Palm Foleo reviewed: How the Foleo scores in usefulness and coolness

Posted Jun 5th 2007 4:34AM by Sarah Gilbert
Filed under: Rants and Raves, Palm Inc (PALM), Smartphones

When Palm Inc. (NASDAQ: PALM) announced its new Foleo (with a little horizontal line over the "e") at the D conference last week, we all let out a collective, huh? It's not that the Foleo isn't cool -- it is, a little -- or useful -- a bit. But the Foleo, which will be available sometime this summer, has way to many huh moments.

Here's a rundown:

What is it? The Foleo is, essentially, a laptop extension for your Palm Treo. It's based on open-source Linux software (score one cool point), and as such, software is easy to build for it, and it will operate much faster than your actual laptop. Instead of opening and waiting for the usual several minutes of start-up-and-warm-up-and-log-in, the thing just turns on, instantly, and presto! e-mail. (Score another cool point, and a usefulness point.) It's small, it has a keyboard and a couple of ports (headphone jack, USB port, etc), but doesn't require plugging into your Treo (score one usefulness point).

How much? The Foleo is $599 with a $100 mail-in rebate, which (let's be honest) most consumers won't jump through the hoops necessary to reclaim. $599. You also must have a Treo already, ranging from $49 to $699 depending on the version and service plan you sign up for at time of purchase, for a total of at least $649.

What are the cool features? The aforementioned quick-start is the coolest feature. The fact that Foleo has an "e-mail" button is another thoughtful addition -- as the typical user is checking e-mail before they are (for instance) wishing to find out what time it is, or look at the oh-so-lovely wallpaper, this is truly smart (score one cool point). Being able to surf the web and actually read a wide-set screen in the back of a cab (as Jeff Hawkins points out) is actually fairly amazing (score a final cool point).

Why would I buy one? If you're the jetsetting type, so blindingly mobile that you rarely have time to stop by the office between meetings, pitches, and sales calls, this may be the perfect thing. The Foleo's considerable advantages are three-fold: Firstly, you can create, open and edit Excel and Word documents, and view and do "simple editing" in PowerPoint documents -- but we need rich PowerPoint editing, too, for true brilliance (score two usefulness points). Secondly, you don't have to type one-fingered (or two-thumbed), relieving those hunched backs and "Blackberry thumbs" (score one usefulness point). Thirdly, with a smaller, lighter device, your battery power is (supposedly) vastly extended from a typical laptop (score one final usefulness point).

Why wouldn't I buy one? If you spend way more time in an office (or coffeeshop, or at home) than the back of a cab, town car, or airplane -- the Foleo may not be for you. But if you already have a Treo, and you're either not doing much work (at-home parents needing better tools for blogging at the playground maybe?), it's not a bad way to spend your 600-ish dollars, assuming that you have that kind of cash for relatively non-essential technology. And that's the thing: this is relatively non-essential for most people, really the very definition of an accessory.