[General Topics] Ineedtoys:
Basically it's a Bluetooth keyboard and screen, battery extender, SVGA adapter and (limited) USB hub rolled into one. It's certainly not a laptop.

If you find WM does pretty much all you need while on the road, except you wish it had a bigger screen, proper keyboard, and the battery didn't give out before your working day was over, the Redfly is for you.

It's no good for you if you're in the habit of loading your smartphone and applications with CPU-hogging eye-candy, want to run full full-blown Windows apps, or use it as a games console or video player.

It gains over a laptop, because it's almost instant on. Powering up from cold, establishing the data connection to your phone, and displaying your application on screen, takes around 10 seconds start to finish.

It claims a battery life to dream of - at least 8 hours on time, and it keeps your phone charged up too.

You don't need to sync, copy or update data or apps - there's only one copy, and it's on your phone.

It's secure - because all the data's on your phone, not the Redfly, if the "notebook" falls into the wrong hands there's no personal data to expose, no passwords to crack, no file systems to "recover".

It's low cost of ownership (in time and money) - there are no applications to licence, install, configure, maintain or duplicate over those already on your phone (bar the Redfly driver). Plug your phone in, and it's all there, how you like it.

It doesn't need any anti-virus/spyware/firewall protection to install, update or certify (especially if taking into secure corporate environments).

So far it's working pretty well for me, and I've tried many alternative approaches.

I supplemented my smartphone with an EeePC. I had to turn it off at every opportunity just to get through the day.

But the biggest snag was a creeper- after a few weeks I ended up with duplicate records, files and documents all over the place. The one file I need was usually the one I'd forgotten to sync. Keeping everything in step was a real headache, as it now involved 3 seperate storages - phone, EeePC, main PC. WM just isn't designed for 3 way syncing, after all, it's not that robust at 2. Simple things like maintaining two copies of SplashID became a nightmare (bye bye latest time-expired passwords). And I could never be 100% sure that there wasn't an old copy of some "In Confidence" data lurking unnoticed on one of the machines.

I also had a "do everything" X7500. But that was inappropriately large and conspicous in some locations, was damn hard to use a phone, and the battery was usually on its last legs by lunch. Great in some situations. Totally impractical in others.

Not forgetting the old classic, the Universal. To this day not beaten in many respects, but still cumbersome when all you want is a phone not a mini-laptop.

The Redfly is by no means perfect (e.g. it's no speed daemon, doesn't work with all phones, has difficulty coping with video or graphic "skinned" programs). But it does give me a unique choice over other solutions - big screen and keyboard and hours of battery when I need it, or just the phone in my pocket when I don't - all using a common set of applications and data (with the option to copy/to from a flash drive).

At the "seed" price, if you have that kind of need, then I think it's well worth it. If you have requirements outside the above, then get a Netbook (but don't forget the accessory bag or power cord ...)