i-mate to Introduce a “Foleo” for The Ultimate Series

i-mate plans to create a “shell” that would feature a 1024×768 display (7 inch?), a keyboard and a battery that can last (up to) 80 hours, turning the Ultimate smart phones into a comfortably sized PDA powerful enough to do serious productivity work, yet much smaller and lighter than a laptop. If you need to, you can also remote control your home/office PC with Remote Desktop.

However, there’s a price to this. Expect the “shell” to cost around $300 in addition to the $600-$800 of the Smartphone itself. It’s a little expensive, but for someone who mainly does email and who really cares about portability, that might sound pretty good.

In short, that’s the Foleo done right. Unlike the Foleo, the i-mate “shell” doesn’t contain any processing units or memory – that’s why it will be much cheaper. (Related: Foleo cancelled)

Update 1/2/08: Take a look at the REDFLY, it’s a mobile companion that works exactly like this.