The fuss with the Foleo

Since Palm announced it's new product line, the Foleo, a big fuss around the tech community of it's purpose? What for? What is it?

Looks like those people who are skeptic of this device are starting to have 2nd thoughts. Why would I want one when I already have a notebook PC that is more powerful than that? Then again, my notebook maybe powerful but is too big and bulky and heavy at that.

Ok then let's try to compare a laptop with the Foleo, in the real world. This means that average notebook PC users are those that use it mostly for Email, Document editing, Presentation and surfing the web (which includes watching videos in YouTube).

Email: Foleo - yes; notebook PC - yes
Document Editing: Foleo - yes; notebook PC - yes
Presentation (Powerpoint): Foleo - yes; notebook PC - yes
Internet: Foleo - yes; notebook PC - yes

By the looks of it, it's a tie! Maybe, but let's see, a typical notebook PC (windows) will have an approximately 10-20 secs to boot up after a hibernate (most windows notebook users out there doesn't even know that their laptops are capable of hibernating, they would just turn their machine on and off per session), but the Foleo has in instant on and off feature, that means, no waiting time. Apple users will argue that most macs are instant on as well, well, yeah, ok. Then there's the seamless synchronization with your smartphone, no one notebook at the present time can do this.

Whatever the argument would be, I think Palm is not trying to push the notebook computer out of the scene. This is the same reason they gave before with the Palm Pilot device, people thought that it's the laptop replacement, and eventually it made it to the top in it's category for some time. I think the Foleo is being groomed as another device (not even an accessory), that's why they called it as another "product-line".

People have been very disappointed with this device, but still it made more people think twice. Do we need to bring the notebook when we will not be using most of it's power, so why not bring the Foleo?

Perhaps it's still difficult to gauge what the device's impact until it is released to the market. We also for that matter don't know what Palm is trying to prove at this moment. But I have this feeling that there's still more to this device than meets the eye.