Palm to announce new mobile device tomorrow
by Volker Weber
SUNNYVALE, Calif., May 29, 2007 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- Jeff Hawkins, founder of Palm, Inc. (Nasdaq:PALM), will host a live video webcast on Wed., May 30, to describe a new category of mobile device. The webcast will follow the announcement of this new product at the D: All Things Digital conference in Carlsbad, Calif.
Jeff is the original inventor of the (Palm)Pilot. His Handspring spin-off developed the Treo before Palm bought his company. This shall be interesting.
Update: Here it is.
Comments
MacRumors.com has a leaked press release indicating that the new product is the Pam Foleo, a smartphone companion product.
Palm, Inc. today announced the Palm Foleo, world’s first smartphone companion product.
Foleo has a large screen and full size keyboard to view and edit email and office documents. Edits made on Foleo automatically are reflected on its paired smartphone and vice versa.
Foleo and its paired smartphone stay synchronized throughout the day or at the touch of a button.
Foleo turns on and off instantly, features fast navigation, a compact and elegant design, and a battery that lasts up to five hours of use.
U.S. availability for Foleo begins this summer with pricing expected to be $499 after an introductory $100 rebate.
And yes, that would be interesting to me.
The Palm website has been updated:
Foleo Announcement
Not convincing, looks like an updated PSION to me.
Quite big, quite heavy, yet no local storage, no video playback support - the Nokia N800 or the upcoming MIDs look more interesting to me.
(I own an N800. It's really, really nice!)
I'm underwhelmed by Palm again. I want to have a mobile, GPS and PDA in one device, not start carrying a mini notebook in addition to my smartphone. Still sticking with my Treo 650 for now!
so John, if you want to change, the Blackberry 8800 may be just "good enough" for your requirements, serving as a mobile and PDA and additionally equipped with GPS.
I do not really get why one would want to buy this machine.
@Armin: Better would be if Palm developed a lighter smartphone similar to the Treo using Palm OS which had a really bright non-reflecting screen that you can read in the sun and a built in GPS reciever. I have quite an investment in navi software (using an external GPS mouse), not to mention dictionaries (Ultralingua) and other stuff (Readerware, PasswordsPlus, etc.) that I'd have to buy again and possibly learn to use again if I switch to any other OS.
And quite frankly I really can't see who the target audience for a crippled sub-notebook that can only surf the internet via a mobile phone would be.
As an afterthought - I'm probably out of sync with marketing departments in the gadget area - I've been patiently waiting for the next Mac mini hardware update since before last Christmas, and now one of the Mac rumour sites is suggesting it may get canned. It's an ideal media-center / home server as well as a great way to try the Mac experience without spending too much. If the rumour guys are right, it will be a real shame (unless it gets replaced with something even better, of course ;-)
@John: yes, if you need to proect your investment in Palm software something from Palm with a featureset like the BB8800 would be great.
Been too long already hooked on the Blackberry, I have to admit ;-)
