By It’s probably safe to say that you have your mobile phone with you close to 100% of the time. Even if you’re carrying around a netbook, you would have your phone in your pocket, purse, hand, bag, etc…. right? The folks at CELIO Corp took that fact to heart when developing RedFly.
REDFLY identifies itself as a “Smartphone Terminal”:
That means that the REDFLY device – the netbook looking thing in the picture above – has no CPU, no Operating System, no Storage… no nothing! The REDFLY team argues that if your phone already has that stuff, why duplicate it? In the end, it only creates more problems, like the need to sync.
Connect your smartphone to the REDFLY terminal via Bluetooth and BAM – you can operate your phone directly on the device. If you were to do this with your T-Mobile G1, you could say that REDFLY is virtually the first Android Netbook.
Good news: it has been done:
This is only a proof of concept video but it is a real, live, working system that will only be improved as time goes on! Speed and stability of the Android REDFLY concept will increase over time and we’re REALLY excited for this thing to hit the market.
When you think about it… this really is the first Android Netbook. In many ways, it takes what the Palm Foleo was supposed to do and builds on the idea, embracing the smartphone as the brain behind the enlarged screen/keyboard. REDFLY with Windows Mobile, Symbian or some proprietary OS seems like a total waste of time but with that T-Mobile G1 powering the thing… WOW
Color ourselves yellow… we’re peeing our pants in anticipation.
For more visit:
[Via jkontherun, REDFLY]
If only it came in a convertible/tablet form factor.
I don’t get the point… I mean I only spent 180 bucks on my G1… Can you imagine how cheap this netbook would have to be for people to buy it? I bought a phone because I wanted a phone. I already have a super-powerful laptop that syncs with my G1… What will actually drive me to buy this? Just a bigger screen? Screw that.
The point is that you never need to lug your laptop around. You not only get a bigger screen but a 10 hour battery and keyboard. It only weighs 2 pounds and has a instant on/off. The product is targeted towards the enterprise and companies that have multipl users. If your a business this means less support and lower costs. It saves you tons of money on duplicate softwar. If you need to access your PC just logon with RDP or logmein.
@ Rob,
You must go through a LOT of pants when you get updates!
Perhaps investing in DEPENDS when going through your feeds and emails ;)
,Michael Martin
http://www.googleandblog.com/
I think the android community is in err to only look at one technological development — android — and pretend to hold insight into the future of mobile technology.
When a bunk concept like this excites you — it’s time to check yourself.
The claim that it doesn’t have a CPU, memory, etc… is silly. Of course it has those things. They are just used to manage the communications interface (data compression, bluetooth protocol, remote control protocol, USB, battery state-of-charge, etc). I agree with most people here. This device is DOA. As an investor in Palm, I was around through all of their business rationalization of the Foleo. It was an unmitigated failure and pulled before mass production. For the gPhone it makes even less sense. The constant connectivity of the OS / Google apps means that your life is already sync’d to Google’s servers on the web and accessible in real-time from anywhere (ESPECIALLY my laptop). Business users carry laptops for many reasons. I would argue that “a bigger screen than my phone” barely rates on the list. Consider, you need a laptop running Windows or Linux to run many business-specific applications (engineering programs come to mind). If you work on the road, the phone simply isn’t an option no matter how big the screen and keyboard get. Further, the phone doesn’t have the battery life or processing power to do real work and if you have to carry your laptop anyway you get the larger screen for “free”. The only “pain” they claim they eliminate is the need to sync your laptop and phone, but Google solved that problem for us the day Android became publicly available.
Another point about this is that it would allow you to not have just one service provider fee instead of one for the phone and one for the netbook, is that not correct? Pete.