Two New Redfly Models Announced

Yeah, would have been a lot less hate on the Fooleo at $150-200.


Paying my annual PDA update tax to Palm since 1997.

The Inspiron Mini is utter garbage. I'd take an Asus EEE 1000H/HD/HA/901/904 or an MSI Wind any day over the Inspiron. Heck, I'd even take the underpowered HP MiniNote over the Inspiron Mini.

Pilot 1000->Pilot 5000->PalmPilot Pro->IIIe->Vx->m505->T|T->T|T2->T|C->T|T3->T|T5->Zodiac 2->TX->Verizon Treo 700P->Verizon Treo 755p

Off the top of my head:

Dell Inspiron Mini 9 shortcomings:

- ASDFG keys are shared with FN keys & smaller + less comfortble than the Aspire One/larger EEEs/Wind

- Bluetooth not standard

-No 6 cell battery option

- No 10" screen option

- Runs rather hot compaerd to the other netbooks

- Maximum of 1GB RAM (I think it's unofficially expandable to 2gb)

- No 2.5" SATA HD option (only pitifully undersized SSDs)

- No standard overclocking functionality for the underpowered Atom CPU. MSI Wind & Asus EEE "officially" offer up to 24% higher overclocks on the 1.6ghz Atom

Inspiron Mini 12 shortcomings:

-Atrociously slow & stone-age tech 4200rpm 1.8" PATA HD. 2.5" SATA drives are much more widely available, faster and flexible (4,200rpm ,5400rpm or 7200rpm speeds, with capacities up to 500gb)

-Maximum 1GB of RAM (far too little for Vista which Dell offers with it)

-Slow GMS 500 (PowerVR-based) GPU. It has more features than the GMA950 but IIRC performs even slower in games & 3d apps.

Pilot 1000->Pilot 5000->PalmPilot Pro->IIIe->Vx->m505->T|T->T|T2->T|C->T|T3->T|T5->Zodiac 2->TX->Verizon Treo 700P->Verizon Treo 755p

Well, I would want as standard or a real HDD. I need minimum EIGHTY (not eight) gigs of storage in a netbook. I'd like to at least have the option to stick in one of the several 2.5" SATA HDDs I have sitting here.

But for $299? I'd get the EEE 900HA ($323 at Amazon) with an Atom CPU + a 160GB SATA HD. Or, if I needed to do a lot of typing, I'd get the slightly larger formfactor 904HD ($299 at Amazon) which has the faster but less efficient Celeron M CPU, a 6cell battery, & a MUCH better keyboard.

My beef is just that in the $299-$399 price range, the Asus, MSI, Lenovo, Samsung etc. offerings trounce Dell's. And Dell's 12" netbook is sort of stuck in no-man's limbo between a "cheap" netbook and a cheap "real" PC. There's no reason to buy an underwhelming machine just because it's a Dell.

On that note, I wouldn't spend more than $420ish (tops) on any of the current crop of 10" or smaller LCD, 1.6ghz Atom-based netbooks. The Atom CPU simply offers much too little performance and is the biggest disappointment out of Intel since the Pentium D. Intel shouldn't be fooling around so much with the Nehalem launch and instead should begin pushing dual-core Netbook CPUs ASAP. Of course, without anything close to serious competion from Via or AMD, Intel's way ahead of the rest of the industry like it's 1994 all over again.

Pilot 1000->Pilot 5000->PalmPilot Pro->IIIe->Vx->m505->T|T->T|T2->T|C->T|T3->T|T5->Zodiac 2->TX->Verizon Treo 700P->Verizon Treo 755p

I think that netbooks have made this sort of product obsolete. Whatever you think of a particular model of netbook (I for one have an Acer Aspire One and like it a lot), it makes no sense to pay $300 for a device like the Redfly of the Foleo when you can get a mini-laptop for the same price. They may not sync to you smartphone as easily as these devices do but because Windows and Linux netbooks are real computers in their own right, they can still sync in a more traditional fashion.

The time for a device like this one was in mid-2007 when Palm announced and subsequently killed the Foleo. Netbooks still didn't exist as a category back then and there was actually room for an intermediate device which could be paired with a smartphone to replace a bulky full-sized notebook. Now, people are more likely to replace their laptop with a netbook which doesn't need a smartphone to operate.

Palm might have actually been able to make some money on the Foleo if they had released it last year. They might have even been in a better financial position than the one they are in now and been able to follow up the Foleo with a true netbook. Like the PLO in the seventies, Palm never seems to miss a chance to miss a chance.

Screw convergence
Palm III->Visor Deluxe->Visor Platinum->Visor Prism->Tungsten E->Palm LifeDrive->Palm TX
Visor Pro+VisorPhone->Treo 180g->Treo 270->Treo 600->Treo 680
http://mind-grapes.blogspot.com/

Sorry, there was no code and I really had to twist his arm to get it for me. It's one of those things where he's only supposed to get it for personal use. He had to sign onto his HP business website to get to that shopping area. There was alot of stuff really discounted but the netbook was all I wanted. The version I listed was the only one available at the site.

I was planning to buy an ASUS 9" with XP and 6 cell batt with the hard drive as a new toy. This sort of fell into my lap. If I had bought the ASUS when I was going to it would have been too late. If I spring for an aircard it will be just unimaginably good, but I can't justify $60/month for the service.

The biggest problem was the limited features at the price point that they were marketing it at. There is no way that it would sell at $500. Heck $250 seems a little steep for as limited as these devices are.

fooleo and redfly are not netbooks. don't insult netbooks.

It's lacking "N" wireless and has only 2 USB ports & a 3 cell battery. On top of that, the screen is a bit dimmer than the competition and it doesn't have any kind of standard overclocking capability for the Atom CPU.

I'd still take a Wind or EEE 1000H over it...I'd rank the Lenovo squarely in the 2nd tier of Netbooks alongside the Aspire One and maybe the new Samsung & Toshiba offerings.

Pilot 1000->Pilot 5000->PalmPilot Pro->IIIe->Vx->m505->T|T->T|T2->T|C->T|T3->T|T5->Zodiac 2->TX->Verizon Treo 700P->Verizon Treo 755p