Celio REDFLY Becomes A BlackBerry Companion

Remember Palm's Foleo? Unless you follow consumer electronics and gizmos mighty closely, you probably don't. But for those that do, this is a dead-ringer for. You see, the Foleo was axed by Palm before it even had a chance in the market place, and considering just how popular netbooks have become, there's some that thing Palm goofed up by pulling the plug instead of re-tooling it. That said, it's pretty clear now that the Foleo would indeed have failed in this market, as Celio's REDFLY has a pretty small following (and a very similar motto).

Still, for those stuck with a REDFLY--which is basically a large screen and fuller-sized keyboard for a mobile device--this new update could be great news. For the first time, the REDFLY Mobile Companion now plays nice with BlackBerry. To be precise, it supports the BlackBerry Bold 9000, BlackBerry Curve 8900 and BlackBerry Tour 9630. The new update is available to download now free of charge for existing owners, and those looking to get one for the first time can purchase the C7 for $199 and the larger C8 for $249.

“BlackBerry is a leader in the smartphone market and has an overwhelming acceptance among business users,” said Kirt Bailey, president and CEO of Celio Corp. “We’re confident that BlackBerry smartphone customers will enjoy the convenience of using REDFLY’s larger screen and keyboard to type emails, browse the Internet, and edit documents.”

The REDFLY Mobile Companion comes in two models – the C8N and C7 – and has a large screen, full QWERTY keyboard, touchpad, up to an 8-hour battery, and USB, VGA and media ports. The REDFLY has no OS, storage or processor, but uses the BlackBerry smartphone’s computing power to give users the ability to interact with the smartphone’s familiar user interface on an 800x480 resolution display. The REDFLY is currently also compatible with more than 60 Windows Mobile devices.

At launch, the REDFLY is supporting the BlackBerry® Bold™ 9000, BlackBerry® Curve™ 8900 and BlackBerry® Tour™ 9630 smartphones. The driver for BlackBerry smartphones is offered free-of-charge for existing and new REDFLY Mobile Companion C8N and C7 owners and can be downloaded at http://m.celiocorp.com/install.