Palm's Foleo: What the Heck Are They Thinking?

Tech news has been filled with news about Palm's new gadget, the Foleo. It's sort of like a laptop with a ten inch display, a full sized keyboard, about the size of a hardbound book, and weighs around 2.5 pounds.

The only thing lacking to make it a full-pledged laptop is that it doesn't have a hard drive and can't fully function as a computer.

So what does it do you say? Well, they're marketing it as a companion for smart phones, particularly the Palm Treo, to let users edit their e-mails and other documents by connecting it with their phones through Bluetooth connection. The Foleo works with Treo smart phones but Palm says that it would also work with most Windows-based smart phones with little or no configuration. Foleo also has Wi-Fi, can browse the internet, and has a Linux-based operating system.

The Foleo is said to be originally priced at $599 before a rebate of $100 and is expected to be available in the market by Summer.

Now while I'm all for gadgets and technology, this news made me wonder what's going on inside the heads of Palm's tech guys. It seems that they took a huge step backward with this technology rather than a step into the future.

If I own a $600 Palm Treo, why would I spend another $499 dollars to lug around another gadget, just so I could browse and type my email when I could do it on my Palm Treo alone? So I could type on a normal keyboard and have a bigger screen? I mean, is that worth $499? Or if I'm looking in the market for a phone that could surf the net, has Wi-Fi, or something that I could check my email with, would I spend almost $1000 (price of Treo and Foleo), so I could carry two gadgets when there are a lot of PDA phones in the market under the same price range which can do all those things? I don't think so.

If I really want to type on a normal keyboard, I would probably dish out around $60-$80 for a Bluetooth keyboard for smart phones/PDA, rather than spend that much on the Foleo. When I was using my XDA Mini, I had with me a foldable Infrared keyboard which I used to type Word documents with, now THAT's cool AND affordable.

Industry analysts are correct in saying that this product would probably hit the market with a thud.

Jeff Hawkins, founder of Palm, said, "There are times when people need a large screen and a full-size keyboard. As smart phones get smaller, this need increases." Wrong. Everything is getting smaller, but he forgot that people are also looking for all-in-one devices that could simplify things for them. Instead of making a separate device which can do nothing alone, Palm should have thought of turning the Foleo into a full-pledged PDA phone, or improving their PDA line.