Brian's Brain

Continued from Part 1, 'Celio's Redfly: Will Low-Cost Netbooks Cause The Phone-Centric Dream To Die (Or Visa Versa)?'...

For the moment, at least, Redfly's Bluetooth 2.0 EDR transceiver only supports wireless phone sync. I'd like to see support for Bluetooth keyboard and mice added in the future...for times when USB is being used for sync, of course. To that point, the two USB2 ports Celio included in Redfly have capabilities beyond their initially obvious phone pairing purposes.

Through USB, for example, you can also charge the phone while it's connected to Redfly. You can mate the ports with a wired mouse and keyboard. And you can even connect one or both ports to a USB flash drive (or, for that matter, a memory card of your favorite form factor in conjunction with a USB adapter...I realized while typing this that I haven't yet tried a USB-interface hard drive), wherein the memory units are subsequently listed as Remote Storage devices within the phone's folder/file management utilities' UIs. As such, Redfly's USB ports provide an intriguing workaround to the 2 GByte capacity limit of my Dash's built-in microSD slot.

Documentation included with my review Redfly indicated that the unit was already running the latest production firmware, so I did an over-the-air install of the necessary driver to my T-Mobile Dash, which was recognized as a valid unit by Celio's website. Initial phone pairing occurred over USB; I was subsequently able to enable Bluetooth pairing as well via the settings screens. In addition to the programs Microsoft and T-Mobile included with the Dash, I also installed (and tested Redfly using) the Java-based Gmail Mobile email client and Opera Mini browser, along with Google's standalone Maps for Mobile utility.

My experiences using Redfly have so far have been generally problem-free and impressive. Connections and disconnections over both USB and Bluetooth are rapid and uneventful, that is to say 100% reliable. I was happily surprised to see that most applications automatically up-scaled from the phone's 320x240 pixel screen to Redfly's native 800x480 pixel widescreen resolution; those that remained QVGA also remained usable, although they didn't take full advantage of the newly available display real estate. Bluetooth bandwidth is sufficient to deliver adequate display refresh rates for mostly-static applications, but rapid screen update operations (web browsing, Google map navigation, etc) beg for USB2's speedier and lower-latency connection.

512 MByte (generic) and 8 GByte (Super Talent) USB flash drives were reliably recognized both by Redfly and subsequently by the tethered phone, but a generic 1 GByte flash drive threw up an 'unrecognized phone' error message on the Redfly GUI. I was also initially baffled that I couldn't log into my Gmail account either through the Gmail Mobile Java app or via the Java-based Opera Mini browser...until I discovered that the numeric portions of my Google account password weren't being passed from the Redfly keyboard to my phone. This bug is likely Esmertec Java Virtual Machine-specific; Windows Mobile-native applications seem to have full alphanumeric compatibility with Redfly. And I wager that this hiccup, like the earlier-mentioned USB flash drive issue, will be fairly simple for Celio to fix via upgrades to Redfly's firmware and/or Windows Mobile driver.

My other frustration is less easily solvable by Celio, I suspect, though it's alternatively surmountable by additional use and consequent user training. I also suspect that it's a reflection of my incorporation of a Smartphone (Windows Mobile Standard) device in this review instead of a more robustly featured Pocket PC Phone (Windows Mobile Professional) unit. Cedio has emulated the functions of various Dash keys via the touchpad and its buttons, and Redfly also adds a much welcomed and PC- reminiscent ALT-TAB means of cycling through all running applications on the phone. However, 'clicking' on a particular link on a page displayed by a web browser running on the phone (for example) cannot be done either by the touchpad or by an USB-tethered mouse. I believe this is because Smartphones (unlike Pocket PC phones) don't incorporate touchscreens, and therefore Smartphone-targeted applications aren't touchscreen- (and therefore aren't touchpad- or mouse-) cognizant. Alternatively, then, you need to cycle through the links on a page using TAB or other keys, then press Return to 'click' on the desired link once you've selected it.

Celio's recent substantial downward price move on Redfly gives the unit a fighting chance of succeeding in the market, yet triumph is still not guaranteed. For one thing, the device's current exclusive link to Windows Mobile devices means that as Windows Mobile succeeds (or not), so too does Redfly. Pragmatically, I suspect that any overtures Celio might make to Apple would be a waste of time; the iPhone, after all, still doesn't even support Bluetooth-tethered external keyboards. Alternatively, I encourage the company to pursue alliances with the developers of mobile O/Ss such as Android, BlackBerry, Openmoko and Symbian, as a means of broadening Redfly's serviceable market and reducing its exposure to downside risk caused by weakness of any single potential partner.

$199 is also a much stronger pricing message than the initial $499 attempt, in comparison to low-end netbooks. However, a perusal of tech bargain sites such as Dealnews still reveals, for example, ASUS Eee PCs with 7" LCDs for $270 and units with 9" displays for $330. Keep in mind that Redfly extends users' access to already-familiar phone apps, versus forcing them to redundantly learn sometimes-archaic Linux-based programs. It also leverages the PIM information already stored on the phone. However, as both PIM data (i.e. Google Calendar) and apps (i.e. Gmail, Google Apps) become 'cloud'-centric, thereby accessible via any browser (phone- or netbook-based), these Redfly strengths will begin to dissipate.

My next testing steps include, assuming I receive assurance from Celio, installing the software driver on my primary T-Mobile Dash and therefore exposing Redfly to additional applications such as Dataviz's Documents To Go mobile office application suite. I'd also be curious to pair Redfly with a Pocket PC Phone, as well as with units based on Windows Mobile 6. I'd like to expand my evaluation to include other mobile web browsers, mapping programs, etc. And I'd like to see how Redfly, over both Bluetooth and USB, handles video playback sources such as Orb and Slingbox.

Ironically, an article I read Friday night in the current issue of InformationWeek, titled 'Is the Smartphone Your New Computer?' and also picked up by Celio in its blog, provides a concurrent treatment of the topic I'm discussing here. I'll close for now by asking what you think; do smartphones, perhaps enabled by Redfly's laptop-like usability enhancements, have a fighting chance at succeeding versus computers?