The Palm Foleo may have died before it was ever born, but that doesn't mean that Palm wasn't onto something with the whole mobile companion thing. Celio plans to show off REDFLY, a new type of mobile device at CES which will effectively let Windows Mobile users type away on a device with a full keyboard and 8 inch screen.

The REDFLY mobile companion may look like a tiny computer, a la the Eee PC, but it's really just a piece of hardware that's designed to work with a Windows Mobile smartphone or PDA. The device doesn't have its own operating system, but rather acts as an extension of your mobile device.

In other words, if you've got a Windows Mobile 5.0/6 device, you can use the REDFLY to access Pocket Outlook, Office, and Internet Explorer. No need to synchronize data between your PDA and mobile companion. Your mobile companion is more of a mobile screen. That means that the REDFLY is a bit less useful than a Palm Foleo would have been if you don't happen to have your smartphone around. But seriously, how often does that happen?

You can connect your Windows Mobile device using USB or Bluetooth. And because the REDFLY doesn't need to have a hefty processor, this tiny 1.9 pound device gets a good 8 hours of battery life. There's also a VGA port for displaying the output on a larger monitor. The only downside? The $499 price tag. At that point, you might as well get an 8G Eee PC, install Windows XP and ActiveSync and just keep your PDA and mobile device synchronized.

[via jkOnTheRun]