I’m sure that you’ve all heard of Palm’s Foleo. I would regard it as one of the biggest flops of 2007. Seriously, if your product is so bad that the sheer amount of criticism from the online news community causes you to cancel it altogether, you really need to rethink your strategy. No, I didn’t write this article to pour salt on Palm’s old wound, I’ll leave that to Redfly, the makers of a new “Mobile Companion” that looks remarkably like the Foleo.

Here’s the general idea, you’d have a small 8-inch laptop-like device that would essentially be an extension of your smartphone. You would be running the same software, you’d just have “a larger display, full keyboard, mouse and USB ports.” Gee, that sounds exactly like the Foleo. The big difference here is that it’s going to work with any Windows Mobile 5 Pocket PC and Smartphone or Windows Mobile 6 Pro and Standard phone.

I was actually on-board with Palm’s idea, as a cheap sub-compact device that I could surf the net and check my mail on would be awesome. This little guy will certainly be small, measuring 9×6x1 inches and weighing in at 1.9lbs. Battery life will be great, clocking in at around 8 hours. Unfortunately much like the Foleo, its price will be likely be responsible for its downfall. For $499 I would much rather just buy a laptop, and with the Eee PC on the market, this little guy doesn’t stand much of a chance in my book.

Source: Pocket Lint