Palm Unveils Foleo, Linux-Based "Mobile Companion"

An anonymous reader writes "Contrary to recent rumors, it's not Palm's first Linux smartphone, and no, it's not a competitor to Nokia's Linux-based N800 Internet Tablet. Rather, Palm today unveiled the Foleo, which it's calling a 'new class' of mobile device. The device is designed to expand the email, Internet, and productivity application capabilities of mobile phones such as the Palm Treo, by adding a full-size keyboard and a larger screen. Company founder Jeff Hawkins predicts that the Foleo will be more successful than Palm's original Palm Pilot, which he designed, and more successful than its current Treo smartphones. He touts its simplicity: 'Press a button, it's on. Press it again, it's off. There are no other modes.'"

Comments

Anyone else thinking what I'm thiinking?

[morgan_greywolf]

Small, low-power Linux laptop....

Palm, Inc. jumps shark. Founder sells 15000 shares

[Torqued]

FTW?

Looks like Jeff Hawkins is so confident in the Fooleo that he decided to dump 15000 shares of PALM.

Instead of spending R&D $ to fix the issues with their aging OS, they "invent" another piece of hardware that neither me nor any of my coworkers want to have to carry around. We already have notebooks.

Palm has officially jumped the shark, IMHO. Looks like I'm getting a Blackberry soon. :(

Battery life! Battery life! Battery life???

[G4from128k]

I hope this device actually gets a decent battery life. I've been frustrated that all the new PDAs have worse battery life than the early generation machines. The venerable (and discontinued) Psion 5-series got 25-35 hours of use on a pair for AAs and the original Palm Pilot series got maybe 15-20 hours on a AAAs. Every device since those machines has been distinctly inferior (usually getting only a few hours of real use per charge). If the new machine can't last a full day at a conference or a trans-oceanic flight, then I'll just keep using those older (and better) machines.