More On Palm's Foleo

So after a nights sleep I have digested what I saw at the NYC Palm Foleo preview. My view of the device has changed. I can see myself owning one of these devices but not at the release. I think within 6 months there will be more software from both 3rd parties and the open source community.

The size of the device is perfect for my needs. See the photo of the Foleo next to a 15 inch Macbook. The keyboard did not feel uncomfortable. In fact the device feels solid and was quite comfortable to hold. You can even turn the device on its side and rotate the screen and hold it like a book!


The Opera web browser has limits and renders web pages OK. The Foleos were using WiFi. The Foleo will stream Flash audio but not video. There is a standard stereo headphone jack and an internal mono speaker. Video is coming. There is no media player currently included with the Foleo. No IM even from the web.

There is a USB port so you can connect a USB Mouse/Keyboard. I did inquire about a presentation mouse but got a reply that it might work. There should be plenty of room for storage. The device comes with 128MB of space with about 100MB user accessible. There is a CF slot under the battery and an SD slot. This along with a USB flash drive and you should not have to worry about storage. There is no printer support at this time but was told if companies (not Palm) write the drivers the USB port could be used.

One of the reasons I went to the preview was to ascertain if the device could be used for presentations. The Documents to Go software will do PowerPoint but will not do animations or transitions. When connected to the external VGA (you need to use a dongle) source the menu bar gets striped off. Workable but not something I would be doing most of my presentations on.

I asked why they did not use Open Office and got a very good response. The reason is that this device is supposed to be instant on and instant apps switching. Open Office will take time to load. Hopefully a port of Open Office will happen and then a full presentation can be done with transitions and animations at the small sacrifice of no instant app switching.

One other thing that would be very useful is a remote desktop or VNC client. This way I could work on my PC no matter where I am.


So overall I liked the Foleo and will keep a close eye on the applications available for it after the release. With the right software I can see me leaving the notebook home.