Comments on: Is it Time For a Portable Dumb Terminal?

By: Chris

Chris — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 00:13:04 +0000

the eee 8.9″ promises a lot

By: Antoine of MMM

Antoine of MMM — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 17:35:21 +0000

The Ceilo Redfly is probably the closest to this right now. Its ability to work in concert with a smartphone pretty much makes it a web worker’s best friend – at least though who are in the sales, training, and consulting sides of web working and therefore mobility is defintiely predicated on how versatile one’s phone can be in a pinch.

By: Ben Overmyer

Ben Overmyer — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 15:52:25 +0000

Why not build a “cloudtop?”

It would make an interesting weekend project.

By: Michael Janke

Michael Janke — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 03:47:59 +0000

How about a Zonbu ? They have the concept pretty close. I'm not sure how well they execute it. Or a wireless SunRay in a laptop form factor?

By: Phil

Phil — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 03:09:15 +0000

I’d love one. Let the screen rotate between landscape and portrait so it doubles as an ebook reader and I’d pay $4-500 for it.

By: Bill

Bill — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 23:25:27 +0000

Yes, it is call a cell phone. May be a keyboard would help.

By: Zoli Erdos

Zoli Erdos — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 22:27:34 +0000

How about the cell-phone based "PC-less" PC?

By: Kathleen Weaver

Kathleen Weaver — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 22:01:15 +0000

Try a Nokia internet tablet. I have an 800, works well.

By: pacey

pacey — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 21:54:27 +0000

hp have just released the following product which may fit the bill:

http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/us/en/sm/WF25a/321957-321957-64295-321838-306995-3687084.html

hp mini-note 2133 laptop.

By: Andre Kibbe

Andre Kibbe — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 20:53:34 +0000

I got to test the Foleo for few weeks. The remote login software was still in development by the time Palm orphaned the device, but it was a good platform in principle.

The Redfly is a smarter design from a third-party developer’s point of view. Unlike the Foleo, which required Palm programmers to learn a new API and graphics subsystem, WM programmers can continue writing for the existing platform. Hopefully Palm will revisit the Foleo concept with the Redfly approach in mind — once they finally get their Nova device out the door.

By: Chris K

Chris K — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 19:05:30 +0000

I’m watching the Redfly closely — priced right, it’ll be the perfect companion for my HTC Mogul phone. Heck, I’ve even got the boss already convinced. :-)

http://celiocorp.com/products.php

By: ZeddZull

ZeddZull — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 17:19:02 +0000

I agree with the minimum disk, but memory and CPU needs to remain sufficiently high to manage the Java, Flash, and other apps that actually run on the local hardware, not on the cloud server. A lot of the processing that Ajax applications do to parse and render data is in the browser, so CPU and memory are going to remain important resources on a connected “dumb” terminal.

By: Cross+Flame

Cross+Flame — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 17:09:14 +0000

I’m a devotee to the eeepc. It is small, but powers on within 15 seconds and thus I can jot my notes during the morning commute on the train or in any coffeeshop.

If I need to collaborate, in the same time it takes to dig through your purse or man-purse, my eeepc can be turned on and ready to roll.

Wireless capability and the less-dirty feeling you get from OpenOffice, not microsoft.

Only beef: Google Gears doesn’t seem to work, so my holy grail of google docs working offline is a myth for now…

By: John B

John B — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 16:44:54 +0000

My old laptop, (circa 2001 – 1GHz Pentium 3), has found a new life recently being used as a terminal for connecting remotely to windows servers.

I’m not ready to give up processing power in my laptop yet, (I don’t feel we’ve reached the point where internet access as universal enough yet), I can see that day may come soon, and a device like this would be great!

By: steve paine

steve paine — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 16:26:23 +0000

Nokia are working on this and Redfly already have a product although it costs more than an eee pc.

This is going to happen in a big way soon with high end mobile phones.

By: Tony Wright

Tony Wright — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 16:25:31 +0000

My next portable will be just such a device.

Right now the leading contender is the EEE (Asus). It’s pretty close to what you need, though the screen/keyboard size might be a little lacking.

http://eeepc.asus.com/global/