.

You do have to wonder what's up over at Palm, though. Given the whole "smartphone companion" angle, shouldn't Treo compatibility have been figured out a long time ago?