Building on its vision that the future of personal computing is mobile computing, Palm today announced the Palm Foleo, its first smartphone companion product.

The Foleo mobile companion has a large screen and full-size keyboard with which to view and edit email and office documents residing on a smartphone. Edits made on Foleo automatically are reflected on its paired smartphone and vice versa. Foleo and its paired smartphone stay synchronized throughout the day or at the touch of a button. This powerful combination is for productivity-minded business people who want a more complete mobile solution for email, attachments and access to the web.

The Foleo mobile companion turns on and off instantly and features fast navigation and a battery that lasts up to 5 hours of use. Its applications include email, full-screen web browser, and editors or viewers for common business documents such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint and PDF files. The Foleo stays synchronized via Bluetooth wireless technology and uses the smartphone's radio or the Foleo's built-in Wi-Fi radio for general Internet connectivity.

Foleo mobile companions work with Palm's Treo smartphones (Palm OS and Windows Mobile versions). The Foleo's synchronization architecture is open, and Palm expects to work with third-party developers to support as many smartphones as possible. The Foleo has a USB port, video-out port, headphone jack, and slots for SD and compact flash cards for memory expansion.

Primary Capabilities and Attributes of the Foleo Mobile Companion

• One-button access to full-screen email 
• Instant on, instant off 
• Rapid access to various applications 
• 10-inch screen and full-size keyboard 
• Web search and browsing via Bluetooth or Wi-Fi 
• Editors for Word, Excel and PowerPoint, plus a PDF viewer 
• Compact, stylish design that fits on an airline tray table 
• Lightweight at 2.5 pounds 
• Fast, simple and intuitive navigation 
• 5-hour battery life 
• Linux OS for easy application development

The Foleo mobile companion also supports the most popular types of attachments. As on the Treo smartphone, the mobile companion uses a version of Documents To Go customized by DataViz. People can create and edit Word, Excel and PowerPoint compatible documents. The Foleo also includes a Palm-developed PDF reader. A scroll wheel, clever forward and back buttons, and a convenient track point enable easy navigation without requiring the user's hands leave the full-size keyboard.

U.S. availability for the Palm Foleo mobile companion will begin this summer. The price of the Foleo mobile companion is expected to be $499 after an introductory $100 rebate.