I ordered mine just after it went on sale. I've had it for a few weeks and absolutely LOVE it!
I do most of my email and web browsing at home from my phone. It is always with me and always on. I don't have to boot my laptop to just check a website real quick. Or look a this forum. Or check Google Reader.
Now it is a dream on the Redfly. Opera Mobile is great!
On the work front the Redfly is a huge help. I use it to telnet in to network equipment (pocket Putty), remote desktop to servers, and manage devices though their web interface. While this was all doable before it is now super easy, and a much nicer experience, with the Redfly. Plus I don't kill the battery on my phone. If i carry my Lil' Sync cable from PPCTechs it will charge my phone too! Which allows me to use WiFi more.
I used my pocket pc as my primary computer before I had the Redfly. Now it is just soo much easier and so much nicer. It was totally worth wasting the $199 for me. hehehe
It is GREAT for travel. I took it with me on vacation 2 weeks ago. It is all I needed. I didn't really want a netbook or mini laptop because I could do everything I would use one of those for all from my phone. Now I have the best of both worlds.
The softkeys share the same buttons as F6 and F7. They also work when using an external USB keyboard.
Page up and down are on the FN of the up and down arrow keys.
Awesome. Thanks for pointing those out. The printing is a bit small for me to read easily, but now that I know they're there, I'll use them.
I just hope the key legends don't wear off. They look like they might, which would be bad, especially for the function keys.
For getting a larger screen, better keyboard, trackpad, extended battery, VGA out and limited USB functionality (keyboard, mouse, flash drive), $200 isn't bad. If the USB worked with a memory card reader, not just a flash drive, that would make it even better. (I may have to try that later. I suspect it will work with my old SanDisk SD Cruzer, but not my multi-format card reader.)
It's kind of a meh for me, I mean the whole point of getting a smartphone in the first place was so I didn't need to carry around a laptop all the time. Then there is the price, with Asus now coming out with a $300 Eeepc it's really hard to justify a $200 machine that does nothing but connect to your smartphone.
In the end the Redfly seems like an answer to a question no one asked....at least to me.
I ordered my Redfly this morning. I can do most of my daily computing on my Treo, but that small screen is a HUGE limiting factor. The Redfly should eliminate that problem and make typing easier.
Has anyone found a case that fits this? I want a small case that's just big enough for the Redfly and a mouse, not the AC adapter or other stuff.
I have been using Redfly for a few days. Wish it were slimmer and lighter. But it gives me almost instant-on, good battery life and large keyboard/display. No complaint for $199.
I've been looking at one of the eee pc cases at Target. It might be a little smaller than what you are looking for.
But that is where I would starg looking. Netbook cases.
I bought one from Amazon, and have been using it for a week or so. It works as described, and does it well.
It turns my tilt into a near laptop experience. I can easily reply to e-mails (via Flexmail), use PocketInformant for a near outlook experience, browse with Opera mobile 8.65, create / edit docs and spreadsheets with Textmaker / Planmaker.
It does NOT provide you with a multimedia platform. There aren't speakers, it isn't good for video, etc. However, it's not supposed to be a multimedia system.
At $200 - I justified the price by looking at what it provides:
- Bluetooth keyboard - ~$100
- Spare battery / charger ~$60 or so
- Larger display for my tilt - ???
I can now do most of my work anywhere I have an edge signal (naturally 3G is better). I don't have to lug my laptop everywhere, worry about it getting damaged or lost.
I highly recommend this to smartphone users who need more than causal use of their phones for e-mails / browsing / doc editing.
I've been using the Redfly for about a week now, so here's what I've found using my Motorola Q9m running WM 6 Standard.
The good points:
You get a much better keyboard and screen, obviously.
Battery life has been very good.
I can actually use the scroll bars on the Redfly with the on-screen pointer. (That means the Smartphone actually has scroll bars, not just scroll indicators, I think.)
I can read the print in IE Mobile more easily. (I'm very nearsighted, so that's a big deal.)
Not only can you connect flash drives, you can connect two of them -- and they can be card readers, like my old SanDisk Cruzer SD reader or my newer SanDisk MobileMate MicroSD reader.
My Logitech Cordless TrackMan trackball worked.
People I've shown it to generally think it's cool.
The bad points:
Windows Media doesn't play video well (but music seems to play fine).
Pocket IE seems a bit slow loading something like IMDB
The Page Up/Page Down keys don't work everywhere (like in E-mail).
Clicking on links doesn't work; you have to scroll to them and hit Enter. (Remember, my Q9m is not a touchscreen phone.)
Clicking on items on the Home screen also doesn't work. You can to scroll to them and hit Enter.
The Home screen can get messed up. After some connects and disconnects, I had my Home screen and scheme, but the softkeys were still using the Redfly colors.
The Start menu isn't sorted in any way I can discern, and one folder that I added to the Start menu somehow was displayed with the ActiveSync icon.
Gentimer (an alarm program) screens don't display at all (probably because of the way Gentimer implements skins). At least when an alarm triggers, though, you can see the alarm text in the title bar.
After installing the Redfly software, Sprite Backup stopped making my scheduled backups (for three days). Going into the schedule section and rescheduling the backup seems to have fixed that.
Garmin Mobile 10 GPS software was hard to use. I couldn't select the buttons because they displayed bigger than normal, which caused the highlighting to disappear (although I didn't try too much).
I disconnected, set my destination, then reconnected and maps did display. Howvever, the refresh time didn't appear to be real-time (it was hard to tell because I was driving and the Redfly was on the passenger seat).
I didn't think it would work at all, so it's a mixed bag.
My USB multi-card reader didn't work (but I didn't expect it to).
Using a Bluetooth headset and voice dialing gives distorted voice prompts from the Voice Recignition software.
The directional pad mode seems very fidgety. I find using the arrow keys for scrolling and the Enter key for OK to be much easier.
So far, I think it's been worth the $200. It's not something I can use everywhere, but I'll be carrying it around at work to meetings, I think. It should make note taking easier.
I Got One
Case??
Linear Mode
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