Palm Foleo Mobile Companion

A few years ago, I bought a second hand Psion Series 7. I loved the Psion Series 7. It was a notebook replacement, small and light. It had an excellent keyboard, a large touchscreen, good battery life, and good expansion capability (CF card and a PCMCIA card). Of course, since this was a few years ago, it lacked some of the technologies we take for granted now, such as Bluetooth, WiFi and USB. The Series 7 functioned exactly like a Foleo:

  • I used it to sync with a phone (over old-fashioned infra red)
  • It was instant on – no booting up needed
  • You could do wordprocessing, spreadsheets, and install other 3rd party applications
  • I used it to surf the Web (you could use a PCMCIA modem)

What the Series 7 also had, was class. It opened up to reveal a clever hinge arrangement that maximised keyboard area. It had real leather on its casing, which smelled great. It also had a killer messaging application – one single interface for contacts, SMS, email and fax.
Here’s what we get with the Palm Foleo Mobile Companion:

  • Thin
  • Full size keyboard
  • Large (10inch) high resolution widescreen, but no touch screen
  • 5 hour battery life
  • instant on
  • Ability to edit Word & Excel, view and minor edits of Powerpoint (via Dataviz Documents To Go)
  • Web surfing (via Opera browser)
  • WiFi & Bluetooth
  • CF & SD card expansion slots

Other than the new Linux OS, there’s nothing unique about the Foleo. Seriously, I was expecting more from Palm. They could have done so much better with the Foleo. Just licence the Series 7/Netbook form factor from Psion, put in Wifi & Bluetooth, and a GSM/EDGE radio.  Then it would be a winner.

As it is, it’s hard to imagine how the Foleo would replace my laptop.

Filed under: Mobile World

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