The Celio Redfly Mobile Companion is a deceptively useful device that takes a Windows Mobile smartphone and turns it into a mini-laptop. With a press of a button the Redfly connects up to the smartphone and extends the display to 800×480 and throws in a full QWERTY keyboard to boot. In this video James Kendrick gives an overview of the Redfly hardware and shows how the mobile professional can pull the Redfly out of his/her gadget bag and be reading email in less than 3 seconds. Take a look at the video and see why James is so excited about how useful this device can be for enterprise workers.
UPDATE: the oompah loompahs at YouTube have produced a slight audio sync problem and my audio gets out of sync with the video toward the end of the video. Sorry about that, my video is perfectly in sync. :)
Thank you for the review, hopefully when the redfly comes out it would be a little bit lower in price, thats the only thing that keeps me from getting this device.
Too bad Palm 86′ed the Folio… coulda been a contender.
Will this setup work with other WM devices?
kamikun, there is a list of certified phones that the Redfly will work on and it’s being updated continuously. I believe it will work with most of them anyway.
It’s very compelling simply because it is your Windows Mobile device. All the data that’s in your pocket device is right there and editable and when you shut down the Redfly you can still access and work with your data even without it, just on the smaller screen etc on the phone.
A modern WM device has a really speedy CPU, almost up there with the slower UMPC’s, and even enough RAM to be useful considering the lower memory footprint of Windwos Mobile, so there’s really not a lot of reasons a WM device couldn’t be a great computing device as long as you get the decent screen and keyboard going.
Considering it’s “just” a dumb terminal type thing I do hope they can get price down. If they can sell a complete Eee for similar money, there has to be some air in the Redfly price. It’s a cool device but how pricey can the parts be, really?
Great review,, James. I must admit I was luke warm about this device. After you stated that it could connect to the windows mobile device via bluetooth Or usb. I’m sold. Bluetooth rocks, but you can’t use it on a plane.
I just hope the price is reasonable.
I too hope they get the price down but I understand why it’s high. Celio is a small company and instead of jobbing the Redfly out to Asian manufacturers they are making it completely themselves. This makes for great QC and an easier time to address the intended enterprise market, particularly government agencies perhaps.
Great video and excellent commentary. I have been beta testing this for a few weeks now and its just a blast to use. This is better than the Foleo. No OS, no need to sync.
More importantly no OS (or CPU) to keep updated or optimized. No drive to defrag. No user manintenance whatsoever which I think is partly why it’s so much fun to use. That and it’s so darn fast.
The Redfly could be an Enterprise killer application / solution. If they can get it to be CEO proof, i.e. if really is just a single button or cable to connect, I can imagine that enterprises will be queuing up for it, no matter what the price.
Personally, I would pay $$$ for a similar device to work with my iPhone, I could see my whole mobile work requirements being met by such a pairing of devices.
Does this now define a new number of minimum devices, one and a half devices?!
And the Gps navigation ?