Red-M Blade

Many IT experts dismiss Bluetooth out of hand, deriding it as the poor cousin of 802.11 wireless technology. But there's a differentiation between the two standards, which can be summarised in one statement: Bluetooth is cordless, 802.11 is wireless. With this clip-on accessory, Red-M is aiming to replace two cords - the one connecting your Palm Vx with your mobile phone, and the other connecting it with your notebook.

It does this by integrating a Bluetooth 1.1 radio into a clip-on specifically designed for the Palm Vx (a Palm V won't work due to its different memory architecture). This isn't entirely new - TDK has already released a similar product, but it can't take advantage of Piconet Bluetooth networks. Red-M's Blade can, which opens up a whole range of uses.

Red-M's bold vision sees offices equipped with a Bluetooth access server and a couple of access points (at a cost of £2,124 and £282 respectively), with your Blade-equipped Vx devices seamlessly connecting with the network's client PCs, the intranet and the Internet. When you're out of range of an access point, your connection shifts to a Bluetooth-equipped mobile phone that dials into the network, just like a standard modem connection. This seamless movement is the big advantage a Bluetooth network would hold over the 802.11 alternative.

If you just opt for the Blade with a phone, the uses are slightly more limited. You can still dial into the network - Red-M describes the scenario of a remote worker collecting and replying to email, all without getting the mobile phone out of the car boot - but otherwise the most natural use is for live Web clipping. That's fine, but it's something the Sagem WA3050 (see Reviews, issue 84, p154) already provides in a slightly different form. There are a couple of other uses, such as sending SMS messages via the PDA, but even then the returned messages go to the phone, so it isn't a perfect solution.

To complete your PAN (Personal Area Network) you'll need a Bluetooth-equipped notebook; we tested the Blade using a laptop fitted with Xircom's RealPort Wireless Bluetooth adaptor, which costs £95. The only obvious benefit of this is remote synchronisation, with distances reaching up to 100m. Although potentially useful, this isn't something I did on a regular basis. Most of the time I could have just placed the Palm into the docking station, and if anything it's a slight annoyance to have to take the Vx out of the Blade to do this.

It's not always straightforward to establish perfect connections between all the Bluetooth devices either. Although communication between the phone and PDA went without a hitch, synchronising the Palm Vx and notebook was fraught with difficulty, despite following the step-by-step guide included in the Blade's manual. Only a call to Red-M's technical guru solved the problem.

We're prepared to put up with some setup difficulties if the end results are worth it, but without the supporting Bluetooth infrastructure you're spending an awful lot of money for mobile Web clipping and wireless synchronisation. Only the remote access to a network provides anywhere near a convincing argument for the outlay.

Then there are the physical problems of attaching any clip-on to a Palm. The Blade may be light at 70g, but it adds bulk to a device whose biggest advantage is its sleekness. Meanwhile, battery life is drastically reduced to around three days.

We do commend Red-M for producing a Piconet-enabled Bluetooth clip-on, but the Blade is just one small part of a very large jigsaw. The next generation will hopefully be integrated into PDAs, or take advantage of small expansion slots like SD and MMC. Unless you have concrete uses for a Bluetooth-enabled PDA that will provide true - and preferably measurable - productivity benefits, then we advise you to hold back at the moment. But there's no doubt that a Bluetooth-enabled office has enormous benefits, and Red-M is well placed to provide them.

Author: Tim Danton