Palm Unveils Foleo, Linux-Based "Mobile Companion" 301
An anonymous reader writes "Contrary to recent rumors, it's not Palm's first Linux smartphone, and no, it's not a competitor to Nokia's Linux-based N800 Internet Tablet. Rather, Palm today unveiled the Foleo, which it's calling a 'new class' of mobile device. The device is designed to expand the email, Internet, and productivity application capabilities of mobile phones such as the Palm Treo, by adding a full-size keyboard and a larger screen. Company founder Jeff Hawkins predicts that the Foleo will be more successful than Palm's original Palm Pilot, which he designed, and more successful than its current Treo smartphones. He touts its simplicity: 'Press a button, it's on. Press it again, it's off. There are no other modes.'"
Re:Battery life! Battery life! Battery life??? (Score:4, Informative)
More stats are in.... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Just like a re-gutted Psion 7... great! (Score:4, Informative)
Linux may run on ARM, but desktop-class Linux applications run very poorly, if at all. For example Firefox is a dog, as is pretty much anything interpreted (especially javascript - ugh!). Lack of a large L2 cache is a primary culprit. Lack of an FPU in most ARM implementations is a problem as well.
ARM/Linux has dragged behind the mainstream x86 kernel as well. NPTL on ARM was very late, which made porting many things a hassle. The EABI transition wasn't much fun either.
Another big problem is that media playback is slow/limited if it works at all (Flash + other browser plugins for ARM are quite scarce). Optimization is often done for x86 extensions (MMX/SSE/etc). That code is key to performance in many media applications, and even if you're lucky enough to have something like WMMX on your ARM CPU, you still have to port the x86 code. That's a drag.
It's my opinion that OLPC made the right choice by selecting x86 over ARM. The Geode GX was a bad move, fortunately they fixed that by switching to the Geode LX.
Re:Palm, Inc. jumps shark. Founder sells 15000 sha (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Anyone else thinking what I'm thiinking? (Score:3, Informative)