What I miss very much is touchscreen and rotating display so you could close it with display up and have big PDA^H^H^HInternet Tablet. No touchscreen is so '90.

With an 18mm pitch, I'm pretty sure you will be able to touch type on the Foleo. And I am pretty sure that the legions of idiots are idiotic, succeed or fail.

Most of the complaints center around the similarities between this device and many of ten-fifteen years ago. I owned one of those devices and have often thought that the design would have a place today with a few very small changes. You can't say that about most devices---there are very few I can imagine still using today. That's because most computers are just a slapped-together collection of the latest components and fads.

This one looks different. It uses only the cheapest most mainstream parts. I conjecture that there won't be reliability problems as a result. The price is palatable as a result. I bet it will last through two or three phones with iPod-sized hdds and that will be enough at this price point.

Jeff hawkins was reputedly left alone with no reality check to design this. The legion of idiots would never have let it be produced. The legion of idiots wants the latest embedded-camera, blue-led, swiveling-touch-screen collection of fashionable junk that won't last. I'm so glad no committee got to thumbs-down on this product, just as I'm glad that the legion of idiots who want a cell phone in the N800 were ignored.

Of course, this could still flop. It MUST work with Blackberries or it will be DOA for enterprise sales. It will need a redesigned Treo, one with much greater storage capabilities and greater reliability. It may need to work with the iPhone to survive in consumer sales. It needs a developer community with the instant-on mindset of the Palm developer community, but willing to switch platforms.

But I would not count the Foleo out because of the legions of idiots. By the way, I don't count a lot of people on this thread as among the legions of idiots. I think people like Fanoush are really just looking for something different. I'm thinking of people who post to really mainstream blogs and may not use many of these devices and may not have an engineering background to understand the tradeoffs. I'm thinking of people who want something miniature, inexpensive, and reliable, with all the latest innovations in a technically, economically impossible package.

True, but at least it's got a nipple rather than a touchpad. A personal preference.

Of course, rotatable display and touchscreen would add to the costs.

Some interesting stuff at:

http://discuss.treocentral.com/showthread.php?p=1271617

They'll need their own ssvb to get mplayer going well :-)

If it were 4.11 inch PDA similar to the n800, but with SUSE Linux I would buy it. This device is gonna have a tough time finding a market otherwise.

Thanks for that information. I hadn't seen anything definite about the size of the keys.

I was thinking specifically about a lot of the comments I've seen on Engadget and similar sites. Most of the users of this forum are self-evidently not idiots (even if a few of them would like a SIM card in the N800 ).

I got the 18mm pitch number from palminfocenter, at this url: http://www.palminfocenter.com/news/9...foleo-webcast/

It is the only place I have seen that number. There are also dimensions listed there, 10.55" x 6.67" x 0.94". It's the only source I've seen for a number of stats that should be easy for anyone who's had a hands-on with the device.