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PocketPC 2003 Reviewed
Sander Sassen writes "Prior to the official launch of the Microsoft PocketPC 2003 platform next Monday, Hardware Analysis puts an Asus MyPal a620 PocketPC to the test and details what new features PocketPC 2003 brings to the table and whether it is worth it to upgrade from 2002."
Microsoft completely revamped the rendering architecture of the PocketPC Internet Explorer which not only speeds thing up considerably but also offers support for more internet standards.
Microsoft does not built standards compliant browsers, designers build Internet Explorer compliant websites.
Why don't they make a pocket pc with the Ipod harddrive inside?
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Good 'ol slashdot.
Or are you just glad to see me? Oh wait, it's Slashdot, must be a PocketPC.
I just wish somebody would add wireless networking to the things already like they did with the tablet PCs. Those are sweet.
The changes for the end user are going to be rather small. The changes for the developers who are going to move to .NET tools for PocketPC programming rather than the hacked versions of VS6 we are using now is going to be a larger change.
Is PocketPC 2k3 Xscale optimized?
That's really the million dollar question. PocketPC 2002 is not, and it's a real shame, because it hurts the performance of those 400mhz Xscale CPU's pretty badly.
Check out mram and other technologies that will replace flash, RAM, and even CPU cache. Harddrives are noisy and power intensive. Far from an elegant solution.
-Libertarian secular transhumanist
That's some really cool stuff. I wish they had a little more detail to their coverage. I thought I read a few paragraphs and saw a few pics and that was it.
Lots of "Clearly, this is great" without much saying of why or how.
The article lists the price as
Price: +/- 350 dollar, 329 euro
I assume they use "+/-" to mean approxiamately. If not, I'll choose the -$350 option and you can pay me to use this thing.
In fact it is more like a review of the Asus MyPal a620 Pocket PC. I was expecting to see the detail of new features in the new OS, but it only tells me about the new media player and not much else. I am more interested about the performance of the new OS, as it is supposed to be optimized for the Xscale CPU. By the way, the MyPal Pocket PC has a terrible name and is very ugly, don't you think? I think the Taiwanese manufacturers should hire some better designers.
Yes it is, but no benchmark has been published yet so I have no idea how good the optimization is. Developers must rewrite their applications for Pocket PC 2003 in order to take advantage of the optimizations. The review kinda sucks because it tells us nothing about the performance.
it is never worth upgrading a microsoft product. but they force you to do so, by making new apps incompatible with older apps/oses. I still use my orginal PocketPC, and am quite content with it. I am guessing about 80% of the people never actually had a REAL NEED to upgrade from PocketPC
Consensus is good, but informed dictatorship is better
"Please register or login. There are 10 registered and 2086 anonymous users currently online. Current bandwidth usage: 2499.40 kbit/s" It's gonna blow
IE5/Mac was, at the time of it's release, the most standards compliant browser in history.
IE6/Win isn't doing so bad either, really. I've found that most of the XHTML/CSS2 sites I author work fine in IE6/Win.
--
the strongest word is still the word "free"
Just use familiar with opie. You'll be happier, and have more spare change to buy things that matter.
As a network connection will most likely also be used for web browsing Microsoft completely revamped the rendering architecture of the PocketPC Internet Explorer which not only speeds thing up considerably but also offers support for more internet standards. Standards that are now available in PocketPC 2003 are XHTML, CSS, HTML 4.0, JavaScript 5.5, WAP 2.0, WTLS, IPv6 and many more, which makes the PocketPC web browser compatible with the vast majority of websites found on the internet and intranets which often use some of the more exotic protocols.
All I can say is ABOUT TIME! I don't even bother trying to do any web browsing on my Dell Axim X5 running Pocket PC 2002. It's just disgusting that they have an IE 3.x based browser running on something so new!
I wonder if we'll see any upgrades to the browser for Pocket PC 2002, or if we will need to purchase a new device with 2003 on it. Let me guess...
Huh I thought Pocket PC 2003 has been out for awhile because at work we've been selling a Toshiba E760 (which looks to be a E755 running Pocket PC 2003) for over a week now... I hadn't been keeping up on Pocket PC OS stuff very much so I didn't think anything of it when they came in... Of course once I saw the article I went to Toshiba's website & realized they don't even mention it... Huh, I wonder how fast I'd be fired if I wrote a review of it for the slashdot crowd & posted it tomorrow..
we are all invisible unless we choose otherwise
Can I run the application that I want to run? Or, do I have to suffer with Microsoft products? Can it run non-Microsoft apps? If not -- then why bother?
next time some fucking fool is spouting complete untruths on slashdot, i'll refrain from correcting him, because it might be -1 offtopic.
fucking morons.
Page 1 says "Mircrosoft" will launch the thing, and "thereâ(TM)s some changes"
According to page 2, 2.5G is now "fully supported a offers GSM suspend/resume" while meanwhile, "on the multimedia site of things..."
Page 5 tells us there are "a few welcome extraâ(TM)s" and "we clocked between 10 till 12 hours on the battery..."
Quick, somebody make this guy a Slashdot editor!
I play Nerd-Folk!
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I just got a Toshiba e355 and like the article says, it includes windows media player 9. The biggest thing for me anyway, is that pressing the home button brings up Home Version 2.00 with a games tab, a programs tab, a main tab and a running tab. The running tab makes it much much easier to actually close programs. I haven't noticed much else different between 2003 and 2002(I used to have an HP1910 until it stopped syncing and Best Buy replaced it with this three days ago.)
And for any wondering about the Toshiba e355, I can transfer files fine using Synce
And here are some specs for it.
From the article "On the multimedia site of things Microsoft has wisely adapted Media Player 9 for the PocketPC 2003 platform, offering even smaller file sizes and smoother playback.
And I heard from MS developers that they were gonna drop Media Player 9 on the PocketPC and go solely with QuickTime.
Next we'll read that MS has wisely adapted pocket versions od Word and Excel rather than WordPerfect and 123.
I'm a CS major and recently switched from a Palm to an iPaq. Microsoft's PDA OS is so much better than Palm's, it's hard to imagine using anything else. At first I thought the $500 price tag was outrageous, but it has helped with my studies and organization tremendously. Bash MS all you want, but their PDA OS is by far the most versitile on the market today.
Previously on Slashdot it was mentioned that Palm DocumentsToGo did MS Office compatibility better than PocketPC software. If this hasn't improved, other features may not matter.
Microsoft should know better by now that Office is top priority.
It's GNU/Linux dammit!
to upgrade the os on an older pocket pc? I just bought a new Dell Axim and would very much like to install Pocket PC 2003. Also, I would settle on just being able to install the updated version of IE, cause the one on there now sucks.
SIGFAULT
You're thinking small potatoes. I'm gonna go buy thousands of truckloads of these babies and retire.
The M$ Pocket Rocket and the M$ Pocket Pal.
Batteries not included..
Well .. It seems a few minutes after the story gets posted, you have about 7 /.'ers a second coming to this site on a SATURDAY night. I noticed there were about 2350 anonymous users. This must be quantified!!!
You can add the PCMCIA jacket to an ipaq and insert a PCMCIA harddrive into it. Alternatively, there is a Pocket PC from UR There with a PCMCIA slot built-in. Either way the device would be too big to be Pocketable.
Does anyone know if _any_ PocketPC has a built-in thumbboard like the current Palms, Sony Clies, Handspring Treos, Blackberries et al
To me it is a serious shortcoming and if its not in this release then the PocketPcs devices will fall further behind the PalmOS powered devices
See Palm/Handspring Treo 600 device, the Microsoft SmartPhone is going to be left behind if they don't implement support for a thumbboard.
Cheers
VikingBrad
...wasn't on the short list of audio formats supported by this version of WMP. Hmm.
What about handsrping and palm? They haven't released anything (really innovative) in a long time. The tungston is really cool (read $$$) but offers basic features of a standard pocketPC. Now that handsrping has been bought by palm, are we to see less innovation in the palm os hardware? Im in the market, and need a palm, wondering when to buy is why:)
IE5/Mac Supports all of these, and it supports them well.
All I was saying is that the parent poster should distinguish IE/Mac and IE/Win, since they are different products and they have wildly different levels of standards support.
Pardon the typos, I'm extremely drunk.
--
the strongest word is still the word "free"
Will I be able to upgrade my iPAQ H3870 or is HP/Compaq going to be retards and make me buy a new handheld if I want it?
Looking over the article I can't see any mention of battery life. Just something I would like to know before buying a PDA
Rus
Cheap UK and US VPS
I really do.
... ... WOW ... when it should have been possible years ago ...
... Move on ...
But every time I think of all of the possibilities of an open hand held computing platform, I almost cry when I actually look
at whats being done right now, and in the
near future.
Another proprietary portable operating system
How long have they been getting to where this stuff is actually usable for more than one or two special applications? Then they release something that does video
Whatever
If you're interested in facts I'll tell you what they are and I'll give you sources - Chomsky on The Big Idea
Hmm, I don't know, but I've found my Blackberry rather helpful for my studies. The little thumbpad is helpful for taking down assignments and firing off quick emails to the prof before you forget. The built-in phone is great too. IMO, a little better for productivity, all utility, no fuss, no gimmicks.
Battery life is great too, I find it lasting around 2 weeks, which is amazing considering I tend to read slashdot during lectures =)
I've been eyeing the Samsung i700 for a bit... Do you think it'll be upgradeable to 2003? I guess the big draw of 2003 for me from the article is the better Web browser. My companies web site makes a fair amount of use of CSS, and I recently redid all my personal websites in XHTML 1.0 with CSS...
and the Terminal Services Client. My hardware DB(access, so its just barely a DB) is resident on the card. With that I have everything I need to support servers in 7 national and 4 international data centers, serving some 8 to 9 million email recipients. Now if someone could make WebSphere and a terminal server play nice I'd be golden :)
I agree with you in theory on apps though....Most of our clients could in reality still be on the mainframe with 3270 connectivity and text email, but human nature being what it is...ooooo loook NEW PRETTY LIGHTS and BUZZERS....Droooool
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
Honestly how many years do we have to wait before north america starts receiving some decent cell phones that have most of these functions.
I've used the PocketPC and I hate it. It's a big bulky piece of crap. Give me a sleek Japanese multimedia phone any day of the week.
Speaking of cell phones in the usa. Why does the land of capitalism lag behind the rest of the world when it comes to cell phones and cellular networks.
Isn't "capitalism" supposed to be the fastest way to usher in innovation and progress? I bet if it weren't for Europe and Asia, the USA would be content holding 10lbs cell phones.
Whew! Thought that was called ANUS. That'd be a hard sell. Is anyway.
Hacked VS6? VS6 has been out of the picture since Pocket PC was first released, way back in June of 2000. Since then it's been evc 3.0. VS71/SDA is for C# building on 2003. evc 4.0 is for native, real-man code on 2003.
~~~
And once-upon-a-time early laptops were called half-assed desktops.
It's just more miniaturization happening... which is not a bad thing.
OK, say I, non-techie user, go and buy a Zaurus. The included apps are OK, particularly Opera and Handcom's suite of apps (truthfully, the PIM apps suck, though). But I hear there's this great site on the net (killefiz.de) where I can get GOBS of free apps for my shiny new toy. I head there, download one of the Opie apps, because they look pretty cool and hey - it's a Zaurus. It must work (non-techie user doesn't know or care about the difference between the Zaurus ROM and OpenZaurus). I try to install with the Add/Remove apps GUI. I get an error that says ÂSomething was wrong with ipkgÂ. That's it. So I do some searching and find that you can run the command line equivalent ipkg install... So I try that. I see a somewhat more helpful error (to a techie though, not to me, Joe User) - Âcould not link xxx lib or some other such nonsense. Suddenly, your ÂHow hard is typing... flippant horseshit doesn't help at all. At this point, I, non-techie user would think that my shiny new Zaurus was nothing more that a piece of crap.
Notice that non-techie user tried your not-scary shell and still didn't get the results he wanted.
Tiny computers running Windows are not a good idea, when I get upset at them there isn't anything to prevent me from throwing them out a real window...
(to quoteth my brother)
forma3