Celio REDFLY C7

by Brightpoint

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 11.4 x 11.4 x 2.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.6 pounds
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S. and to APO/FPO addresses. For APO/FPO shipments, please check with the manufacturer regarding warranty and support issues.
• ASIN: B001LJNELG
• Item model number: CRF-C7
• Average Customer Review: 2.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #178,967 in Cell Phones & Accessories (See Top 100 in Cell Phones & Accessories)

Product Description

REDFLY is NOT a computer. It's simply a large screen and keyboard for your BlackBerry or Windows Mobile smartphone. It lets you use your smartphone in a whole new way. REDFLY is a smartphone terminal with a large screen and full keyboard with no OS, no CPU, and no storage that lets you use your smartphone like a laptop. REDFLY links to your smartphone via a USB cable or wireless Bluetooth connection. The unique REDFLY terminal architecture lowers TCO, provides data loss protection, and improves corporate security. REDFLY is unlike any sub-compact laptop, netbook or UMPC because it has no CPU, memory or OS. There's no need to sync with a smartphone or manage the REDFLY in any way. Just install the over-the-air driver on your phone, connect to REDFLY and you see your smartphone in a whole new way. The C7 has a 7 inch diagonal display (800x480 pixels) and 5 hour battery. The C7 is 1x6x9 inches, and has 2 USB ports, 1 VGA port and weighs under 2 lbs

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Decent for what it does, but not a Notebook Replacement (for me), January 14, 2009

By 

RO (NC) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Celio REDFLY C7 (Wireless Phone Accessory)

I decided to give this a try since I could return to Celio for a reasonable $15 restocking fee (cost of experimenting) vs Expansys 25% (!).

The concept is good if you do a LOT of work on your PDAphone that could use a bigger screen and nice keyboard (Pocket Office apps, PIE browsing, long emails). I found though, that it is almost exactly the same dimensions as my Fujitsu Lifebook P1120, and with its dual-booting of Windows (2000) and Linux (Puppy), 9-inch 1024x600 touch screen, multiple I/O ports, audio and trackpoint (I do not care much at all for touchy touchpads), it is much more versatile in the same-sized package, especially since I can tether it to the phone, and thus get a lot more powerful processing of what comes over the airwaves than what a PDA can do (and, yes, the USB connection charges the phone at the same time, just like the 'fly). Also, the 1120 only cost me $140 on eBay (used of course).

I can think of some relatively simple improvements that would make the Redfly much more attractive, and which might even persuade me to consider toting it around instead of the 1120:

1. Include audio pass-through with jacks/speakers/mic to make some use of the wasted screen bezel space. This would permit a "big" speakerphone functionality to go along with its big keyboard and screen features. The pass-through would allow standard audio earphones or speakers to be used (with a 3.5mm jack).

2. If keeping the touchpad, enable it to scroll as with most notebook PC's these days - the screen scrolling is imprecise with the awkward touchpad/mouse button combo action needed, and is not at all smooth. Forget about a scroll-wheel USB mouse - that part of a mouse does not work when plugged into one of the 'fly's ports.

3. Better yet, have a Trackpoint (optional maybe?) that would allow shrinking the keyboard's depth, and also take a quarter-inch off each side of the keyboard frame to reduce the bulk in those 2 dimensions.

4. Reduce the overall thickness by at least a third if not half (or more) - think Macbook Air - reduce the overall "bulk".

5. If not reducing the depth dimension that much, then make the screen taller vertically to get up to a "real" 800x600 image height instead of making it a scroll-up-down option at it is now.

6. Backlight the keys (or make the legends on them a LOT brighter) to make this easier to use in dim conditions.

7. Add some simple type of velcro and mesh bag holder for the phone on the lid, or a bracket, or something equivalent to keep the phone from being a loose afterthought that you have to just lay somewhere. Just a thought...

Those tweaks would make this much more appealing (to me at least), but still will not overcome the limitations of the processor and software on the PDA phone itself - IE is slow and limited (Opera 9.5 won't work, 8.65 does not seem to work with the touchscreen/mouse, or did I download the wrong version?). Also, the big screen might tempt the user into opening more apps, but a typically configured PDA phone like my Verizon xv6700/HTC Apache with only 64MB of RAM still bogs down quickly when running low on RAM. The "big" screen and keyboard will NOT make this over into anything like a real notebook PC, even a low-end one like my Fujitsu P1120.

This is a well-made piece of gear with a good "tight" feeling without being quite as hefty as my Lifebook (it is mostly hollow after all compared to the typical notebook with it dense packaging), and it does what it is designed for fairly well. I found in reading various blogs that a number of folks do find this gadget suitable for the way they use it, so, as always, YMMV/caveat emptor.

HTH

RO

2.0 out of 5 stars Redfly designed to solve what problem?, June 8, 2010

By 

William H. Olson (San Francisco, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Celio REDFLY C7 (Wireless Phone Accessory)

I purchased the Redfly C7 to have a minimal alternative to a laptop. The Blackberry's Hi-Res 480X360 output looks great on my Blackberry 9700 Bold but fuzzy on the Redfly's larger screen. The Blkbry's square format also causes "black bars on the sides of the Redfly screen, similar to the black bars seen on wide-screen monitors showing old style TV formats. It is not what I bought it for but maybe the Redfly is for watching video or movies? Battery works as advertised and the keyboard is an improvement on thumb entry. Also, DataViz, ($30 extra) to enable working with Microsoft Office documents, is disabled by my company's firewall. Oh well.