A niche for the Palm Foleo is discovered!
A jkOnTheRun reader who will remain anonymous as I don’t have permission to disclose his/her name sent me the following email with an interesting question:
I came upon your blog looking up Batman oddly enough, (yes I would probably get along great with your friend Marc). For some time I’ve been looking for a low frills portable word processing device with little luck. With your vast knowledge and experience in the world of so many on the go devices of the likes I’ve never seen, I was hoping you’ve come across something.
I am an avid note jotter and unambitious writer who constantly loses pocket size notebooks before I can type the important stuff into my pc. Not only is writing in the tiny things a pain but it’s even worse to have to retype it all later. A thing I put off so long it’s likelier I loose the notes or they get too worn in my back pocket to read. My demands for such a device aren’t non specific but if you can point me in the right direction I’m sure I can pick something suitable. I’m hoping there is a device in existence I haven’t found with my meager consumer research skills that has a large enough qwerty keyboard not to hit 3 letters a time and requires no OS boot time with enough battery life to be useful. I don’t think it’s likely to find a word processor specific gadget in our multi tasked device world but that would be it’s primary use for me. While video, mp3s, web surfing and various palm style apps would be nice I believe that would only add to the need for an OS, less batt life and more $$. I hope I haven’t missed such a thing in your blog posts but if so please send me a link as I wouldn’t even know what to type into the ctr f to find it. If you get time to answer this, thanks a lot! Keep up the good work.
This is an interesting question and it’s good to get reminded that for some simpler is better if that fits their needs. The first solution that came to mind is the Palm Foleo, which I think would make the perfect word processor. Those who do a lot of writing could make good use of the Foleo. Instant on, good battery life and it’s cheap. If this reader needs to connect to the web or get email that can be done by connecting to a phone. We may have discovered an actual niche for the Foleo.
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Maybe the AlphaSmart would be a better (and cheaper) bet? Much longer battery life, for one, and if you’re looking for a writing tool, that’s exactly what it was designed for. To me, it still seems like the Foleo is an answer to a question no one has asked.
Well Brother makes such dedicated word processors for less than the folio- So I don’t know if that is such a good solution, Besides wouldn’t you want to do any writing in Word for compatibility and formatting features?
The AlphaSmart is a good device too that might work. The only thing is the small screen where the Foleo has a full screen to make writing and editing easier.
http://www.alphasmart.com/Retail/
I actually think the Palm Foleo might be tremendous for me. I’m a professor who attends a lot of outside forums, events, research conferences, business meetings, etc. The ability to type in a few words quickly would be a great asset. I wish Palm had seen fit to make the Foleo into a convertible style tablet with an input screen for scribbling however – for me, that would been killer. It would the be literally an electronic folio pad.
This is something that I used to do with my Palm III, then Palm VIIx and a foldout keyboard – might also be a solution.
Wow,
So Palm, in their infinate wisdom, thinks this device can replace all the revenue streams that have dried up after PDAs stopped selling and the Treo is on its last limb? Great job Palm, you’re going to come out of this alive for sure!
(/ saracsm)
Wow, so you “discovered an actual niche.” Way to go, Columbus.
I can’t believe it took a reader email to get you to realize the practicality of a lightweight, instant-on device for writers. That market has been there for years.
I finally had a chance to try the Foleo at Gnomedex. It’s a very nice device and will suit your reader’s needs very nicely – at a price. I think Palm will do much better if they rethink their pricing and adjust downwards by around $100. And yes, I told them exactly that.
$50 will get you a Newton e-Mate (the original “bat computer”) or maybe get a used HPC form-factor device with keyboard.
If the iRex iLiad sold for $200 and didn’t have a failure rate roughly equal to that of an XBox 360 I’d recommend that device. As it is I have to second the e-mate suggestion. I know a couple writers that you couldn’t prize the device away from with out serious mayhem involved.
When Palm goes out of business where will you get Foleo service parts?