Pomera portable note-taker: folding keyboard and not much else
King Jim has introduced a portable note-taking gadget that has a tri-folding keyboard that makes it very portable. On the surface the Pomera looks very promising with 20 hours of battery life on two AAA batteries. The device is aimed at those who take a lot of notes while out and about. The problem is that that’s about all the gadget will do as there is no connectivity nor email capability. So notes it is. That makes the $270 expected price awfully steep which is too bad as the form is pretty useful. I guess it could make a pretty decent device for writers if that keyboard is good.
(via CrunchGear)
I want this form factor in my next smartphone! We have seen it before in other machines in other markets but can’t seem to get it here in the US.
Here is the similar form factor but far more powerful Samsung Butterfly:
http://www.techeblog.com/index.php/tech-gadget/samsung-sph-p9000-butterfly-hands-on
$270 is way to expensive for sure — for not too much more, you can grab an N800 and a bluetooth keyboard off of ebay, and have 800 times the capabilities.
However, I’d love to see more MID’s using this folding keyboard concept — there was one that came out a couple years back, Korean only if I remember, that had a similar fold out keyboard… the form factor always looked great to me, though I’ve never used it.
-olly
If you’re comparing this to the power of a laptop, it’s obviously not going to compare, but that’s not the market it’s going after. I’m a student working on my PhD and law degree and bought an AlphaSmart Neo for $219 earlier this year. The Neo is a fantastic word processor that can get ~ 700 hours of battery life on 3 AA batteries. It types text and does nothing more which is what makes it great for writing. The lack of Internet access is actually a feature and not a bug. I take it with me everywhere, taking notes in class and writing papers, blog posts, and e-mails. I expect it to help out tremendously in writing my dissertation. Besides the battery life and instant-on, the other killer feature on the Neo is the ability to write outside. (It has an LCD screen.) I can also beam notes over to my Treo to e-mail or post to my blog. I expect the Pomera to compete in a similar market.
Here is an overview of what I like the about Neo: http://thinkingonthemargin.blogspot.com/2008/02/alphasmart-neo-sophisticated-simplicity.html
Here are all of my posts on the Neo (about 10 so far), including my thoughts and experiences after purchasing one: http://thinkingonthemargin.blogspot.com/search/label/alphasmart%20neo
The price is high but this is actually a good idea. I’m surprised no one has done a Windows Journal device.
I’d pay for a digital notepad that only did that. But I wouldn’t pay much. My N800 with Xournal is close but I wouldn’t mind being able to use journal instead.
I remember a writer who uses a Pocket PC with BT kekyboard to do the same:
http://www.jkontherun.com/2006/10/writing_on_wind.html
Great form factor but it needs to be a full Windows OS with decent memory and expansion slots then it would easily sell for $600 to $1500.