Today is a good day – a new gadget arrived today. 🙂
It’s a Celio Redfly.
Why?
I’m gonna try and make the case for the Redfly. This could be a futile effort – to be honest, they’re after a fairly narrow niche of the market, and if this is your sort of thing, you probably already know what it is. But here goes!
If you want to work (keep in touch, access the Internet, refer to notes and documents, etc.), you can get a computer.
Brill.
What if you also want to work when you’re not at your computer?
Get a computer and a smartphone/PDA to carry with you when you’re out and about.
Sync the two so you can access the same information whichever one you’re using.
What if you want to work when you’re not at your computer, but the teeny tiny screen on a smartphone/PDA isn’t big enough?
Get a really big-ass smartphone / PDA with a huge screen and sync that with your computer instead!
What if you want to work when you’re not at your computer, but don’t want to try and make calls on a phone roughly the size and weight of your first car?
Get a computer, a regular smartphone for quick tasks like looking stuff up on the go, and a mini-laptop/UMPC like an EEE PC for when you want to do more involved work that needs a bigger screen.
The problem with that is that syncing two devices is bad enough. Keeping three in sync is just a major headache.
Sure there are some workarounds, like working off USB memory sticks or keeping everything online, but these aren’t ideal.
It looks like a laptop, and is virtually the same size as the EEE PC.
But it’s a dumb terminal without it’s own processor or storage – it pairs with a smartphone (by USB or Bluetooth) and runs from there. It’s basically the same as plugging a monitor and keyboard into your laptop – you’re still using your laptop, just with more comfortable peripherals.
With the Redfly, you’re still using your smartphone, just from the keyboard and display of the Redfly.
I’ve only had a little time to play with it tonight, so here are my first impressions: