Palm showed off their Linux-powered mini-laptop, the Foleo, at the press preview for our Digital Life trade show today, and we got a few minutes to manhandle the little thing. Good news for Palm: if they can get over their silly obsession with calling it "not a laptop," they have a potentially impressive product on their hands.
The Foleo has a bit of heft at just over 2 pounds, but it didn't feel all that heavy - it definitely would have taken a weight off my back if it replaced my IBM Thinkpad T40. The customized, Linux-based interface is very simple and very responsive. There's actually no application launcher or "home screen," just an application menu that you pop down by using a dedicated "Apps" key; you navigate around using a little eraser-head-like touchpoint device in the middle of the keyboard. Click near the top of the screen, and application menus appear. It's all the laptop experience you like, with none of the annoying slowdowns you hate. If Palm plays their cards right, yes, they could replace laptops in a lot of situations.
More after the jump ...
The 18mm keys are a little tight - I definitely had to adapt a little - but only a little. I was typing fluently within a few minutes. As I noted in our original piece on the Foleo, it comes with stripped down Microsoft Office applications courtesy of Dataviz DocumentsToGo, a file manager, a photo viewer, a PDF reader, an e-mail program, the Opera web browser, and, excitingly for Linux geeks everywhere, a terminal program that falls down into the Bash shell. More apps are coming from third-party developers, and excitingly, Palm reps said the processor is indeed fast enough to play video.
Alas, Palm was playing coy about opening the Foleo up to developers. While they do intend to eventually reveal everything about the device and distribute a full SDK -- hear that, Apple? -- they're going to start with only a limited set of developers at Linux World in August, and fully open the device up later.
We managed to scope out a few unpublished specs in our meeting, though they're nothing too surprising: the Foleo has 128 MB of RAM (though you can expand that with both SD -- but not SDHC -- and CompactFlash cards) and an Intel (isn't it Marvell now?) XScale ARM-based processor. We couldn't find the processor speed. Palm is also coy about the variant of Linux they're using; all we squeezed out of the terminal was "ARM-unknown-linux-gnu," but I'm no Linux geek.
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July 12, 2007 6:42 PM
Say, that Foleo isn't paired with that iPhone, is it?
July 13, 2007 10:36 AM
That Foleo better be paired with that iPhone! That's what i'm expecting anyway, and i'm delighted the default shell is bash, same as on my Mac. i'm so into this zero configuration hassle idea ... just hope the pdf reader and opera-full-screen work well on the video out so this can be my travel machine!
July 13, 2007 2:26 PM
I have been a long time Palm PIM user. I don't like Outlook but because of Exchange business email, I must.
For me the Feleo is DOA if it does not have all the Palm PIM apps on it.
July 14, 2007 4:30 AM
Have you tried:
uname -a
July 14, 2007 4:48 AM
How big is the screen? Possible resolutions? Battery life?
July 14, 2007 9:36 AM
I agree, Foleo is DOA. In all the years I've been using computers, I've never heard anyone say, "Boy, if I only had a 2 pound email reader."
I still think Palm's number one job is to help it's handheld users transition to smartphones, since it is becoming increasingly apparent that handhelds are becoming legacy devices. Eventually, I-phone will have something for us.
July 14, 2007 1:17 PM
Foleo looks like a big time sleeper. I am a long time Palm PDA user and from that experience, I know the platform is a good one. If they do it right, people like myself will buy this asap as the price point is right and Linux rocks.
July 15, 2007 7:52 PM
I'd like to see Palm sucessful at these. I think it's disappointing tho to see Palm OS fading. I think they still had something in the handwriting recog in spite of the parasitic lawsuits.
July 17, 2007 12:21 AM
@Nick: +1
July 17, 2007 6:27 PM
I guess if you travel often enough. You will get to like the foleo. I used to travel with a 14" widescreen notebook, now an x60 without an optical drive. The point is, if you are an occasional traveler, you usually want to bring everything u might possibly use. But if spend enough time in terminal and planes, the number of gadget you bring will drop to what you absolutely need.
July 18, 2007 7:20 AM
Not all of us have transitioned to smartphones because of the lack of reliable service in the rural areas. Whick means we also travel alot. Is the Foleo compatible with my T/X?
July 19, 2007 10:08 AM
I am a long time Palm and Treo user and I travel a lot. Sometimes I can leave my laptop home and just get by with my Treo. This device would make that a certainty. The Foleo looks like a good fit for mt.
July 20, 2007 3:12 PM
My plan is to buy a Foleo to travel with and set up a business google apps account; that will let me write on the road -- I need to be able to both write and update an online serialized novel as I travel -- and I'll be able to stay in touch via email as well as leave the laptops at home. I don't mind a small keyboard but I can't write on a phone.
I traveled fairly happily with a Visor and a Targus keyboard -- but kept finding I was packing the laptop anyway. I think the Foleo will be my laptop replacement.
July 22, 2007 9:37 PM
Tough gamble for Palm. I'm afraid we do too many things on laptops for this machine to replace them.
iTunes, DVD players, IDE's for developers, to name a few.
I also wish it had a touchpad, or was a tablet instead.
July 23, 2007 10:43 AM
Does it play YouTube videos?
July 24, 2007 5:08 AM
Since Palm's new Foleo is Linux based and appears to have a USB port, would it be possible to run Linux based versions of Open Office, Firefox, Thunderbird, etc. on it. Or on a USB key that has PortableApps versions of these programmes installed on it?
That would certainly make it a lot more useful.
July 24, 2007 10:05 AM
These are all great questions. I can't answer a lot of them until I get a Foleo - which is not yet. But here are some answers.
* It will only run Linux apps specially recoded for the Foleo.
* No YouTube at launch as far as I know.
* 10" screen, 5 hour battery life.
* It wasn't paired with the iPhone, that was just a size comparison.
July 31, 2007 5:43 AM
You actually can use SDHC cards with the Foleo. Since Palm's newer Treo models (680, 700p post-update, etc.) support SDHC, it's almost a no-brainer. Maybe you tested it on an early prototype that didn't have that capability loaded.
August 6, 2007 6:19 PM
Does the Foleo support Hotsync via a desktop/laptop like past Palm PDAs, or not? I keep seeing reference to syncing email with your smart phone. What's the point in carrying around two devices through which you manage your Email?
Come on Palm. Get this right. Support PIM functions AND Hotsync, and not just syncing with Smart Phones. If no, count this as DOA.
August 10, 2007 11:14 AM
What about multilingual display and input, especially Japanese? I'm sure a third-party will step in to provide if Palm doesn't, but Palm should.
Give me a trackpad (perhaps as an extra cost option), not a cruddy roller that will fill with gunk and a tiny joystick that will simply feel wrong (and eventually lose its foam coating thus becoming even more annoying).
WiFi isn't everywhere; it's not even at either campus of my workplace, although Ethernet cables are everywhere. Any chance of adding an Ethernet jack, maybe as an extra pay option?
The Treo isn't sold in Japan (not directly, anyway). Can my Palm TX link up? How about my Mac?
Will I be able to shove my Canon camera's CF card into the Foleo's CF slot to ogle my pictures (and maybe edit them)?
Does the Foleo handle a variety of currents or must I buy a converter (if so, DOA)?
Tell me more about emulating the Palm OS. If I can't run Dokusha, PAdict, and EGP Clipboard, I'll be tempted to pass on the Foleo.
I'm interested in the Foleo, because I shuttle between two campuses, at neither of which I have an office that I can/want to use. My MacBook is too heavy, and my TX crashes aggravatingly often (and using Japanese on it introduces problems); the Foleo could avoid these problems and make me very happy.