Palm Foleo - the unique 10″ Linux-partner of a smartphone and communicator
11 June 2007Company Palm produced Foleo - the unusual device externally similar to UMPC. The novelty in weight of 28,2192 oz has the high-grade QWERTY-keyboard and works under the OS Linux. According to developers, Foleo is smartphone’s and communicator’s satellite and is intended for simplification of work with e-mail, MS Office and pdf-files documents. Opera is installed as a web-browser. Synchronization with mobile devices in real time is provided by means of Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. Foleo itself has no module of cellular communication and for the connection to the Internet can use the smartphone’s or communicators modem. It supports both OS Windows Mobile and Palm OS devises. In the future developers promise support of smartphones on Symbian and Mac OS. Foleo’s battery life is 5 hours. The expected price - $500-600, that is cheaper than majority of UMPC.
It is difficult to tell anything on Foleo’s prospects. On the one hand, new Palm development practically has no analogues in the market and essentially expands communicators’ opportunities. On the other hand, Foleo turns to simply big handheld computer without the corresponding mobile device. In any case, the novelty from Palm should pass test by time to understand mood of the user audience.
