My two cents on the topic – after some further reflection:

http://www.nullstream.com/archives/000479.html

The average person will want to carry only a lighweight phone; they don’t need or want to be always internet-connected–they’ll get that at home and/or work sometime later in the day.

For cases when they change to a different, unconnected base of operations (vacation home, or car/truck), it’s not difficult to lug the Foleo once to that base of operations. Now they can be mildly internet-connected. A poor-man’s Treo/EVDO experience for little money.

Having said that, I think you’re right:
1. Average person is likely more as you portrayed: cellphone does everything, no extra gadgets, never. Thrify person I envisioned probably isn’t common, seems like a cheap geek (hey, I’ve had an infrared modem for my PDA!).
2. As you point out, it’s probably not worth the price of admission. $200 Foleo might be tempting, $400 needs more gusto.
3. My scenario also depends on the current Verizon pricing differential, $50 ($80 on PC?) vs. $5. Who knows what pricing and competition will appear soon to obsolete the $5 option?
4. It may be a bad assumption that a cheap phone and web browser will be supported by the Foleo.

Yeah, but are average people going to want to take this around with them all the time for what you admit are rare instances of using email on the go? Is that worth the price of admission?

You’d be surprised at how often I see people settling for using the cam in their *phone* instead of “lugging” a second device!

Web e-mail access anywhere, for the masses?

Most of you are power users. Think about the non-power user, someone without a $50/mo. data plan. And with a not terribly smart phone (e.g., Moto e815, LG 8300, …, with 2.3″ diagonal screen), obtained for $50 with a 2-year data plan. There are more of these picturephone/MP3 playing phones sold than Treos and such. When average Joe/Jane goes on vacation, e-mail/web checking is possible only via Internet Cafes, or hotel or public wifi if you’re willing to take along a full-fledged (fragile) PC or some internet device.

Verizon offers a $5/mo. web service on these lesser phones. But not many buy this $5 extra plan because of the unsatisfactory experience using the tiny screen and numberpad. If these grades of phones and that particular web browser were supported by the Foleo…

Power users take for granted their great anytime access (because it’s a business-deductible expense?).
Average (thrifty) users would love to have average anytime access on the cheap. Sure it takes a big device for readability, but that’s exactly what they want: a bigger screen with keyboard. Could you also make it robust and instant-on?

Uh, going on vacation tomorrow, I guess I’ll find out if this makes any sense in about 10 days when my thrifty self can again access the wonderful internet.

My opinion is that this device is very innovative. We’ve been clamoring for an instant-on device for years. We will never see that in a full-blown Windows based device. For what is expected of the device (IE, Office Apps, email, and web browsing) it sounds like a nice device. What I think we need to look at is that this is a semi-closed system. The OS can be optimized to be very efficient since the hardware is fixed and cannot be modified. Hence the OS is probably very light and can boot from a small flash. Personally, I’d buy this.

From a newbie perspective, this sounds like Palm’s version of Sideshow, only bigger with a real OS. I can’t wait to see what this year has in store!

It’s simply not powerful enough at a price that is too high to justify a purchase.

I have a smartphone with a qwerty keyboard but I never, ever, ever think about how great it would be if I could hook it up to a larger monitor to surf the web or answer e-mails.

Why? My web surfing is done on a desktop (mostly for research and/or leisure), and I can answer e-mail with the built in keyboard on my phone.

But I do think Palm is testing the water. After reading the mostly negative potential users thoughts, they would be wise to significantly rethink the Folio or abandon it all together and go back to the drawing board. Just hope it won’t be another five years before they decide to introduce a new device. They are falling further and further behind. My first 3 PDAs were Palm’s so I do have a soft spot for them.

I wonder what the Folio would look like as an 8 inch P1610 like device running Ubuntu Linux that offered the same easy sync? That would be a better device at or near the same price point that might get more people’s (positive) attention.

It’s like a grown up OGO.

It’d be cool to have an instant on device that just did wifi for gmail, google reader, blogs, etc. and a decent size keyboard.

I’d pay 399 for that, it’d be handy.

The bigger story to me is, after all the secrecy this is what Jeff Hawkins waw working on? There is nothing innovative here.

Why would the Flopeo succeed when those better-built HPCs (the 2nd generation larger ones) failed? It won’t.

(I wrote that elsewhere already:) The Foleo reminds me a lot of the Windows CE “Jupiter” Handheld PC, which was introduced sometime around 1998.

And that one wasn’t much of a success.

In my view, Pam is thinking along the right lines. I see this as a potential replacement for my Nokia N800, with a bigger screen and a real, built-in keyboard. In essence, it’s a carry-around web browser with a few incidental functions, such as the ability comfortably to key in substantial amounts of text (assuming that the keyboard is as described). Not everybody wants one of those, of course. I’ve been looking for one for ages.

I admit it’s heavier than I’d have liked, but the absence of a hard disk makes me feel more comfortable about throwing it in a backpack or just tucking it under my arm and heading for the coffee shop, the library or wherever I happen to be going.

As someone has already stated, $399 would be a better price.

Also, where’s the built-in webcam for conference calling? or are we supposed to strap our smartphone to the top of the LCD? A webcam would give this device another use – Super (WiFi) Skype phone.

I posted this to OP but it fits here too:

There is actually a big innovation, but it’s just not for us!

We wan’t to be able to do all computing on our umpcs, install sw, watch videos etc,

but there is a lot of people who needs computers just for email and banking.

Having this device without the hasle of full os, viruses, settings etc. they can just access their emails…

… it’s good for those… not for me.

There could actually be even bigger market for this device than umpcs…

…. specially if they can make the use really simple and if they can support most of the smartphones.

I think the Next Big Thing, or at least the next thing that will generate gadget lust, will be a UMPC or a small Linux tablet like the Nokia N800 that will be powerful enough (processor & RAM) to support speech recognition. Then you’ll forget about typing forever.

James,

I agree with much of your assessment, but an odd thing happened to me last night. While searching for a device to recommend to a friend who is mobile only on ocassion (she’s planning a trip now), I considered the Palm TX and the Nokia internet tablets (N800 and 770). The only thing my friend wants to do is get her email with attachment support, surf the web, and IM (and perhaps a terminal session or two), but there is no way she would opt for working with the Treo’s small screen.

Although I was disappointed with the Foleo announcement earlier in the day, I realized last night that the Foleo would fit my friend’s needs. Although she is perfectly capable of using a full-blown laptop (she’s a systems analyst), she is also the type of person who prefers drop-dead simple for her mobile computing needs. So, perhaps the Foleo does have a future, but only if Palm lowers the price; $399 sounds a lot better.

I’m happy to read your words, because that exactly the feeling I had after having read the engadget transcript from D conference… And it is said they spent 5 years to develop this…
Anyway I just wanted to say that video is choppy and that there is sound (audio port (in???/)out. There are 2 galleries interesting on engadget.