Is Palm fooling us?

Palm just announced their new product, the Palm Foleo, a mobile companion. Looking by the specs of this thing, well it's a bit underpowered compared with the other subnotebooks out there in the market. Many tech sites already dissed Foleo, saying that Palm is out of ideas, that this will be the death nail of Palm's coffin, others are saying that everyone now has a laptop and with that what will Foleo significantly offer that a notebook cannot? Well, to be honest all of these criticism are true to some degree. It maybe true to Americans and possibly to Europeans but will the same apply to us Filipinos? In a way yes.

Now, you can shop for a PHP 20K - 30K 2nd hand desktop replacement laptop around TipidPC.com which is the same price of Palm Foleo - $500. And also this is marketed as a mobile companion, but don't be fooled this machine packs a lot of functionality like access to emails, office files, and browse the web and only around 10" display. If you're an office worker or a student that doesn't need a high-end notebook then maybe you should take a look at this machine. Additionally it runs Linux which means that this thing will be hacked to death and possibly offers more and more added functionality in the future and at its current size this is really an ultraportable. 10" displays, 2nd hand or not, are priced around PHP 40K - 50K. Also there is an active Palm group in the country, the Mapalad.org which promotes Palm usage.

We will have to wait what will happen to Palm Foleo but even though I was a bit surprised that a mobile firm will release a notebook it is a welcome addition. I'm a Palm customer, having owned a Palm TX, I was relieved when they announced that they are going with Linux with this one. Hoping for the best with that company.