Palm has introduced the Palm Foleo, the first mobile device companion. Smaller than a laptop and larger than a Treo, the mobile companion comes with Wi-Fi and Bluetooth built-in. This lets the Foleo connect to Treos and other compatible smartphones and handheld devices and available Wi-Fi connections.

The Foleo also marks Palm’s first product that uses the Linux-based operating system. How will a product like this do? I used to carry a portable keyboard with my PalmOS device, but a keyboard is smaller than the Foleo. Do business professionals want to carry a Foleo along with their smartphones? While traveling, they most likely won’t want to leave their laptops behind. Carrying a laptop AND a Foleo looks like gadget overkill.

Hey, aren’t tablets similar to the Foleo? Granted they weren’t made to be companions to smartphones and didn’t typically come with a keyboard. Tablets work well in doctor’s offices and for service providers, so they can update records and report services rendered. But they don’t serve the mobile professional well.

What if the Foleo worked like a Treo without the need for a Treo? Don’t think that would work either. People love to have the small phones they can stick in their pockets and purses. The Foleo doesn’t have the portability people want or need. Most of the time, business professionals carry briefcases, which gives them a place for the Foleo. But the Foleo’s role looks limiting after analyzing this from various perspectives.

The new device weighs 2.5 pounds and contains a five-hour battery life. The Foleo comes out later this summer at a special price of $499 with the $100 debate included. Like its handheld counterpart, the Foleo comes with instant off and instant on. No waiting for anything to load.

Personally, I’d rather see Palm spend its energy on taking the PalmOS interface to another level even with Linux as its backbone. PalmOS works better than Windows Mobile. Think of PalmOS like the Apple of handheld devices — simple and fulfills its purpose. Palm created its operating system with mobility in mind rather than trying to copy the desktop experience like Microsoft did with operating system on Pocket PCs and Windows Mobile devices. Thoughts?

The Treo takes up one whole chapter of this book plus references in the communication-related. Still although the Treo is a popular PalmOS-based device, it rightfully doesn’t dominate the book. After all, many owners of PalmOS devices don’t need or want to have a powerful device like the Treo.

In spite of “hacks” in its name, the book isn’t as geeky or technical as it sounds. A hack is also known as a trick or add-on for adding more power to a program or system. However, not all of the tips are technically hacks because they provide how-to advice: annotate everything, find anything, get the most out of the date book, how to become a better student, and so on.

One caveat, when the book references another hack or figures, the light gray text barely appears and it is difficult to read. MacHaffie also refers to third-party software as a way to add more options, games, and functionality to the PalmOS device. It’s tough to please people with varying interests. It might’ve been better to refer to places where you can find and download software. Many people would appreciate these discoveries.

The games section, for example, has references to quite a few role-playing games (RPG) in comparison to other types of games. Most of the sections only take a few pages, so it’s not a big waste if the topic doesn’t catch your eye. Again, it’s tough to address a wide audience and there wouldn’t be enough material to create a separate book addressing only PalmOS games, student tips, and advice for business users.

Roughly about a fourth of the book covers communications, phone PDA hybrid tips, and multimedia. So those who have basic PDAs without any connections still get a bulk of information they can use. The 55 tips are listed in the table of contents listed on the book’s Web page (http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/palmtreohks/toc.html) and checking it out should give you a good idea if you’ll find the book useful or not.

You won’t find much tech jargon so the hacks are easy to understand. The book has tips for beginners, moderate users, and experts and each hack is represented by thermometer’s temperature (high for expert and low for easy) for quick reference. Very few hacks are at the expert level, so beginners and moderates should have no trouble applying most or all of the hacks.

Title: Palm and Treo Hacks
Author: Scott MacHaffie
Publisher: O’Reilly
ISBN: 059610054X
Date: October 2005
Format: Paperback
Pages: 234
Cover Price: USD: $24.95 Amazon: $16.47