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Pocket PC 2002
Microsoft is holding some sort of launch event today for a pile of new Pocket PC devices. Pocket PC Thoughts has a bunch of news items; PDA Buzz has a report and pretty comparison chart looking at the different models, and I'm sure people will post more links in the comments. So, is this the mighty Palm-killer?
When will Linux PDA's get their break in the Market? Eventually people will get sick of rebooting their PDA's and move to a stable OS.
There are warehouses full of Palm devices they can't give away while HP, Casio, and Compaq are having trouble manufacturing Pocket PC's fast enough to meet market demand.
At $499 to $650, I don't see these killing the Palm anytime soon.
However, it is funny to see the price continue to rise. I remember everyone saying that one reason the Newton died was the price.
A whopping $1000. Microsoft again attempts to imitate Apple? Shock.
Huh? I don't get it. MHz matters not on an organizer. What matters are ease of use, battery life, and cost. What's clobbering Palm is the fact that people are still happy with the Palms they bought 2-3 years ago and see no need to upgrade - not a wholesale shift to Pocket PC.
sulli
RTFJ.
That should be fixed in the next year or 2, recall the article yesterday about motorola and a few other manufacturers developing methane based electrochemical generators. they would be sabout the size of palm V, and they would power the average cell phone or pda for about 1 month. They manufacturers of these technologys said that this stuff would be in mass production within 2 to 4 years. another technology that will make that a non issue is that device which draws power from your own body heat. so with those 2 technologys and the power that lithium batteries are holding, power will not be an issue in 2 years.
Another option is that Curusoe chip, which changes its clock speed on the fly to conserve battery life.
Basicly, Battery power in the next year may be an issue but 2 years from now it wont even be something we are thinking about...
~Wire -- no sig...
No, it's not a Palm-killer because that isn't a valid comparison. That's like comparing a Celeron 800 laptop to a TI calculator. They are meant to serve different purposes.
Microsoft's initial entries into the handheld market were pitiful because (a) they tried to jam Windows into something that it wouldn't work too well on, and (b) they were trying to create a PDA and not much more.
Now though, they have (a) redesigned the OS to better accomodate the hardware it's running on, and (b) they are creating something that is much more like a laptop than a PDA.
It's a PocketPC, i.e., a PC that fits in your pocket. That's not a PDA, so the comparison is not fair to begin with. Two different markets at this point. If all you need is a rolodex and calendar in your pocket, Palm is a fine choice (of course it can do more, I'm oversimplifying here). But if you want all the multimedia, connectivity and software options of a laptop (most of them anyway) without the bulk, a PocketPC is a perfect choice.
The Yes part of that (yes, it is a Palm-killer, since all the above supports the no portion of my subject?). That's simple: when people see what these things can do (nothing like playing with one at Best Buys!) then they will be hard-pressed to justify a Palm in any case. Yes, the price is quite a difference (sort of... isn't the top-of-the-line Palm about $400 at this point?), but you get SO much more for the money.
Bottom line: you have to determine what your needs are. You want something close to a laptop in capability but smaller? PocketPC can't be beat. You want a tidy place to keep your personal information and don't have a ton of money to spend? Palm will make you quite happy.
(Oh, and since most of the newer PocketPC's are flashable, you Linux zealots should be thrilled to death. I mean, what in the *BLUE HELL* would make you want to put Linux on an iPaq anyway?? But that's not the point. If you WANT to, you can. I'd bet you can do it with a Palm too, but would you rather put Linux on a 486-33 or a Pentium 200? I'd go with the later!)
One day he got an iPaQ to replace his Palm Pilot. "Oh, are you going to run Linux on it?" I asked him. "No," he said, "I am running Windows CE."
When I asked him why, he said it was simply easier to develop software for Windows CE handhelds. Palm forces you to buy a developer kit, but you can use standard Microsoft tools to develop for Windows CE. Windows CE 3.0 even has the source code available.
Palm has a large legacy base, but they've missed the boat both with development tools and with color screens and MP3 playback. Why should I buy a Palm when I can buy a handheld PC that I can use as an MP3 player, voice recorder, and have wireless Internet access in full color to boot?
Dataquest thinks so too.
They're nice, much as the wave of Pocket PCs they're replacing were. But they still cost $600. $600 is what a lot of companies pay for their desktop systems these days. They have their place, and they'll sell all right.. but nobody has yet come out with a usable $150-$300 Pocket PC, and that's what most Palms sell for, even color ones now.
Palms do a lot less. They store less. They can't play MP3s without extra hardware, can't run a WinFrame client decently, and so on. They're also cheap enough to be an impulse purchase or a cheap corporate gift to employees. Some companies give senior managers Pocket PCs. But other companies give low-end Palms to pretty much anyone on a yearly salary.
The $450 high-end Palms don't compete well on features with the fancy Pocket PCs, though they are markedly simpler and quicker to use for the core organizer functions. But Palm's bread and butter nowadays is the low-to-midrange, as it is for Handspring too. And the Pocket PC devices just don't compete there at all.
Palm does need to boost its specs and give the OS a facelift soon, and they seem to be working on that with their announced move to RISC processors and the Be acquisition. But you can bet they'll stick to $200 mass-market PDAs and leave the $600 devices to whoever wants them. And all the talk about Compaq's iPaq beating Palm in sales numbers is based on dollars--on a low-margin, high-cost product. And with the Palm III/m100 series making up the bulk of Palm sales during that period, that still meant Palm was beating them by at least 3:1 in unit sales.
The first PDA powered by solar power wins. It might have a battery for backlighting during the night but as soon as you don't have to worry about batteries i want one. In this regard Palm/Handspring have a shot since they don't require much power as it is.
IMHO...
I have used a programable TI86 since Highschool. I have made a calander, and address book, I can get games, I can do complex graphs and print them, I can do cosmological calculations as well as quantum calculations, it is extensable through its programable interface and you can give it a menu/button/desktop like interface. hell, the TI86 is also only $110.
it seems that Texas Instruments has been at the for front of all this, they just didn't market it righy
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
Have you ever used a PocketPC? My first WinCE device (years ago) had a processor about the speed of the 33Mhz Dragonball VZ and 2M of RAM. It ran circles around my Palm. If all you are going to do is use the PDA as a PIM then, no you don't need that much processor or RAM.
However, useing a PDA based on a more advanced OS and a faster processor raises your expectations. I use my iPAQ as an MP3 player, a video player (I capture the morning news [and cartoons] and watch them on my commute), wireless intenet device, and a PIM. So yeah I wan't a little more power and memory.
What do you know I wrote a novel
If you have a Pocket PC, check it out. It's kinda useless, but it's still fun...
You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
Audio functionality together, visual functionality together (Like my TRGpro and Kodak Palmpix), Audio/Visual functionality apart. Then communicate with something like Bluetooth.
So far nobody has gushed over the fact that the E-200 can act as USB host or client. Sure, they can all plug in to a USB port to synchronise, but up till now the only way you could connect peripherals was via serial port, or use one of precious few Compact Flash devices.
Imagine with proper USB connectivity, plug it into a USB hub and use a dozen things.
USB scanners, webcams, printers, USB-to-Ethernet, USB whatevers.
If only the release date was known....