Laptops, UMPCs & 'mobile companions'

[editor]

I want it for web-browsing, music, office apps. Possibly video and web development but I'm not too bothered if it can't. I wouldn't be able to survive with anything less than 1024x768 or whatever the widescreen equiv is though.

I've already got a nice compact Sony laptop that does everything, but I can still see situations where I'd rather have a Foleo. Like this weekend. I don't want to lug about my laptop stuffed full of all my private stuff or worry about a 3hr battery life. A instant on note taker with a good battery life, proper keyboard and big screen would be great for writing reports, sending emails and surfing the web on weekends away.

 

[editor]

With the exception of web browsing, that's precisely what I used to do with my Psion Series 3 nearly 10 years ago. Send text messages, the odd email, tuck it in my pocket and enjoy a massive bettery life with AA batteries.

But it has a much, much better keyboard and a much, much better screen: two things that are pretty much vital for web browsing, writing emails and office tasks.

I've already got a Treo for doing what you've described above and it does it very well indeed, although writing long articles or web surfing gets very tiresome on such a small screen/keyboard. The Psion wouldn't be much better.

 

[editor]

But the instant-on on the foleo is just putting the laptop into suspend mode.

No, it's different. And quicker. It's actually instant on/off. Coming out of suspend takes longer.

 

[Xanadu]

No, it's different. And quicker. It's actually instant on/off. Coming out of suspend takes longer.

How is it different though???

According to what I've read, it does exactly the same as suspend - including keeping your programs running. The asus' suspend mode will be instant too, since there's no mechanical hard drive to spin up.

FYI, both the asus and the foleo run a version of linux - no inherent differences to enable instant-on functionality.

 

[editor]

The asus' suspend mode will be instant too, since there's no mechanical hard drive to spin up.

Have you seen any video footage of it actually turning on/off instantly?

 

[jæd]

How is it different though???

According to what I've read, it does exactly the same as suspend - including keeping your programs running. The asus' suspend mode will be instant too, since there's no mechanical hard drive to spin up.

FYI, both the asus and the foleo run a version of linux - no inherent differences to enable instant-on functionality.

Well... Reading up on it seems they are very similar devices. Personally, I'd go for the Foleo as it has a better battery and the email sync'ing sounds better. Palm also sound like they would offer better build quality and support...

Of course, that depends on actually see-ing the two devices in action, first...

 

[Xanadu]

Have you seen any video footage of it actually turning on/off instantly?

No, but then, I'm guessing you haven't either. All we can do is make an educated guess, that, because both systems are very similar in both hardware and operating system, they will be able to switch on in the same manner.

I still think that the instant-on capability of the Foleo is a marketing ploy.

For me, it's going to have to be a decision based on which has the better web browsing capabilities.

 

[Kid_Eternity]

Interesting and in places funny overview of the Foleo here

This 'conversation' between Palm and a generic smartphone user is fucking funny:

Palm: Smartphones continue to gain more processing power and more memory.
Users: OK, that's fair enough.
Palm: However, they are still deficient in input and output.
Users: Well, there sure are compromises, we can agree. I drag my laptop around when I need more.
Palm: So, what we need is a whole new device with a large screen and keyboard
Users: Whoa, why not create some kind of keyboard dock with a big screen for the Treo, like all those speaker docks for the iPod?
Palm: That's clumsy. We consider this a smartphone companion.
Users: I didn't realize my smartphone was lonely.

Palm: We call it that since people are moving their lives to their smartphones.
Users: They are? The only documents I have on my smartphone are from attachments.
Palm: Right, so the first application it will tackle is e-mail.
Users: But that's probably the thing that smartphones need the least help with.
Palm: Well, there's a lot more. It also has a Wi-Fi and a suite of "lite" office applications
Users: Huh? I thought you said that it was a smartphone companion? This sounds more like its own platform.
Palm: It is a platform. It also has an Opera browser.
Users: Then what do you need the apps for? Why not just use Web mail and Google Docs and Spreadsheets?
Palm: It supports Flash, too.
Users: Oh cool, so I can watch YouTube.
Palm: Sorry, no. No video support yet.

 

[editor]

This 'conversation' between Palm and a generic smartphone user is fucking funny:

I used to really like Engadget but their recent slavering over everything Apple/iPhone got a bit stomach-turning in the end ("STOP PRESS! The Apple website has closed!!!! STOP PRESS! A 0.0.1 upgrade so minor that no-one can tell any difference has been released!!! etc etc zzzzzzzzzzzz).

 

[editor]

All we can do is make an educated guess, that, because both systems are very similar in both hardware and operating system, they will be able to switch on in the same manner.

They're not that similar, you know.

 

[Kid_Eternity]

I used to really like Engadget but their recent slavering over everything Apple/iPhone got a bit stomach-turning in the end ("STOP PRESS! The Apple website has closed!!!! STOP PRESS! A 0.0.1 upgrade so minor that no-one can tell any difference has been released!!! etc etc zzzzzzzzzzzz).

I guess they're just playing to their particular audience...

 

[Xanadu]

They're not that similar, you know.

Similar enough though. There's nothing different enough between the two to enable one to support a different type of suspend mode, but not the other.

As jaed highlighted - battery life and email syncing are the key considerations.

 

[Kid_Eternity]

Now this is tiny!

You'd be forgiven for classifying Fujitsu's U810 notebook as a slightly clunky ultramobile PC.

After all, it weighs a pound and a half, has the Intel A110 processor used in Samsung's UMPC, and allows for fairly easy and accurate thumb typing. But you'd be wrong. Fujitsu prefers to call it a mini-notebook, mostly because it's essentially a scaled-down version of its other convertible notebooks.

It opens like a notebook, but has a rotating screen, which can be swiveled and locked down like Fujitsu's other Lifebook products. The U810 has a lot of features--biometric security, Webcam, keyboard light, stylus and a touch-screen interface, and some decently sized keys for such a small keyboard. It's equipped with slots for SD cards, compact flash, USB, and has a port for an included Ethernet dongle and can connect to a docking station. It's 802.11 a/b/g and Bluetooth capable, with Wireless WAN (wide-area network) coming in February, courtesy of AT&T.

Link

 

[editor]

The Foleo is slowly getting more interesting with the release of the popular Pocket Tunes music player for the platform.

Complimenting Foleo’s oft-touted instant-on feature, the flyer states, “Pocket Tunes on the Palm Foleo combines instant on with instant music.” The screenshot on the Foleo shows playback controls clearly derived from the gorgeous Sleek interface of Pocket Tunes 4, and a large three-pane view area for album art, library navigation and the current playlist.

Apart from the similar controls, Pocket Tunes for Foleo will also use all the best features of the handheld version and a new one as well:

* Background playback
* Support for streaming mp3 Internet radio stations
* Graphic equalizer
* And new to this version, the ability to re-mix your playlists on-the-fly.

The player will use SD cards for the storage of music files. The flyer also states that Pocket Tunes for Foleo will have an API accessible to third-party developers, so that they can use pTunes’ audio capabilities for their own applications.
http://www.palminfocenter.com/news/8679/pocket-tunes-for-foleo-announced/

The company hinted that there may be video capabilities added later. Pocket Tunes is dead good on the Palm, btw.

 

[editor]

This 'conversation' between Palm and a generic smartphone user is fucking funny:

I was a bit too quick to slag off the author because the second piece to his Foleo article is far more considered and raises some interesting points:

Indeed, the evolution of Web 2.0 and its hosted applications means that Foleo might actually be a bit ahead of its time.

As we see more Ajax applications available for tasks such as e-mail, calendaring, RSS, instant messaging and office suite productivity, Foleo could become all one needs for 80 percent or more of typical computing tasks. Emerging technologies such as Google Gears could even make those applications available offline, with data conveniently synchronized to the cloud, not the smartphone as Palm is pitching today,

Additionally, over the next few years, WiMAX promises to bring an affordable broadband wireless experience to products like the Foleo, doing even more to reduce its reliance on another mobile device and increase its value as an independent platform.

http://www.engadget.com/2007/08/20/switched-on-the-foleo-imbroglio-part-2/

 

[Kid_Eternity]

Palm's positioning of the Foleo as the first in a series of products implies that the company has the patience to sort out the features Foleo will need to find its true calling.

Hmmm all very noble but if the thing doesn't sell they wont be able to afford to wait until it 'finds its true calling'...

 

[Kid_Eternity]

Palm Foleo Delayed Until October?

Palm seems to be going through a rough patch:

[FONT=verdana, arial][FONT=verdana, arial]The Foleo, Palm's "Mobile Companion" that many were also looking as as the first mass-market Linux subnotebook has apparently hit a snag, according to Deutsche Bank analyst Jonathan Goldberg: "In a round of checks yesterday we learned that the Palm Foleo will be delayed,." Originally slated for a "Summer" release that may have hit the back-to-school crowd, Foleo hopeful were forced yesterday (an early rumored release date) to remind themselves that summer technically ends on the autumn equinox, Sept 23rd this year.[/FONT][/FONT][FONT=verdana, arial][FONT=verdana, arial]
[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=verdana, arial][FONT=verdana, arial]If true (TreoCentral is seeking confirmation from Palm), it caps off another bad couple of weeks for Palm - who faced yet more Treo 700 ROM update issues, a premature "pre-announcement" of what many consider a potentially disappointing Palm Centro, and a blunt Engadget editorial in which the writers there offered advice to Palm. Although Palm has already publicly stated it's pursuing goals much in line with Engadget's editorial, it was nevertheless a small blow to their image. A Foleo delay definitely doesn't help.[/FONT][/FONT]

 

[Xanadu]

Edit: I changed my ppv, and thought this was a new thread

 

[Crispy]

why would you need any more than 2GB, though? It's not like you'd be doing movies or storing your music collection on it.

 

[editor]

why would you need any more than 2GB, though? It's not like you'd be doing movies or storing your music collection on it.

If you're talking about a phone, quite a few folks do watch films on their long commmutes. There's a good prog called Kinoma on the Palm for converting movies for watching on a Treo - and with some taking 8GB SDHC cards, you're sorted for those long delays on the Northern line!

 

[Crispy]

Well exactly - SD cards are a much cheaper way of adding storage.

 

[Xanadu]

why would you need any more than 2GB, though? It's not like you'd be doing movies or storing your music collection on it.

I'd want to watch the odd movie on it. And I'll probably have a few CDs worth of MP3s on it, though hopefully it'll have the same SD/MMC/MS slot that my Asus laptop - so I don't have to put music on it.

 

[stdPikachu]

Can you get 1.8" SSD's yet? All of the ones I've seen so far have been 2.5" PATA.

That said, I've formatted a few movies to fit on my MP3 player, and Blade Runner managed to squish down nicely to 174MB with 96kbps stereo MP3 and MPEG4 video. I don't think you need a huge amount of space, but obviously it's handy.

 

[Xanadu]

Instead of 1.8" SSDs, you could always just get a compactflash -> ide converter. Not sure what CF speed is like though.

 

[stdPikachu]

Pretty crappy - alot of CF adapters not long ago didn't even support DMA. Now you can get CF SATA adapters, which are pretty fast, but still nowhere near as speedy as a dedicated SSD.

I did see a very cool gizmo at some trade show somewhere which took a bunch of SD cards and essentially RAID0'd them into a DIY SSD in 2.5" format - only downside was the price of the adapter (about £150 IIRC), and I've not seen them on sale anywhere either, which is a shame cos SD cards rock.

/dreams of getting a nice fat MRAM SSD for 50p

 

[Crispy]

I still think the raid array of USB floppies is one of the coolest things ever:

http://ohlssonvox.8k.com/fdd_raid.htm

although it needs moar drives.

 

[stdPikachu]

I'd love to see a RAID array of some of these babies

Not exactly highly portable though... but they'd go nicely with a portable fridge/freezer...

 

[Crispy]

awesome

 

[editor]

Blimey.

This is a mighty brave decision: the Foleo has been cancelled "in its current configuration" while Palm concentrates on the smartphone market. And that means luvverly new Palms!

In the course of the past several months, it has become clear that the right path for Palm is to offer a single, consistent user experience around this new platform design and a single focus for our platform development efforts. To that end, and after careful deliberation, I have decided to cancel the Foleo mobile companion product in its current configuration and focus all of our energies on delivering out next generation platform and the first smartphones that will bring this platform to market. We will, of course, continue to develop products in partnership with Microsoft on the Windows Mobile platform, but from our internal platform development perspective, we will focus on only one.

http://blog.palm.com/palm/2007/09/a-message-to-pa.html

 

[Kid_Eternity]

So there is a working brain cell at Palm. Dumb fucks, and that spin, jesus...they hired Alastair Campbell or something!?

I wonder how much of this was panic after seeing the Engadget letter?