A serious threat to the Redfly

[zad225]

http://www.alwaysinnovating.com/touchbook/

It's a netbook that will be instant on boasting almost 15 hours of battery life, which are the two most important qualities of the Redfly, in my opinion anyways. It's going to come out in spring. It can be loaded with just about any instant on os, such as android, windows ce, or keep the proprietary touch os, which is based on linux.

I love my redfly, but the unresponsiveness at times is so annoying. I've been using it with a Tilt and then have been trying it with an Athena, hoping the faster processor would make it more responsive, but no go. It seems the achilles heel of the redfly is the connection (even using the usb cable) and the need for the mobile phone's own processor to scale it to redfly size.

I hope, redfly can address these issues, and maybe in their next iterations, have a tablet edition as well, even if it may cost a little more.

 

[Tiredone]

I have found the responsiveness excellent, on a Tilt with a cooked ROM, and somewhat adequate on a Tilt with a standard ATT ROM. It seems that the carriers bloatware eats up all the processor resources as fast as the manufacturers make a faster phone. I can actually get good responsiveness out of the Redfly with my old 8525 with a cooked ROM without the bloat. I do have to admit that I only use usb as I have too many devices that all use bt and seem to cause issues with each other without adding the Redfly into the mix.

 

[zad225]

I have found the responsiveness excellent, on a Tilt with a cooked ROM, and somewhat adequate on a Tilt with a standard ATT ROM. It seems that the carriers bloatware eats up all the processor resources as fast as the manufacturers make a faster phone. I can actually get good responsiveness out of the Redfly with my old 8525 with a cooked ROM without the bloat. I do have to admit that I only use usb as I have too many devices that all use bt and seem to cause issues with each other without adding the Redfly into the mix.

What ROM are you using, if I may ask. I've been through a couple of different ones, because not all of them will work well with bluetooth. The one I'm using right now is PDACorner Ultimate, and I think the Touch Flo is what is making it unresponsive, but I love using the Touch Flo when using it as a phone, so I don't really want to turn it off.

 

[wodin]

It's not instant on, it's always on! There is a big difference. Any netbook can be always on in standby, but your battery is going to die in 15 hours whether you use it or not.

This thing is little more that a huge PDA without the cell phone piece and a few amenities that a large form factor allows like 6 USB slots. And compared to the price of Acer, HP and Asus netbooks, this bugger is pricey!

 

[mknollman]

Still looking at another device and another OS and yet another learning curve. For some, this will be the answer, but I do not see it as a direct competitor.

 

[zad225]

It's not instant on, it's always on! There is a big difference. Any netbook can be always on in standby, but your battery is going to die in 15 hours whether you use it or not.

This thing is little more that a huge PDA without the cell phone piece and a few amenities that a large form factor allows like 6 USB slots. And compared to the price of Acer, HP and Asus netbooks, this bugger is pricey!

I think you're wrong about the 15 hours thing. It's just like a cell phone, like you said that is always on. Standby time is a lot longer than talk time, in this case, actual use. So, the 15 hours estimate is for actual use.

If it's only 15 hours standby time, then there surely would be no buzz about this product.

My whole point is just that it has two of the best qualities of the redfly in that it has long battery life and instant on (or always on). I just find the redfly a little lacking in responsiveness, although the touchbook is also lacking other qualities of the redfly. I'm not saying it's better than the Redfly, but I have to admit that it is rather appealing.

 

[laurieny]

@zad225

My everyday phone is the Tilt and it is easily one of the best phones to use with a REDFLY. We don't test nor support phones with "cooked" ROMs, but we do generally work with them as many here can attest.

However, whether the experience is better (ROMs with reduced carrier "extras") or worse (as perhaps is the case with your ROM) is sometimes difficult to quantify. And admittedly, the experience with TouchFLO on the REDFLY is not good. We are working with HTC to attempt to remedy that, but nothing is likely to happen in the short term. That is one of the reasons why on the Touch Pro and Diamond phones where TouchFLO is "native" we programmatically turn it off when connected and turn it back on after. This will be true even as we move them from Beta to Release in the near future.

If you had the time and enough desire to see the difference, I would strongly encourage you to go back to the AT&T standard 6.1 ROM on the Tilt and then install our driver (use the build 93 available from http://www.celiocorp.com/install/beta - take the Fuze driver and be sure to also upgrade the firmware on your REDFLY).

I think you will be pleasantly surprised at the performance and responsiveness.

-Laurie

Director of Engineering
Celio Corp | REDFLY

 

[Tiredone]

Zad, I am using Hyperdragon III. I've been using it for about 5 months. Very stable, very fast, almost never have to reset, maybe once every 6-8 weeks. The only issue I've had is that I don't have the manual for the Touch Diamond that the ROM is based on so it took a while to figure out the meaning of the icons that are different from the Tilt. I keep thinking about flashing my other Tilt from the stock ATT WM6.1 to Hyperdragon IV but I need to save a lot of data and settings first and I never seem to have time to get it all ready.

 

[cuzlion]

Why an "instant on" netbook won't threaten the Redfly:
1) Microsoft has been claiming the next OS they put out would be instant on since Win 95, they lie. My work PC takes 3 minutes to boot, 2 more to shut down. Every one of the PC's I've had in my 30 years of engineering has been slower to boot than the one it replaced. I will believe instant on when I see it. It is a Microsoft myth.
2) You will have to have a phone and if you have a netbook that is constantly in contact then it will also have to have a data card built in and a separate data plan. So add $600 per year to the cost, plus $400 to $600 for the net book and you have spent several thousand bucks more than I spent on my $199 Redfly. That is not a very cost effective solution.
3) If you pair the Redfly with a new phone with a 500 mHz or faster cpu and with 250 or more megs of RAM, pretty much basic specs for a new HTC smartphone like the Touch Pro, Fuze, Epix, TreoPro, Diamond, etc. you will have a pretty snappy pair. Even on a slightly older Tilt the performance is good as evidenced by previous comments as long as you have a good ROM and have tweaked the registry sufficiently. In fact my old Mogul and the Redfly did quite well although 64 meg was not really enough RAM.
4) Push Exchange email is flawless on a WM phone, calendar synchronization is perfect. Using a netbook that has to sync up when you turn it on compared to true exchange push over a WM phone is not as good, not as quick and much much harder to set up and maintain.
5) Battery life is never as good as "they" say. 15 hours equals 8 in real life and the Redfly gets 8 now. I mean think about it, the Redfly only has to power the keyboard and the screen and sometimes the BT radio. The netbook has to power all that as well as mass storage, the data card and a fairly intense CPU. Does it really make sense it can power more stuff without needing more batteries?

I rest my case, Cuz.

 

[c1oudrs]

Ba. Windows ce isn't windows mobile. And usb ports are only as good as the drivers that drive them. I've had experience with windows mobile usb. Celio Redfly usb while not as good as xp usb is superior to anything else Ive come across. They (Always Innovating Folks)have their own proprietary operating system and hobbiests get to try to put other operating systems on it.Touch support it seems to me might be iffy whih negates the advantages of a slate. The Redfly's size is just about perfect. Bigger just might be a deal breaker for me. Mianstreem netbooks pose a far bigger threat. Especially with Redfly tech/programming inside.

The biggest threat though to the Redfly is the next/newest generation of Redfly. Oh don't make us wait till fall!

 

[flyemhighrockets]

I agree this won't be a major threat to the redfly for a steel love I redfly.