Celio Corp's REDFLY

You’ve got to hand it to the brave and the few. Because that’s what the mavericks at Celio corp are. While you and I would try to learn from products that the world rejected and, oh, I don’t know, maybe NOT repeat the same mistakes, Celio has a different idea. They want to re-introduce the worst idea Palm ever had – the failed Foleo – to prove to the world that the world is just a random collection of idiots who don’t really know what they want. Celio will now teach us otherwise.

First, let’s get the concept out of the way. What is the REDFLY? It’s a “Smartphone Mobile Companion”, the same as Palm’s doomed Foleo. I suppose the marketing team at Celio didn’t feel they needed to recast the category which, thus far, has a population of one dead product. The basic idea is that you will pay $400 for the REDFLY, and connect it via bluetooth to your $300 smartphone to get a painfully slow computing experience, albeit on a larger display and more comfortable keyboard. Hey, if it’s going to be slow, it might as well be big too!

Celio claims that the REDFLY neither has a CPU, nor an OS, nor memory. Now the engineer in me rebels at definitions at like those, because it HAS to have an uber-controller, processor or FPGA because it hosts a full fledged bluetooth stack, not to mention a display interface etc. I guess their point is it doesn’t run Windows, Linux or an OTS RTOS… why not just say that then? But anyway, we’ll ask the engineer in me to shut-up for a bit so we can continue with the product description. So, where were we… yes, the REDFLY has an 8 inch screen, a commensurately sized keyboard, decent battery life at 8 hours (and about the same as a $399 MSI Wind, which, by the way, is a fully functional UMPC). Windows Mobile seems to be the only Smartphone OS supported thus far, but that’s fine, because it’s pretty popular. And I’m sure Celio can expand the list if enough people buy their product to allow them to go do that.

If the pictures don’t do it for you, you can watch a Celio demo here: http://www.celiocorp.com/nd/o/vDemo.asp

So why do we think this is a really-bad-idea? Well, here’s all the reasons why:

1) High Price. Most people are NOT going to pay $400 to get a device exactly the same size as a UMPC, with the same battery life as many UMPCs, but with none of the capabilities of a UMPC. And let’s not forget, I still need a $300+ smartphone with enough juice to run the kinds of apps the Celio REDFLY would be needed for.

Me thinks you'll be better off with the MSI Wind

2) Poor Experience. The video redirection over a bluetooth connection, while technically interesting, is not going to result in a good user experience. The Celio video demonstration at the link above is ample proof of this. And it’s not just about the bluetooth connection, there’s other problems. For one, Windows Mobile apps don’t adapt well to resolutions larger than 320×240. You can drive a lot of Smartphone displays up to 640×480 and when you do, you notice that more than half the apps break. So while you have a large screen, you’re either stuck using the same resolution, or having a significant percentage of your apps croak. Also, the Celio has an 8 inch screen whereas a similarly sized UMPC typically has an 8.9′ display. The Celio provides an 800×480 resolution, whereas most UMPCs deliver a 1024×600 resolution. That translates into 40% more pixels!! Big difference.

3) Battery issues. The REDFLY battery may last for 8 hours, but my Smartphone battery probably won’t. Especially when the Bluetooth connection is constantly active. The 8 hour battery on the REDFLY, in fact, does me very little good. And by the way, if I had a UMPC I wouldn’t be using my Smartphone battery which I want to preserve to make calls. (Yes, calls. Remember that’s what we typically use phones for.)

4) No ergonomic advantage. Will the Celio device and it’s charger really take any less space than a fully functional MSI Wind, eeePC, HP mininote or Dell mini? NO. Will the Celio and a smartphone laid out on a typical airline fold-out table take any less space than a UMPC? NO. In fact, with the smartphone, it will take more.

5) Application Limitations. The Celio demo shows you a Powerpoint but neglects to mention that the Windows Mobile edition of Powerpoint doesn’t let you edit anything. You can only view previously produced decks. Fat lot of good that does. In situations where you have to whip the Celio out, you would expect you’re about to perform an activity not do-able on the smartphone. You can see a Powerpoint deck just fine on most smartphones. You’d sooner use the zoom feature on a phone than pull out the REDFLY from your backpack, set it up and synch it to your phone via Bluetooth. This isn’t just an issue with Powerpoint, many Windows Mobile applications, since they were intended to be used on a Smartphone, have similar limitations. None of them expect to be attached to a large screen and keyboard so they limit input activities, typically. This is not Celio’s fault, but not factoring this reality into their product design most certainly is. Now, you can pooh-pooh these limitations by posting links to apps that DO let you edit a powerpoint on your Windows Mobile device (Yes, I DO know there are several out there), but will I really pay $15-$30 for apps like these to enable my Celio with functionality I get for free on a UMPC? Don’t know about you, but I certainly won’t.

Palms failed Treo

Palm's failed Treo

6) Poor entertainment capabilities. Why pay $400 for a small device with slow video driven off a bluetooth link, that’ll consume Gigs of space on your Smartphone storage card for a single movie, and still won’t be able to play 720p full screen video while you’re cruising over the Atlantic, when you can pay $400 for a small device with great video and 80GB of space to store your videos.

Let’s not make this a much longer list now. I think the point has been made. I am completely astounded that a company with an experienced executive team of 3 C-level executives and 5 Vice Presidents – yes, count them, a startup with an exec team of eight Powerful-And-Experienced-Executives – would go do something like this. I wish all eight of them the very best of luck, but my (unsolicited) advice would be for them to please not trade salary for equity.

In the meanwhile, please feel free to flame me for expressing my views on the product concept. Just keep it within the realm of civility.