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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?
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.
Unless these pocket PCs start being a lot cheaper, Palm still has some edge.
These are certainly nice and all, but with all those high performance processors, high memory, color screens - the price keeps running up. These are going to dominate the "pocket pc" category, and at the typically higher price, they have to be a 'pocket pc', because you couldn't afford a desktop as well. (If you can afford the desktop as well, then you're likely above the mass market.)
I'll still take a Palm-class device plus a good (and not pricey) desktop rather than a pocket pc anyday.
So, is this the mighty Palm-killer
Yeah, right up until someone modifies Code Red or Nimda to attack unpatched PocketPC's over their wrieless connections:
Executive 1: Hmmm... My PDA is being slow today. I wonder why?
Executive 2: Why did you send me this file to have my advice?
Executive 3: Boy, my pocket PC sure is heating up. It never used to heat up like-- AAAHHH!!! I'M BURNING! I'M BURNING!
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
Is this the Palm killer? Not if the battery life is still measured in hours, not days or weeks (Palm V series and subsequent models); not if there's still massive overhead from all those Windows apps that get in the way of what you normally use a PDA for; and not if you're forced to listen to Windows Media (barf) instead of MP3, which has been supported on Handspring for about 2 years now.
sulli
RTFJ.
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.
10 hours? Do people really put up with 10 hours of operating battery life? My palm pilot used to last over a month of regular use (before it met an unfortunate end with Mr. Pavement.)
I've even read one review where the guy was gushing about the GPS receiver with the colour screen and how he could use it to on hikes and trial rides. With 10 hours?
Are none of the new handheld companies doing anything about this? Do consumers not care?
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.
I find it interesting that even with all the hype that Microsoft has generated the question still remains "Is this the palm killer?" This implies that the PalmOS is the yard stick by which all other handeld OSes are measured.
I hope Palm doesn't give into the hype and drastically changes the OS to address PocketPC. If they do then they will in a sense have become the Palm Killer that Microsoft is striving to be.
So, is this the mighty Palm-killer?
Not according to IDC they're not. (Of course, how much weight you give the likes of IDC, Gartner, et al will temper this report).
I think the downturn doesn't bode well for PocketPC (nor Palm, frankly). PocketPCs seem to be geared towards business users (WAY too expensive for the average folk) and I wonder how willing business are going to be to plunk down a lot of money to take full advantage of what the PocketPC PDAs can do.
Palm are getting it in the shorts due to economy and saturation, MS will get it in the shorts due to the economy and the dubious usefulness of PocketPC devices beyond niche applications.
They gotta pay their antitrust lawyers somehow.
sulli
RTFJ.
From the manual: "If you see a blank grey screen, you must scribble Control-Alt-Delete with your stylus on the touch screen to reboot"
- For the complete works of Shakespeare: cat
Each has it's use, if you're looking only at sophistication then you're probably overlooking the obvious, i.e. does this tool really work for you or are you expending effort to make everything you do conform to the limitations of a PDA or Desktop.
Personally, I haven't seen enough justification to get a PDA, yet, but I'm keeping an open mind. The OS offerings, 3G, etc. are inconsequential to whatever meager consideration I so far have (although, I must confest, it would rock to play M.U.L.E. on one, but that's still not a very strong argument to buy and learn to use one.)
Left to choose between a PDA, upgrade my laptop, or build a big honkin' desktop, I'd go with the desktop, until further notice.
The day I can install Delorme map tools on a PDA I might reconsider, but, that's for my personal preference.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
I thought it was interesting to Symbol in there. I have used some of their bar scanning equipment when I used to work retail. Very handy stuff. They are used to doing wireless stuff on lans inside of stores/warehouses, etc.
This could be real handy for a small business owner to use that scanning capability. Shoot, you could build a cash register that you carry around in your hand. Lot's of possibilities there.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
My favorite off of the hardware page is the Symbol PPT 2800, which has some impressive stats but also looks like a Star Trek prop as well..
On the other hand, the Casio E-200 seems to have expandability locked down with a Type II slot, a PC card slot and a memory slot.
For cool, the "O2 xpda" listed on the Pocket PC Thoughts homepage takes the prize. Jason Dunn says "I'm at a total loss here...who knows what this device is? Is this the BT device I've heard rumblings about?" I have a thought. I'd bet that this is related to MIT's Oxygen Project, profiled in this article from Scientific American.
The Dopester
"Yes, I'm a Karma Whore, but I'm doing it to pay my way through school."
Unfortunately, Palms do their jobs too well. They just work. I have no need to upgrade my HS Visor Deluxe anytime soon. It's a PDA that synchs between all my boxen, keeps my calendar, and keeps notes for me.
... because they NEED to to do all that crap that they're pushing. Only an MS designed POCKET ORGANIZER would need 200mhz and 64MB of RAM.
... I mean come on, anyone else think that since the M* series that Palm has lost it?
Someone mentioned that PocketPCs are pushing 200-300mhz
Right now, Palm is the Unix of PDAs, works, doesn't look sexy, just works. If I want an MP3 player, I'll buy one, I don't need a PDA/phone/mp3 player/tricorder/geiger counter with battery life measured in hours.
On the other hand, that doesn't give Palm/Handspring an excuse to sit around and not innovate
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!)
Price not that big a deal...
The new Palm Pilots prices are rising too, with the new palm 7's with the expansion slots, and the wireless connectivity stuff, they are priced around $400 to $500 as well, so Pocket PC's prices are not that far fetched.
~Wire - "dont like what i say.. well you suck"
/.ers embracing a PocketPC platform? What's this world coming to?!?
My mom always said, "Jim, you're 1 in a million." Given the current population, there are 7000 of me. God help us all!
so when was the last time you left your cradle out of an otherwise heavy suitcase...
The problem with palm is most users find they have to haul a laptop around (or find a workstation) in addition to their palm in order to satisfy all their needs. With Pocket PC we're starting to hear people say "With this thing I don't need my laptop anymore", and that's how many people can justify spending >$500 on a pda and why palm continues to loose market share to Pocket PC.
Exactly. I'm sitting here, right next to my trusty Palm III (the original III, not the IIIe, III Color, or whatever...), and it has served me well for almost three years. I love to look at the new Palms and Handsprings, but I've never been able to justify a new one, because honestly, this one does everything I need it to do. I use it on a daily basis, and sync it with Outlook 2000.
I've had a few accidents with my Palm that rendered it temporarily unusable. I took it apart and usually found that the memory chip had just been dislodged, or something similar. I've caught myself wishing the damn thing had broken so I could get a new one, but it's just too sturdy and reliable. :-)
--SC
You read fiction? I write it! Lemme know what you th
> consider how successful the GameBoy has been at wiping out game consoles.
Except for the notable facts that Gameboys are only made by Nintendo (as opposed to Palm, Handspring, Compaq, Casio, etc.) and that besides the GBC, the GBA was the only really notable advance in Gameboy-related tech since its introduction, what, maybe 10 or so years ago (unless you count them getting slimmer, which I, frankly, don't)
Microsoft lost the battle before they began to fight. If you are first to market and sell a large number to have a solid base, then you become the expected standard. Palm did that. It is up to Palm to lose that position. Microsoft has alot of resources but they came to the market after Palm had established themselves. Microsoft has to wait for Palm to fall far behind the PocketPC performance/price ratio before it can make any major headway into the market.
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.
After 6 years they are within an ounce and a few 10ths of an inch of the first generation Palm (Pilot 1000). Of course the newer Palms are almost half the size.
If you want a palmtop which requires a holster but can show 30 second color videos and play Doom, then PocketPC is for you.
If you want a palmtop which fits comfortably in your pocket, and can store appointments, phone numbers, maps and play a game or two, Palms are still ahead (just get an older one and don't pay too much).
I was hoping my (borrowed) Ipaq would at least partially replace my laptop. Unfortunately, the PowerPC OS is still so buggy that the damn things are almost unusable for anything serious. After the third time it crashed (in the process wiping its entire filesystem, network card drivers, preferences, etc.), I gave up the idea of using it for serious work.
It's a neat toy, but if you rely on it, you can't have silly software flaws like that. The worst part is the synchronization software. At least when the Palm crashes, a quick Hotsync gets you more or less right back to where you were (assuming you're not too far away from your computer.) With the PocketPC, full backups aren't performed automatically every time you synchronize-- should the thing crash, you're stuck with the most recent explicit backup you made.
And I never could find a way to mount Windows network drives over the network-- a feature that would be extraordinarily useful on such a tiny system. It's a snap with Linux, just use NFS.
PocketLinux may well be the answer... But most users will probably be stuck with Windows, as I was (it didn't belong to me, and I wasn't sure I could restore back to WinCE.)
If that's your worry, consider how successful the GameBoy has been at wiping out game consoles.
That's definately not my worry, it was just an observation. Good point though...
Each has it's use, if you're looking only at sophistication then you're probably overlooking the obvious...
I'm not looking for sophistication, I'm looking at the percieved need for high sophistication. You make my point quite well for me - I only use my PDA for a couple of things. I don't need it to play MPEG movies. The single most useless app on my Palm Pilot Vx (not a wireless Palm, if you didn't know) is the email utility. I'm not going to be scribbling a reply at the bus stop to an email I retrieved while I was at my desktop. I could probably have typed a reply in the time it took me to hot-sync and get the email in the first place.
It WOULD be cool to have Delorme Maps on my Palm. I wouldn't even need the GPS module you can get for the Visor.
Gimme a PDA that does what I need, does it well, and does it when I need it, and I'm a happy camper.
That brings up a thought - Does the Pocket PC OS have a Blue-Screen-Of-Death? I'd love to see a photo of one... (the BSOD, I mean)
Oh yeah - How exactly is what I wrote flamebait?
The Dopester
"Yes, I'm a Karma Whore, but I'm doing it to pay my way through school."
Yeah, and I'm sure that if Palms had to deal with having CE overhead, they'd have considerably more powerful CPU's in them, too.
Why even use a PDA? You can get a great laptop for $1,000 that has all of the features you need. It's powerful enough to work as a "desktop", and they're small enough to carry around easily. $500-$700 on a PDA or $1000 on a full-featured computer? I'll take the laptop, thanks.
It's called check box marketing. And MS is really good at it.
:)
IE:
Comparison:PocketPC | Palm
Processor: 200Mhz | 16Mhz
Color: 16bit | Grayscale
Screen Size
Memory 64mb | 8mb
etc. etc. etc...
They do it with Xbox VS. PSX2 too. In the numbers game, MS wins. (Except for battery life.)
May as well mod me as redundant, cause I've said this before.
I'm going to go back in my box and will think within the limits of my box: MS Sucks Linux Good I read too much Slashdot.
Solus Pro has been around for a while. If you have the Palm VII (the wireless one), you can download maps and routes to your handheld as you need them.
Yeah, trying to do mapping stuff on a palm-sized screen sucks, but I thought I would point out that it exists, and with GPS support at that.
Microsoft's Pocket Streets and Trips is pretty darn cool.. I have a full street map for the cities I travel in loaded into my iPaq and I can enter an address and have it show me exactly where it is on the map.
You know, specs have little to do with overall computing experience. The total design integration between hardware, software and form factor for a specific price is the real test. But Palm is going to be in trouble unless they start delivering at least some hardware that beats Pocket PC devices on numbers alone.
I love my Palm device and it does everything I need and more. But it isn't flashy. Microsoft has always understood that consumers are basically stupid and look at charts like these to make decisions. Just seeing that each of these have 64mb of RAM opposed to Palm's 8mb dooms them.
Until somebody invents a clever word or phrase that can be used to rate price against crashes, app usefulness and security, Palm is going to take a second seat to Pocket PC. Consumer Reports always uses "Consumer Satisfaction" as their main test of a product. Ever seen PDAs evaluated on that? I thought not.
There is no need to use a SlashDot sig for SEO...
I don't know why you would want to pay $650 when you can buy a very good laptop for little more.
Two words: INSTANT BOOT. My laptop takes 3-4 minutes to boot. I cannot tell you how many times I have been just standing around when a great idea hits me. I itch for a Pocket PC because then I could just take the Pocket PC out, use the voice recorder to record my ideas, and stick it back in my pocket.
I really want a Jornada 720, which has the keyboard as well, so I can do spreadsheets. It also takes the IBM Microdrive 1GB so I can carry all my MP3s around. Plus, it's smaller than my laptop, so I wouldn't have to carry around a separate bag...
I've followed portable computing avidly for years, since first spying something from Epson, the HX20, which had a LCD display and could be programmed, tho larger than a palm, it was still smaller than many laptops.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
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.
It's a neat toy. I had a great time playing with it, setting it up, etc. Then I got down to actually using it, and it's not worth the trouble. Very few of the applications are worth using, web browsing is a hassle with a tiny screen (even a nice color one.) The only apps left that I was interested in were mail and typical filofax-type-stuff. All of which were handled by my Palm (which rarely loses information and has a longer battery life.)
And for all the gadgetry, I still can't mount an external drive via the network connection. What a useful feature that'd be... Too bad.
I hate that this is so. Maybe someday they'll get it right, but they haven't yet. Go ahead and spend your money if you want a cool gadget, but gadgets get boring after a while unless they're useful.
I think the future of the Handheld will be determined by wireless applications, It is similar to the desktop and how it became truly "useful" with the advent of (or at least the "commercialization") of the internet. Once these devices are networked their functionality increases dramatically. In this race I think that the PocketPC is ahead of the palm simply because the PocketPC is geared towards businesses that are willing to pay a premium for productivity which entails connectivity. But the catch is the connection speeds. Once 3G and 4G become prevelent there will be an explosion in handheld devices. Palm is still competitive and can remain so as long as they focus on this fact. I.E. provide APIs to allow developers to take advantage of the OS.
*narf!*
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?
Your sentence is erroneous. I own a Handspring Visor that does all that you mention, and more.
"And like that
Flash back to the mid 90s, replace Palm with Netscape, and then think about this...
It is not fated, but MS has A LOT of resources as you point out, marketing perhaps being the key. It won't work on me, but it will on a lot of people...
Paul
Palm IIIx user for over 2 years-
and IE user from IE4 until recently, when mozilla finally got fairly good.
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...
What? There are innocent Palm Pilots being killed, and you describe this atrocity with words such as "new", "pretty", and "mighty". Please watch your vocabulary!
I like the idea that my Palm will need only a couple Energizers every couple of months. Also, I'm not sure I'll need much more than 1MB to store my data...,but, then again, I don't need to store M$ Office files, either.
Healthcare article at Kuro5hin
I'm still trying to figure out why to "upgrade" to a palm.
The pocket sized, spiral bound, notebook I got at CVS for $.69 works just fine for me.
It's easy to use. Battery life is phenomenal. It weighs about the same as a single AA cell. Cost. . . $.69!
What's more, it works in all conditions. Fonts are infinately variable. It only measures 5x3 inches but that's ALL screen size. I can drop it on the sidewalk, throw it against the wall, drop it in the dishwater, run over it with my car and * it still works!*
But wait, don't order now, there's MORE!
It can also be used to stick under wobbly restaraunt table legs. As a coaster, cat repeler, raw materials for small paper airplanes, a fan, kindling and lipstick blotter.
And those are just the ways I've actually used it. ( No, I *wasn't* the one wearing the lipstick)
It is also much easier to transfer data * to other people* with the "CVS PDA." Sometimes the girl is after MY number. ( Go figure)
It does have its disadvantages. It is multi lingual, but installation of other languages is difficult, and may take years to accomplish. It's math capabilities are only as good as your own, ( although it handles all mathmatical symbols, those currently extant AND those yet to be made up, with ease). I find the data needs to be defragged every 6 months or so for maximum speed of data retrieval. This can take about 15 minutes of actual labor. Every 5 years or so it needs to be replaced and data transfer can take up to half an hour of actual labor.
I think this labor is nicely offset by the labor saved by the price difference.
*$.69!*
All hail the CVS PDA.
KFG
For better or worse, Palm still the Mac / Unix geeks sewn up. I'd really like to have one of the new iPaqs or somthing similar, but it's kind of useless if it can't be synced. Seems like a market worth going after, the ROI would be pretty good methinks.....
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?
,etc...? Next you're going to say "But wait! It also makes your whites the whitest they've ever been!!"
Because you should be man enough to not need a high-tech extension of your penis.. that's why.
:-P
Why the hell do you need your PDA to be an MP3 Player, etc etc
Besides the Handspring devices can already do *all* of the stuff you mentioned and more.
Talk to me when I don't have to be mired down in that POS PocketPC UI. I want the type of control and customizability (and Handwriting Recognition) you have in the NewtonOS...
Then again.. I guess that's why I still use my Newton...
Oh well.. guess I better prepare to be mod'ed down.. first time for everything I suppose.
Polymorphism -- It's what you make of it.
Windows CE 3.0, code named Rapier was the mighty palm killer of it's day. Literally, as far as Microsoft wanted it to be. There is a poster hanging in one of the Microsoft buildings that the Rapier team all signed when they shipped it. It says:
Microsoft Rapier: Kicking Palm's sweet-candied-apple-white-floured ass!
Wonder what the poster for Pocket PC 2002 is...
I doubt that you're actually able to drop it into the dishwasher and not have any problems retrieving at least some of your data.
Dancin Santa
For Starters, Microsoft doesn't make them, they just make the OS. Compaq, Casio, HP, Toshiba, etc make the devices.
Secondly, all the charts comparing the various models I've seen quote the battery life each manufacturer claims for their particular device(s).
The main reason I'm not buying a Palm (or any handheld device) is because it's *too* small. Maybe I'm spoiled because my first was an Apple Newton.
Maybe I want something more than something to keep track of schedules and appointments. I can do that fine with my brain.
Still waiting for the webpads to come down to a reasonable price.
GenericJoe
Okay, so they get great Infoworld articles. But does Joe User (Not Mr. Big PHB, who just got his budget cut this year anyway) bu based on this? I tend to think not.
sulli
RTFJ.
LOL! I'm FEMALE, thank you, and I'll take my pretty 16,000 color PDA without worrying about the status of my nonexistent penis. :)
--Erica
Don't you mean your great ideas?
~jeff
...it's the PalmOS emulator for the PPC. Of course, you still need to buy the $600 PPC to use it, but people who want to continue using their Palm apps and want bells and whistles PPC provides will be able to stick with just one device rather than juggling a Palm and a PPC.
The first public beta should be out this month.
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
Wathc out for the Microdrive. I have one, and it drains battery life. Also, makes the thing a lot slower.
If you fall off a building, go real limp, because maybe you'll look like a dummy and people will be like hey, free dummy
I happen to develop PalmOS software, amongst other things. Palm simply does not force you to buy anything, you have to agree not to rip them off to download the SDK, but this takes all of 5 seconds. Don't believe me, go to http://www.palmos.com/dev/tech/tools/sdk40.html
While it is true that I use Metroworks Codewarrior for Palm, which is somewhat costly, I could have instead choosen the Lite version (free), GNU's PRC-Tools, or any number of other FREE compilers and tools. Furthermore, I would assert that most developers that really matter (as in those that develop software that is useful or widely used) are not even going to be turned off by the pricetag on Metroworks. Correct me if I'm wrong, but you need to already own VC++ or something to use MS' PocketPC SDK? They don't have a free alternative, right?
While I have not yet developed Windows CE applications, I must say that most of Palm's documentation is simply excellent, which is a stark contrast to my other development experiences with MS. In short, I have few complaints about Palm.
The question is, why buy more than I need when it costs significantly more, shorterns my battery significantly, and is generally bulkier and more fragile. Also, I can buy color if I need it (You get what you pay for). You can get wireless internet for Palm too. Why in God's name would you want mp3 on your PDA? It's not enough to listen to for any prolonged period and you can't use it for for exercise... A dedicated mp3 player is a much more appropriate solution.
You say Palm missed the boat. I say Palm has already filled the boat--several of them. Their current problem owes largely to the fact that people they've already filled such a large part of the market and most people don't NEED fancy new PDAs every year, be it Windows or Palm. These PocketPCs haven't proven themselves to be anything more than a NICHE market for a handful of techies and trend setters.
The long and short of it is that I would not at all be suprised to see the PocketPC's prove to be a money loosing operation, while Palm turns around nicely [especially since PocketPC's level of technology will be more appropriate later on], at least once the economy picks up.
Microsoft has failed to make a very good entrence into the PDA market.
This gave Palm enough time to control the market.
If Microsoft is to capture the PDA market they will have to do one thing they have failed to do for years.
Produce a quality product.
Let me make myself clearer..
A product with the features the users want.
WinCE systems are already nice high end systems.
Thats exactly what PDAs should NOT be.
Palm has made some sereous mistakes and they could lose marketshare to somebody...
But to suggest that somebody might be Microsoft just makes me want to laugh out loud...
I don't actually exist.
The Casio model looks like it has some good Linux potential. It runs a StrongARM processor and is a USB host, two things already supported by Linux. Also, PDABuzz mentions that they don't know of any USB drivers for PocketPC, though the list for Linux is growing. Though setting it up might not be trivial, I could see it as a good, portable diagnostic system.
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.
How odd...
:)
I remember when Unix used to be sexy.
I guess as you get older, start gaining weight, the body parts start sagging, your not as flexible and quick to move... you lose your sex appeal.
well for $500 i think i'll spend that money on that awesome Microsoft Office XP Sans-Paperclip Sweet Suite!!! =)
no... but seriously
i would rather buy a few devices that are cheap and does what it does well than buy something gigantic that's whooping $500 with all the features that are meaningless on such a small device. let's face it, are you going to do your textediting and coding on that little PDA?
to have something bloated like this kind of reminds me of a certain-shall-remain-nameless text editor that contains an email client, a webbrowser and all the other stuff in it....
oh-oh-oh wait!! but if you just get one of those PDAs, install ema.... ummm *that* browser-text editor and you're ready to find get a life time supply of porn. oh gee isnt that great....
my blog
Who is on top now or is the near future is somewhat irrelevant. Wireless connection and access is the key to the success of these devices. My IIIx with TRG memory upgrade has served me well and will continue to serve me well. But when an affordable PDA/Cell combination, with 320x240 screen, and capability of running text or graphic connection to my current ISP account without an additional monthly fee for connection, then I will upgrade. I think a lot of people are waiting for this combination, but all the players are fighting for market share ahead of customer satisfaction. Is that too much to ask? eigerface
Just to piss off Jack Valenti? Imagine sitting next to him on the plane, and firing up your iPAQ with some movie you ripped off DVD. (Maybe L.I.E. when it is released that way.) The smoke coming out of his ears would make it all worthwhile!
sulli
RTFJ.
I can't tell you how many times it's crashed on me (taking out all of my configurations, files, and network card drivers)
Dude, I don't know what kind of wacky software you're running on the iPaq, but I've been using mine for more than a year, and I've never had it lock up so hard that I had to hard reset.
Did I mention that the ActiveSync software doesn't automatically back up your file system whenever you sync? Maybe it could, but I can't find a way to make it so.
You didn't look very hard, then. Tools, Backup/Restore, check Automatically Backup Each Time the Device Connects. Plus, everything in your My Documents folder is automatically sync'ed with your desktop.
web browsing is a hassle with a tiny screen (even a nice color one.)
I personally love to read AvantGo channels and eBooks on my iPaq, but I guess that's just opinion.
And for all the gadgetry, I still can't mount an external drive via the network connection. What a useful feature that'd be... Too bad.
Pocket PC 2002 includes this feature, and the iPaq is upgradable. The upgrade is even free, depending on when you bought the iPaq. Otherwise, it's $29.
There are a lot of cool features built into Pocket PC 2002 - VPN client, Terminal Server client, MSN Messenger, spell checker, etc. If you don't like it, don't use it. But don't spread FUD about it, either.
Jenova_Six
LMAO! :D
;)
Y'know as soon as I clicked 'Submit' I thought to myself 'Y'Know I'll bet corky is a woman'...
:))
Seriously, I think that PocketPC is overkill on the wallet. You have *all* of this functionality available to you on the Handspring thanks to springboard modules and more. So I just have never seen the point in going back to using WinCE or any of it's derivatives (and yes, I've used CE before - I've owned three CE-based devices and they were all junk).
But like I said before... I want another Newton.. not another Windoze system. And I don't use pretty colors as a criteria for choosing a PDA -- not that there's anything *wrong* with that, of course...
Polymorphism -- It's what you make of it.
Sure, if you don't want color, or MP3, Palm is certainly the best bet hands down. But if you're going to step up to color and MP3 Capability you're talking a $500 Clie N710c. Now... the Clie is a supercool machine, but for $500 you can also pick up a iPAQ with 64 Meg, vs 16 on the Clie. I'd go after the iPAQ myself in this case.
These Pocket PCs are competitivly priced with the highend Palm OS machines right now. They have no low-end like palm does, but they're only aiming at high end buyers right now.
Low end palms are affordable for just about anyone right now, but execs are going to be more likely to pick up the pricey, and flashy pocket pc. That's what they're looking for...
But when a person is buying a machine at CompUSA, and all they see is the pretty colors, guess what sways their opinion?
Here's my two cents, from a Palm perspective: I bought a VIIx to play with about six months ago - the price was right ($199 on sale, with an additional $100 rebate if you cared to sign up for the $29.99 a month service plan for palm.net for a year). I love it - the only thing I don't like is the additional weight from the modem, which I don't use that much, anyway. I'm redecorating my house, and I keep all the measurements from wall, ceilings, floors, etc on it. Passwords on GNUKeyring, contacts, phone numbers. I keep e-texts on it, and it's been worth the purchase price just to have something to read during those unexpected waits. It's easy to whip out and take down a quick phone number or note, as opposed to groping for a paper and pen, and then later losing the paper. I find PalmOS and it's small, elegant apps appealing in a time when even boxes of Linux distros claim they need 32mb of RAM or better.
Color, the ability to play mp3s, do voice recording, play videos and whatever else whizbang things PocketPC can do just plain don't appeal to me, especially when they come with the penalty of added size/weight and shorter battery life. I'd rather read a book than watch TV, anyway, so maybe that's just me. If I were going to consider a PocketPC, especially for notetaking purposes, I would seriously consider going with a used sub-notebook instead.
Christina! Bring me an axe!
I've developed for both Palm and CE and I'm calling bullshite here...
This line is soooo much crap:
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 doesn't force you to buy *anything*. If you want to develop with command-line tools, the gcc for Palm and the Palm SDK are available for *free*. You only need to worry about dev tool costs if you want to use something like CodeWarrior. And there are far cheaper alternatives too.
CE - on the other hand- requires you to buy Visual C++ for VB in order to use the CE development tools. So instead of paying 379 (the cost of a codewarrior license) you need to pay 600 for a copy of VC++ Professional. Or over 2000 dollars for MSDN...!
Oh yea... MS doesn't force you to buy *anything*.. riiiight.
While we're on the topic of it, development in CE is a nightmare. The CE emulator *rarely* behaves like the devices you need to deploy to. Palm, OTOH, has POSE - the Palm OS Emulator. And that, aside from IR support, behaves FAR closer to the Palm devices you want to deploy to than *any* CE tool. And this is accomplished by allowing developers to pull copies of their own ROMS right to hard disk.
Another reason for painful CE debugging comes when a device you want to debug against already has the VB (for example) runtime in ROM and it's a NON-DEBUG version. Try to put the debug version of the VBCE runtime in ROM and see what happens...
No thanks... maybe PocketPC/CE is prettier but that doesn't mean it's more powerful...
Polymorphism -- It's what you make of it.
I can't tell you how many times it's crashed on me (taking out all of my configurations, files, and network card drivers), when I'm somewhere very far from my backup computer.
The only time anything like that happened to me was when I ran Compaq's first ROM upgrade, and they were very good about fixing it for me (and yanking the upgrade as soon as others complained about the same thing.
Did I mention that the ActiveSync software doesn't automatically back up your file system whenever you sync? Maybe it could, but I can't find a way to make it so.
Tools / Backup/Restore. I found it within three minutes of first installing ActiveSync. And while PalmOS and Hotsync Manager back up a good portion of your data, it still doesn't back up all applications; if it did, programs like Backup Buddy wouldn't be necessary.
And for all the gadgetry, I still can't mount an external drive via the network connection. What a useful feature that'd be... Too bad.
PocketPC 2002 supports that in File Explorer and Windows Media Player.
Go ahead and spend your money if you want a cool gadget, but gadgets get boring after a while unless they're useful.
I'm perfectly happy with my iPAQ - with the CF sleeve, a network card and the vxUtil program, I can troubleshoot my network. I don't know if the Handera Palm devices w/ CF slots can do that, or if they even support CF network cards. The terminal services client lets me remote into NT/2K boxen (pity the VNC client doesn't work better). In short, I can find a lot of uses for it that I can't do with my Palm. And that's without getting into the MP3/video player.
As for battery life, that hasn't been a concern for me. When I'm not using it, it rests in its cradle and charges. When I'm ready to use it, it's fully charged. Same goes for my Palm m500.
Perhaps someone should mark you -1 Redundant, seeing as you said the exact same thing 11 minutes prior...
Codewarrior isn't free, but GCC is. And it always has been. And all CodeWarrior is really is a IDE that drives the GCC tools...
Polymorphism -- It's what you make of it.
Efficiency. A PocketPC device needs all 206 MHz just to overcome Microsoft's over-elaborate, "all things to all people" code base. Everything about the PocketPC screams "inefficiency", from the fancy multi-colored title bars to the screen layout to the single processor hardware.
Constrast this with a Sony Clie N710C*. It has a 320x320 screen instead of 160x160. That's 4x as many pixels to push. Yet the screen is just as snappy as a low-res monochrome Palm, and faster than a 320x240 PocketPC screen. Their secret? Hardware acceleration. A first for Palm devices, AFAIK.
Audio Player and gMovie use the headphone audio output. And when you're not using those apps, the audio output powers down. That's how Sony beats PocketPC on overall battery life. I just checked Microsoft's PocketPC hardware page, and the HP Jornada claimed 14 hours of battery life. Everyone else was 10 hours or less. Maybe if they throttled that 206 MHz....
In short, Microsoft is giving hardware manufacturers an "easy" way out, dictating a fast, power-hungry CPU and letting the software do the rest. Sony gave their engineers something to do besides design a case, and their good work shows in the fact that they can match PocketPC feature-for-feature using an "inferior" 33MHz Dragonball processor.
*: I picked the N710C because a) it is closest in feature set to PocketPC devices, and b) I have one sitting here on my desk.
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Why are people still buying Palms? I don't get it. Lets see, for approx the same money, I can get a black+white, slow, and low-featured Palm, or I can get a full featured (voice recording, sound, full color, video, full-motion games, Word, Internet Explorer, and about a billion other features) in a PocketPC. I have an older Windows CE 2.x HP Jornada and it has more features than your average Palm device. I don't see why people by Palms, is there any good reason? I know some of the lower-end Palms are pretty cheap, which is great, but for the big bucks ($3-400) I guess I don't see how there's even a choice between the Palm and the PocketPC, especially with PocketPC 2002.
by Anonymous Coward
Microsoft do not win the numbers game against PS2. They have about 68% more RAM, true, but their fillrate is about 80% less and their poly rate is about 50% less. X-Box draws prettier polygons at the expense of having far, far fewer of them.
PS2's embedded VRAM might be a bitch to code to, but it provides around 48G/s of bandwidth. The X-Box's UMA provides around 6G/s of bandwidth which is shared between the GPU and CPU. Microsoft are numbers game losers [unless you read their marketing reports instead of the indepednent side-by-side comparisons].
You are exactly right. They didn't win the numbers game, but they applied makreting spin to make it look like they did. And that's what they put on the box. You don't actually thing Joe Sixpack gets on the net and looks for an impartical comparison do you? Nah, just compare the numbers on the box.
That is why MS plays check box marketing. Look, our OS has these featers, the other guys don't!
To Joe Sixpack, the PSX2 has no Video Memory compared to the Xbox. But maybe MS did it right by making their hardware "easy" to code for instead of, as you put it, a bitch to code for. And maybe Sony did it right. There is really no good answer to it, as you get into an argument not unlike PC vs Mac, apples vs oranges...etc.
I'm going to go back in my box and will think within the limits of my box: MS Sucks Linux Good I read too much Slashdot.
Very simple - workable real handwriting recognition. Not the funny shorthand-type symbols you use on the tiny screen of the Palm. They have this and then hide it away on the disk of optional software.
Unlike Handspring, Pocket PC users have a choice when it comes to supported media formats.
Informative? How about (-1, Troll).
My Karma was at 49, then they switched to words. All that work for nothing!
Well in all honesty the pocket pc is a different class in its own. I've got an IPAQ and I tell people that are interested in it (which is just about everyone on the bus, in class, at work etc) that it can do just about anything your desktop computer can do. I've found that palm users usually have no good defenses for their products too (a few I could think of is the longer battery life, its sheer utiliatian purposes, and its size, but they never say that...).
They always ask - can it play movies? Yup via pocket divx, and windows media player - and I always keep a few movies on my microdrive just to show them. It can play games (like doom), it can cruise the internet (via avantgo wireless, or wired or wireless ethernet), it can read and send e-mail in real time or offline and I can look at naughty pictures with it.
It many ways its a very small laptop. You can get the casio's and hp's on half.com for as low as 250$ sometimes. And when I got the IPAQ is was just 100$ more then the Palm Vx (mind you that was like a year ago when the Vx cost 400$~495$).
Like this?
"Prefiero morir de pie que vivir siempre arrodillado!"
http://www.compaq.com/products/handhelds/pocketpc/ index.html
Bluetooth on the highend and a SD (Secure Digital) memory slot.
Still doesn't look like there's a removable battery.
Battery Life: 10* | 1**
(tinyprint: * = hours, ** = month)
However,
That's also what you get for giving out cheap plasic styluses as spares, instead of a metal ones, like the main stylus. And for using crappy power buttons (Palm V). And for not being to able to sort contacts by their first name, etc...
Palm OS is easy to use, and reliable. But it is still missing lots of basic things, that should be there, that will NOT clutter or otherwise reduce the 'simplicity' of Palm.
Simplicity in an OS, is not about how many features it has. It's about how they are accessed, and how they work.
M$ board members, CEOs, markering dep. may be 'evil'. But PocketPC have been improved vastly since I used WinCE on my HP 680. So someone there is actually doing something good.
I have a funny feeling that my Palm Vx will be my last Palm product. I just wish those PPC makers could get there hardware down in size!
Who knows, maybe that linux version of Palm OS might take off, along with Handera.
I didn't say dishwasher. I said dishwater, i.e., *sink.*
I have done that, and retrieved all of my data, without any labor.
Havn't run it through the cloths washer yet. I might have some data loss with that.
Good thing backup media is even cheaper than the notebook.
KFG
I personally love to read AvantGo channels and eBooks on my iPaq
AvantGo is not the web. I can read AvantGo on my Palm just fine. The advantage of the iPaq over the Palm is (theoretically) its superior ability to display real web pages. Unfortunately, this isn't very satisfactory. It's not really MS or Compaq's fault-- the screen just isn't big enough, the chip just isn't fast enough to scroll complicated pages around. I found (and its my personal opinion) that browsing most raw web pages was tiresome.
eBooks are a great application, but again, one that a Palm does well. ClearType (is that what it's called) is nice. I'm not sure it makes a huge difference to me-- and Microsoft Reader's library or content control features (while nifty) aren't a selling point for me.
Pocket PC 2002 includes this feature, and the iPaq is upgradable.
That's great news. And I look forward to 2002. However, the fact that MS is going to release a cooler version next year doesn't make my points any less valid. Nor does it make it any more acceptable that the current version of PocketPC doesn't include this extremely obvious feature. Generally, most opinions are formed based on the version you use now, not based on promises for the next version (even if the upgrade is free.)
Dude, I don't know what kind of wacky software you're running on the iPaq, but I've been using mine for more than a year, and I've never had it lock up so hard that I had to hard reset.
Yeah, I don't know about that. I had a couple of network card drivers installed (WaveLAN and Sierra Wireless Aircard 400, and obviously the PC-card sleeve.) This could have been a large part of the problem. I experienced problems when using both cards... Without the network connection, the iPaq is a lot less useful (to me), so I have to report my experiences the way I used it. I also installed Microsoft Transcriber, which had problems.
But don't spread FUD about it, either.
For all your talk of FUD (as though I'm deliberately trying to mislead people), I did have lots of crashes-- some of them as I was trying to show people how cool the thing was.
Please understand that I thought the thing was incredibly cool when I got it. I still think it's nifty. It just doesn't live up to my expectations as a useful machine; I wasn't hoping for a supercharged Palm, I was looking for a (very) scaled-down laptop. Taking notes, storing phone numbers, reading books and browsing AvantGo pages I could already do.
I recently got an Ipaq 3150 because I thought my old palm iii wouldnt cut it anymore.. I was partly wrong.
The palm does exactly what is supposed to do, and is very easy to operate, but I wanted more coolness in a handheld. So, I got an Ipaq. As soon as I unwrapped my Ipaq, i broke the battery switch- that was so annoying- what is with those damn switches anyway?
Pocket PC is annoying as well. I simply cannot stand using it, but, at the same time, i do not want to run linux on a handheld either. My hope is that Palm revamps its os with BeOS technology.
Now, I was not exactly overjoyed with my ipaq, BUT Compaq support rules- they replaced my ipaq motherboard for free and paid for the shipping as well. Which is much more than Palm did for me when I cracked the digitizer- they wanted me to pay them $100 for service, ie, to send me a refurbished unit.
So, I'm in a bind- I like the Palm experience, but Compaq clearly has better service and their customers in mind
Is anybody else annoyed with Palm's service? It seems like it should not be too much of a task to sell customers replacement digitizers for $20.
A witty saying proves you are wittier than the next guy.
Audio functionality together, visual functionality together (Like my TRGpro and Kodak Palmpix), Audio/Visual functionality apart. Then communicate with something like Bluetooth.
Actually, this is what I'm looking for on a small device. I can get lost in a city without the help of a map very efficiently (have many witnesses), but getting truly lost requires putting full trust in a GPS and Topo maps.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
All this talk of how 10hours battery life is so bad, damn how often do you charge your mobile phone? Personally i use it quite a bit for work and play, enough so (its an Nokia 8810) that if i dont charge it every night by the lunchtime the next day its running out!
Geez if such simple little thing as a mobile cant last two days, how could a PocketPC (word / excel / mp3 / divx / email / internet / phone / etc / etc) be expected to last so long?
I mean its been said a thousand times here, Palm vs (say) iPaq is no comparison, functionality wise.Its like comparing watches to mobile phones!
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....
If nothing else, we are one step closer to star trek. My question is, will linux work on these?
"CE - on the other hand- requires you to buy Visual C++ for VB in order to use the CE development tools. So instead of paying 379 (the cost of a codewarrior license) you need to pay 600 for a copy of VC++ Professional. Or over 2000 dollars for MSDN...!"
Uh, Visual C++ and VB for PocketPC are free from Microsoft. You're thinking of CE 2.0, where the CE tools were an add-on to VC++. That's not the case anymore. And the emulator works great, BTW.
-Vercingetorix
"Necessitas non habet legem." -St. Augustine
One thing I notice on the boards is people using it not to watch movies as such, but TV shows. They're quite well suited to a small form factor.
Beats an MP3 capacity, doesn't it!
~~~~~ BigLig2? You mean there's another one of me?
Well actually it's pretty useful. Instead of going for the expensive TV add-on (on slashdot about a week back but I can't find the link, sorry), if you've got a Microdrive or large CF card you can watch a movie on your IPAQ instead.
Encoding tips are:
Get the latest DivX (4.01) here
320 x 240 (or 320 x 180 if you want 16:9 widescreen).
Decimate (knock out) every other frame, so if your movie plays back at 25FPS you want 12.5FPS. VirtualDub Ctrl-R will give you these options.
Encode using 2-pass DivX at 256KB/Sec or so, and put it on "slowest" or "slow" for best quality/performance ratio. Don't bother with "fastest", it actually makes the movies larger and doesn't seem to increase the speed (remember you're cutting the frame-rate in half anyway so it's not going to make it much smoother).
Encode the audio at a highly compressed rate, such as 16KBPS 16KHz Stereo using DivX audio, as you don't really need higher quality.
You should be able to squeeze a 2 hour video into 150MB or so, easily enough to fit on even the smallest microdrive or a big compactflash card (don't forget a USB cable to transfer it though, 'cause that take forever with serial!). Don't use the backlight when watching otherwise the battery will die well before the movie is through, and make sure that Audio, KeepAlive and Clean Video (dithering) are enabled in the PocketPC viewer. Oh, and use decent low impedance headphones and keep the audio low to drain the battery less. I'd recommend a battery pack backup such as this as well (or make one yourself), 'cause the IPAQ's battery life with a microdrive is pretty pathetic.
Happy viewing,
Stef
Better idea: I'll just continue to not use the technology. I'm still unimpressed with the PocketPC. I might be out of date in my comments, however one thing I *am* up to date on is that the current Pocket PC's have *faster* StrongARM chips that my Newton MessagePad and yet my Newton MessagePad is FASTER than the PocketPC's.
Sorry, not interested. I'll wait for PalmOS 6 (based on BeOS).
Polymorphism -- It's what you make of it.
Don't sweat it.. After owning three CE devices and all of them being junk I'm just a bit biased...
;)
Especially since before that I owned a Newton..
Polymorphism -- It's what you make of it.