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Pocket PC vs. Palm Showdown
Espectr0 writes "TuxTops has a small review comparing the Pocket PC handhelds against the Palm ones (no pun intended), with advantages and disadvantages of each. The conclusion? If you are after gaming, multimedia, good WiFi+Bluetooth support, a lot of accessories and versatility, go with Pocket PC.
If you are after small and stylish devices with good battery life, simple interface and simple PIM apps, go with PalmOS."
If you are after gaming, multimedia, good WiFi+Bluetooth support, a lot of accessories and versatility, go with a Sony PSP, surely.
I prefer my organisers to be good at organising, which is why mine runs PalmOS.
I had a very nice $600 pocket pc - the Cassiopeia. It was (and still is) a great device. Why do I now own a palm device? I got tired of Microsoft and its obsession with digital rights management schemes - for ebooks, for music, for video - you name it.
And what if you care about security? What's the state of virus/anti-virus (and worms, trojans, etc) on both platforms?
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
In my opinion, people should just get bigger pockets and buy a laptop...
MoM++ - A Classic Expanded - [Master of Magic 1.5]
http://mompp.sourceforge.net/
I know it matters to technical people. The last cell phone I bought had Windows CE on it so I could write programs for it. But to the average consumer, are they really going to look at a list of OS qualities like that and make a purchase decision?
It was one thing when the OS was the product -- like in a PDA. But not now. Now the OS is just an add-on. What with these OSs in cars, phones, refrigerators, etc -- is the average consumer not going to buy a Lexus because of concerns with the OS?
Surf's Up, Dude
If you are after small and stylish devices with good battery life, simple interface and simple PIM apps, go with PalmOS.
If you're still undecided between a Pocket PC and a Palm, consider that PalmOS isn't made by Microsoft.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
If anyone would of asked me, that would of been my exact responce in a casual conversation.
I've used palm for over 6 years, and I've been very happy. At first, I used a palm IIIc, and I just upgraded to a treo 650. They are great devices, very fast, and it does everything I need. Sure, it doesn't play 3D games, but there are a host of products out there, both games and productivity based... and contrary to what the article says, the palm is very stable.
Although they don't have OS level memory protection, I had my palm IIIc (excepting one program) crash twice in four years, and once I got my treo setup, it crashes very rarely (once a month, at most). I've NEVER had the palm crash in Palm's own applications. If a program has a serious flaw, it WILL restart the palm.
Honestly, the OS restarting on an application crash isn't that big of a deal, anyway. All programs save their state when you switch out of them, so even after a reboot, you don't lose your work in the programs. And the reboot takes only about 10 seconds--so it's really not bad at all... when it happens.
And, the palm can play videos... very well. With TCMCP , you can even play PC-sized divx encoded video on the palm. The Treo 650's 312 MHZ Xscale is FAST.
The palm does have downsides... The sync software is terrible (mentioned in the article), their customer service SUCKS, and devices previous to the Treo 650 are NOT flash based--you lose your battery and backup battery, and you lose your information. They needed to upgrade to flash memory a LONG time ago.
Basically, a palm is like a Mac with a good application base. It's intuitive, stylish, and it "just works". It doesn't always have bleeding edge stuff, but it does everything it's designed for, and there are programs to do almost anything you need. Every PocketPC I used crashed repeatedly and had severe stability issues.
-=Lothsahn=-
The conclusion? If you are after gaming, multimedia, good WiFi+Bluetooth support, a lot of accessories and versatility, go with Pocket PC. If you are after small and stylish devices with good battery life, simple interface and simple PIM apps, go with PalmOS.
The conclusion? If you want everything, go wih Pocket PC. If you think less is more, go with PalmOS.
Microsoft is (already?) dominating this market. Their next target is the cellular, TV, cables, satelites...
We are going to buy a few PDAs, in the company I'm working at. Someone came and said that he doesn't care which PDA we're going to buy, as long as it will run MS Windows.
You can't get there from here.
For the technically minded: the Linux/QTopia-based Zaurus: The keyboard rocks, you can develop applications for it, and thousands of developers have already done so, so there are a lot of useful, free apps out there.
Even better, if you already own an iPaq, install Familiar and enjoy the stability and openness of Linux just like on the Zaurus.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
In fact, they need a Linux device as well.
Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
There are other handhelds out there - or soon will be. After taking several years off from such devices, I plan to get a Nokia 770... eventually. It's not even on the market yet, and people are already developing for it. The one thing I'm waiting on is VoIP, and that's already been announced. But I can't figure out where the sound-in jack is. I only see sound out on the specs.
What if I do the same thing, and I do get different results?
My SL-6000 goes everywhere with me. It can do the fancy stuff like WiFi and multimedia, and while certainly not as polished as Palm's PIM, works admirably.
I get very decent life from the battery, and the fact that it's a mini-linux box has proven invaluable. Everything from serial and network testing, to web development. Nothing beats being able to start up Apache to test a few changes out.
So, you gave up the superior device for your needs because of the Group Think? You are a sheep? If the Pocket PC suits your needs better, do you now find your productivity lower? Otherwise, maybe you only thought the PC was better? Do you really know what you think? Or are you a flavor of the day Socialist? Do you rent or own your house? I bet you rent.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
Actually, as much as I was also trying to be funny, my point was quite similar to what you've just said (not the Palm V part ;) ) ...
... so I wait a little longer on boot up (ack! 30 seconds of my life gone! ahhhh!), its not like I need to see my schedule *RIGHT NOW*... its just so much more versatile... :)
;)
For all you'd pay for the latest and greatest Palms and Pockets... save a little more and get a laptop...
I have a palm and a laptop... the laptop goes everywhere with me... (and I walk everywhere, I have a lovely backpack for it)
===
Now, cell phones with Palms built in, that's a different story, those kick some serious hindquarters
MoM++ - A Classic Expanded - [Master of Magic 1.5]
http://mompp.sourceforge.net/
In a world: simplicity. I can get to pretty much anything on my Palm in a tap or two. It is extremely elegant, as it was designed for palmtop devices. WinCE feels like Win95 smashed into a small device. I never thought the Windows UI was that elegantly designed in the first place, and that problem is only magnified on a palmtop. I also can't say I've ever wanted to play a video on my palmtop, and I have an iPod for my music (20GB beats a couple hundred MB any day).
I'm not sure if this is possible with the Palm devices, but I've got Linux running on my iPaq.
Pretty good organizer/phone with the added benefit of not getting into religious bullshit.
ich bin der musikant
mit taschenrechner in der hand
kraftwerk
I've been happy so far with my very simple, pretty cheap Palm Zire 31. The one thing I'd really like is to replace the Palm Desktop software with a Web-based application suite.
I don't mind having to download/install the sync software on my local PCs. But I'd love if all my off-Palm data were automatically in sync, so I could access from work/home/office/friend's laptop without a weird four-way sync setup. Every time I synced, it would be to the Web, so I only have two datasets (Palm, Web). Also, if I leave my Palm at home I can make an emergency data check (e.g. calendar) at an Internet cafe.
Besides, the Palm Desktop is so incredibly basic it could be implemented in XHTML/CSS/JavaScript/AJAX without breaking a sweat.
PS I know there is Internet sync software available from third parties but it is hacky and tends to sync poorly.
2. It looks better, more modern, than PalmOS. Support for Clear Type.
PalmOS:
11. Palm devices are usually more stylish than PocketPCs.
So which really matters? Modern vs. Stylish? WTF?
Also the reviewer seems to be biased towards PocketPCs since he ignores the fact that PalmOS supports MS Office better than the PocketPC (a la Documents toGo)
Also notice the link to PocketPC freeware at the bottom of the page, but no similar link to PalmOS freeware (which there is more of!).
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
You're right, non-technical people don't care about OSs. But Slashdot isn't for non-technical people, is it?
If you are after gaming, multimedia, good WiFi+Bluetooth support, a lot of accessories and versatility, go with Pocket PC. Like they always say.. "Windows for gaming, others for productivity"
What does your Credit Report look like?
I wasn't joking, I just said my point in a funny way...
...
:) )
===
I haven't use any of the top of the line PDAs, so I don't know an amazing amount on their capabilities, but there should be a way to wake a laptop without pushing power... (there has to be some that will WakeOnLAN)
They do take longer to go on and off... but its not like it takes very long at all... (especially depending on the OS you are running)
===
As for the writing recognition, this is definately true, you'd need to buy a pad and software for the laptop... these things I wouldn't know much about (I have a drawing board, its fun, and the pen is pressure sensitive, so you can actually "draw" in Photoshop and get the lines the right shade as you go, but I use that with my desktop, having the pad along with me would be a little weird
MoM++ - A Classic Expanded - [Master of Magic 1.5]
http://mompp.sourceforge.net/
...It wasn't so horribly outdated. Almost all the new PPC PDAs have dual wifi and bluetooth, both of which are very easily accessible. The problem with Palm is that it doesn't have so many 3rd party hardware builders anymore. Sony dropped out recently, and besides a few lone devices, Palm is basically the only real manufacturer of their hardware.
Pocket PCs, on the other hand, have at least half a dozen 3rd party manufacturers. They are almost all very well designed, and generally have more features, such as biometric scanners (HP iPaq HX2755), dual CF and SD expandibility (Dell Axim X50V), WiFi + Bluetooth (too many to list), and very quick processors (the currently fastest speed is about 624 mHz). True VGA screens are currently on the market, present in new devices such as the Dell Axim X50V and the iPaq 4700.
If you want to get a cheap device that doesn't have very good native support for business and video apps, go with a palm... But the real power has and always will be with PPCs. WM5, soon to be released, has WM player 10 with DRM support, VGA support (like 2003SE), and a nice Pocket Office suite. Of the 4 PDAs (cringes) I have boughten over the years, 3 of them are PPCs. I don't see Palms surviving very far into the future much beyond SmartPhones. The software architechture is simply not intended for such use.
Due to financial difficulties, the light at the end of the tunnel has been turned off.
Get push e-mail and background SSL without being confined to MS Exchange or a Blackberry, by using ChatterEmail on a Treo. With its support for 2 GB memory cards, bundled RealPlayer, and high-speed EDGE, the Treo 650 is like a super cell phone/e-mail/contact manager/scheduler/web browser/iPod. (Hook'em up to a pair of Bose noise-cancelling headphones for incredible sound and long battery life for transcontinental flights).
Unlike "PocketPCs", a Treo actually fits in a pocket.
none made.
This is the way it has allways been between these two. What has changed in the last 5-10 years that might have changed this?
TruePunk | Games
The problem I have with the current crop of palms is battery life. They now use lithium batteries which die after only 100-200 recharges and can be replaced only by the manufacturer. That means I have send my palm out once a year or so.
I'm not convinced the reviewer has used a Palm in the last few years as he seems to have a lot of gaps in his knowledge.
When I turn my T3 on, it has open whatever I was last working on, so it's trivial to have it switch on at the PalmOS 'Today' equivalent. If you turn it on by pressing the calendar button, then it'll bring it up straight away.
The vast majority of Palm apps I use will take advantage of the 480*320 resolution of the T3. Pretty much all the rest use 320*320 single pixel. It's only the really old stuff that goes double-pixel.
I've got a decent 3D game called Space Combat on my Palm. There are others available.
I run quite a few apps from a 512 MB SD card.
Plenty of SD support though, which is just fine for cameras, wifi, gps, etc.
"If you are after gaming, multimedia, good WiFi+Bluetooth support, a lot of accessories and versatility, go with Pocket PC.
If you are after small and stylish devices with good battery life, simple interface and simple PIM apps, go with PalmOS."
Anyone else see a remarkable similarity to how the Apple and PC story played out in the last couple of decades? Except in this case, Microsoft even has the better multi-media support.
[Shameless plug]
:-)
If you're into (or even slightly interested in) gaming on the Pocket PC, http://www.pocketgamer.org/ is a great place to start, featuring the latest gaming news, reviews, free games to be won, extensive listings... and plenty more besides.
[/Shameless plug]
PocketGamer.org - For the gamer on the go!
Who could possibly believe that the name "Palm" for a "handheld" wasn't intended to be a pun?
--
make install -not war
Ok, maybe two. But no more. There are way too many protocols and device standards to support out there to allow multiple OSes to run properly in diverse environments. MS has a nice model in which device manufacturers write Windows drivers for free. Linux has a community that works relentlessly at adding compatibility... I don't see any other company/OS that has equivalent mechanisms. It's kind of nice that Nokia and Motorola have started taking steps towards Linux. This way, there'll be an alternative short of smashing your PDA if Windows starts to piss you off.
The 160x160 (72 DPI) thing is not accurate. Most PalmOS 5 devices are 320x320 (144DPI) or 320x480. Almost all apps that are still being developed use the full 320x320 resolution, and many use 320x480/480x320. Moreover, even legacy apps tend to at least display text in 320x320 (unless they install a custom font that requires 160x160) because PalmOS 5 does that automatically, and standard UI elements like buttons, checkboxes and menus also automatically get upgraded to high resolution. Of course if an app shows bitmaps that haven't been upgraded to 144 DPI, there is nothing the OS can do about that.
2. On fonts:
Agreed--the built-in ones aren't great. But again third-party stuff comes to the rescue. Lubak's Fonts4OS5 provides a bunch of beautiful bitmapped fonts (but not antialiased), while (to give a plug for my own commercial stuff) my own FontSmoother provides antialiased (admittedly, grayscale only) smooth fonts (converted from TTF/Type1 via two different GPL converters, though FontSmoother itself is shareware and closed source).
3. On installing apps in flash:
Actually, non-hackish applications can be installed directly on a flash card without any utilities, though any databases that they use will have to be in RAM unless the app is designed to use databases in flash or unless you use a third-party utility.
4. On the C API:
It may be archaic but it makes for very nice, compact applications and one can develop on basically any platform to which one can port gcc.
5. On OS crashes:
I don't know the PPC world at all, but under PalmOS most crashes aren't a big deal--the system just resets and ten to twenty seconds later you're back up and running. Of course a really bad bug can cause nastier things (reset loops, hard resets, etc.), but that I assume can happen on any platform.
6. On battery life:
Actually, a number of slightly older PalmOS 5 devices have rather poor battery life--three hours or so. But the latest palmOne devices with NVFS have very good battery life.
I've used both PocketPC (or WinCE as it was) and Palm. Both have their problems. just a few of them pointed out by the article. What I really want is a brand new Newton from Apple. The original Newtons were lightyears ahead of their time and can still hold their own today. I think the problem with the Newton was everyone concentrated on the handwriting recognition, easy to understand it was the only machine of it's type available and the handwriting interface was the primary method for inputting information. But if you look at how people use PDA's these days it's mainly for brief notetaking and looking up info, not writing esays on. Another problem with the original Newton's was the size of the thing, now they'd be able to make a smaller model with a higher resolution screen and more compact battery more easily (not saying that I wouldn't be up for a sub-notebook sized Newton that doesn't fit in my pocket for reading off as well or instead of the pocket sized one - hell make both!).
:-( I used a friends Newton for a short time and loved it. If anyone has the ROM...... you know what to do. testrobotSPAMSPAMSPAM@gmail.com
Apple could easily steal the entire PDA market from Palm and the PocketPC folks by bringing out a decent colour version of the NewtonOS on modern hardware that plays videos, works with a digital camera and works like an iPod. Just use the same principles as OS X design.... shiney, easy to use, comes with InkWell already and a Darwin/BSD/Unix/whatever core underneath (hey aren't Palm working on a Linux underneath PalmOS machine???). Especailly with them getting into bed with Intel recently, it could use the XScale.
I've downloaded the Einstein Newton emulator but sadly can't use it as I'm missing the NewtonOS ROM, I don't have a Newton to copy it from
I have both PalmOS and PocketPC devices (I'm a gadget freak) and my experiences differ greatly with what is stated.
I get the sense a bunch of assumptions are being spouted rather than true hands-on experience with both types of devices.
I'll state two examples from the article (one pro-PocketPC and one pro-PalmOS that appear more assumption-based than experience-based).
MS OFFICE COMPATIBILITY: I find that Documents-to-go running on PalmOS is actually BETTER than PocketPC for handling MS Office docs.
STYLISH HARDWARE: On the flip side, the author's comments about PalmOS devices being more stylish is nonsense. Some of the PocketPC devices may look like bricks but there are some really sharp-looking and small PocketPC devices out there.
Doesn't showdown imply some sort of battle? All this guy did was list the "advantages" and "disadvantages" of each one. Besides the fact that these are his own opinion, and that many of them are outdated or simply incorrect as stated by posters below, this is not a showdown of any kind. He didn't actually compare ease-of-use or compatability or anything like that between two models, just listed things from his memory. A useless article, in my opinion, and it didn't really state anything that most PDA users knew already.
blog & fiction: jd87
while I agree with his conclusions, several of his points seem a bit off:
5. More input options than PalmOS (e.g. transcriber, speech addon from MS).
Yes, but they all suck. Graffiti (Block Input) isn't nearly as accurate as with a Palm device, and the other options are so slow and inaccurate you end up using the oncreen keyboard most of the time. And yes I have tried Caligrapher, better, but not good enough still.
11. Better office format compliancy, MS Office is usually bundled with the PDA.
While PalmOS itself doesn't come with an Office app, nearly every manufacturer since OS 4 days has bundled Documents to Go with their Palm. And that completely knocks PocketOffice out the door. Table support, native Powerpoint,doc/xls format support, Pocket Office has NONE of these things. And there aren't even any third party apps that will provide it!
12. ActiveSync rocks, it allows for direct internet connection and can mount the PDA to your desktop (PalmOS' drive mode is a hack, and only available to recent models)
ActiveSync's continuous connection model is good in theory. In practice it's slow, crashes often (either the handheld, requiring a soft-reset or the PC-side, requireing either reloading ActiveSync or rebooting. And reloading ActiveSync needs to be done via a third party freeware program), and an overall resource hog. Backup functions suck on it too; you hard reset a palm, hotsync it and everything comes back. Hard-reset a PPC, and it refuses to acknowledge it as the same old pda. (Use Sprite backup instead, works great, but a tad pricey)
15. Able to install/run apps from flash addon cards and built-in storage.
All new Palm apps can do that. And the older ones can be stored in storage and run through some hackery in the OS. Not as nice, but it works.
I switched from an old Sony Clie T615 to a PocketPC (Acer n50). The single selling point that caused me to switch was the Wifi capability in the PPC. There just aren't any Palms out there with the same hardware as PPC. I still like Palm OS, yes it's built on an aging platform and design, but honestly I was able to get more work done, faster, and be more productive with the Palm than I ever am with this new PPC. If only Palm woke up and caught up with hardware people wanted, I'm sure it'd be much more competitive. As of now, you'd be stupid to pick up a Palm when you can get so many more features in a PPC for the same price.
actually the PocketPC has the advantage in every category you mention.
Sharp SL-C3100, stop comparing losers to losers.
Palm OS advantages
5. More versalite when it comes to network connections
- you can connect the PPC to any network connection you can a palm, my axim x50 supports bluetooth, ir, serial, PPP, ethernet, VPN, ethernet over a desktop pc, and about 4 other connection types right out of the box
7. Compatible with very old PalmOS apps, as far as back to 1998.
- PPCs can run CE software from the early 1990s
8. Much faster than PocketPC, it runs well on slower hardware.
PPCs can overclock 800mhz which can crunch data faster than any palm, they are the choice for PDAs in the field, if you are talking about responsiveness both devices are probably tied.
11. Palm devices are usually more stylish than PocketPCs.
- refuted in his own article, besides this is a personal preference.
14. 4 GB of storage for the Lifedrive model.
any PPC can support a 4gb+ microdrive, CF, SD, plus you can use the drive in your camera, mp3player, etc.
If you buy a Pocket PC (not sure about Palm) be prepared to get stuck with the included applications. Nobody seems to know how to write an elegant application for the Pocket PC. They all look like the worst kind of Windows freeware you can find.
However, all is not lost. The included software is pretty darn good. Pocket Internet Explorer, Pocket Word, Pocket Excel, Pocket Media Player, Notes, Tasks, Inbox, Contacts, Calendar, Pictures, etc. Very comprehensive for most of what you'll be doing with it.
Personally I'm glad I bought it (I have a HP iPAQ h4350). For starters it lets me check e-mail all day long. I use the Calendar to track big events. I use Notes extensively to take class notes (just write on it as if handwriting). It has Bluetooth so it can interface with my phone filesystem (photos from the camera) and internet connection. Then at down points I can check Slashdot or play Solitaire.
In a lot of cases I know people like to avoid HP, but for Pocket PCs that rule is completely reversed. With my model you get Bluetooth, WiFi, QWERTY keypad, 400Mhz processor, full color screen, SD/MMC slot. You can't get a Palm with all of that unless you purchase accessories (only the LifeDrive has Bluetooth and WiFi, but it doesn't have a keypad). It set me back ~$400.
- It has some form of protected memory and so when applications crash the OS stays alive (well, most of the time).That only matters if you're running multiple applications at once. Not something you usually do on a PDA. And recovering-without-rebooting usually is more time consuming and complicated than just resetting your Palm system.
- It looks better, more modern, than PalmOS. Support for Clear Type.Cleartype is kind of secondary, since Palm doesn't even support vector fonts. But when your screen is only big for maybe 20 words of text, bitmap fonts are perfectly fine.
- Runs on faster XScale hardware than PalmOS usually.Fast processors are not desirable for PDAs. They drain the battery, and all they're really good for is heavy-duty gaming. If you need one of those, get a PSP.
- DirectX/3D support, more multimedia capable.See above.
- Apps use the full 320x240 resolution (instead of the 160x160 that most PalmOS apps use and double-pixel at 320x320)Given the size of a PDA screen, there's not a lot you can do with that extra resolution.
- Better office format compliancy, MS Office is usually bundled with the PDA. A good point -- if Microsoft did a decent job of maintaining format compatibility between the two platforms. I have not experience one way or the other, but their track record for that sort of thing is not good -- as anybody who has dealt with Office upgrades can tell you.
- Programming APIs similar to Win32, porting is easy, development too.If your definition of "easy" is "not having to learn anything new". Mine is "a simple API that's well documented and well suited to the job at hand." Good PDA apps are not shrunken desktop apps!
- Basic and
.NET available if C/C++ is not desired.There are plenty of alternative to C/C++ programming for PalmOS. Including several basic development environments. As for .NET -- if you consider that a must-have for developement, there's not a lot I can say!
- More PocketPC devices include a microphone for voice notes. Again, I prefer a separate device. Digital voice recorders are not expensive.
- Usually more expensive than basic PalmOS devices, however prices go downAnd Palm hardware prices go down too.
Having said all that, I find I'm pretty disillusioned with the Palm. I don't disagree with most of Eugenia's criticisms, and I have a few of my own.What finally made me terminally cynical was the famous USB bug. This makes some Palms unable to sync without resetting the USB parameters. For some stupid reason, a hard reset doesn't accomplish this: you have to open up the system and disconnect the battery. I did this -- and the input matrix got screwed up somehow. Pretty much makes Fitally (my preferred input method) useless.
Still, I probably won't switch to PPC systems -- as bad as Palm has gotten, anything from Microsoft has to be 10 times more buggy. I'll probably just stick to cheap Palm PDAs, so it doesn't hurt so much when I have to replace them.
Anyone want to enlighten me on what the unintended pun was?
Le français vous intéresse?
I think this review is biased towards PocketPC/Windows Mobile. The reason is that they didn't compare newer versions of PalmOS (5.x+). They listed as some of the advantages of PocketPC the higher resolution (320x240), which PalmOS has had for about 2 years or so now, ever since 5.x came out. Also, ClearType. PalmOS 5 supports Font smoothing. In fact, almost all of these so-called advantages are already present on newer devices like my PalmOne Treo 650 smartphone:
.NET available if C/C++ is not desired.
1. It has some form of protected memory and so when applications crash the OS stays alive (well, most of the time).
This one goes to PocketPC. Palm OS still doesn't have protected memory.
2. It looks better, more modern, than PalmOS. Support for Clear Type.
This point is debateable. Any color PalmOS device with a 320x240 screen can look just as good or better than a PocketPC device. In fact, if you really wanted the freakin' Windows logo all over everything, you could skin it with Zlauncher to look just like a PocketPC or a Mac even.
3. It has good support for the Exchange server that most businesses care about.
Point to the PocketPC here. Although you can get third-party mail apps for Palm that support push technology like Blackberry, which makes it more useful IMO as an instant email device.
4. Internet Explorer and Outlook are more robust than WebPro, Mail and Blazer.
Debateable. I like the fact that apps open instantly on the Palm and browsing on a modern Palm is fast and compatible with most websites.
5. More input options than PalmOS (e.g. transcriber, speech addon from MS).
Hello, transcriber? Palm has had Graffiti since inception. What do you call graffit but an instant transcriber. The speech addon may be available for Palm but I'm not sure.
6. "Today" default screen more relevant than "Applications" (because of the very nature of PDAs in the business world).
Palm has had a Today screen ever since version 5.0, which shows all appointments, tasks that are due that day, as well as all unread email.
7. WMA/WMV and ASF built-in support.
Point for PocketPC here. Although Palm has several media players that can play most formats, including Divx.
8. Automatic support for USB host connector, when available.
Point PocketPC.
9. Runs on faster XScale hardware than PalmOS usually.
False. Almost all newer Palm devices use Xscale processors. My Treo has an Xscale processor in it, just like a PocketPC.
10. DirectX/3D support, more multimedia capable.
Point for the PocketPC.
11. Apps use the full 320x240 resolution (instead of the 160x160 that most PalmOS apps use and double-pixel at 320x320).
Absolutely false. Palm has had real 320x240 for about 2 years now, and almost all apps use it.
12. Able to run more complex games, some 3D games too.
Point for the PocketPC. I have a PSP for games, an iPod for Music. I want my smartphone to be good for email and office applications, not games.
11. Better office format compliancy, MS Office is usually bundled with the PDA.
My Treo came bundled with Datavis Documents to Go, which let's me edit or create Word, Excel and Powerpoint documents. That seems pretty bundled to me.
12. ActiveSync rocks, it allows for direct internet connection and can mount the PDA to your desktop (PalmOS' drive mode is a hack, and only available to recent models)
Point for the PocketPC here.
13. Programming APIs similar to Win32, porting is easy, development too.
If you develop Windows apps, I guess this is a plus.
14. Basic and
Again, if you develop Windows apps, this is nice. It sounds like this article was written by a Windows developer trying to plug PocketPC over PalmOS.
"When the president does it, that means it's not illegal." - Richard M. Nixon
If you want to get a new PocketPC, buy whatever you want, except a Toshiba! They have never provided updates for their current users; they just drop the model and sell a new one even if the device is perfectly able to run the new software version. For example, the toshiba e750 was "supposed" to be upgraded to Windows mobile 2003 but Toshiba changed their mind and they dropped the model...
It has a nice ATI graphic chip in it, which has been put to good use in:
* A version of MAME,
* A combo SNES/Gensis/Turbo Graphix/Gameboy emulator. The SNES emu is flawless, and I'm enjoying playing a lot of games that I'd half forgotten about.
* An accelerated version of the TCPMP player
* A mess of Zodiac enabled games. I'd say that the 3D quality is somewhere between a PS1 and a PS2.
* Hexen, Doom and Quake ports by the same developer that did Little John Z.
Plus, the Zodiac 2 has Bluetooth, two SD slots (one SDIO), great widescreen display, aluminum case, and it is small. It ships with a decent mail client and a so-so web browser. It gets pretty nice battery life, too. It supports most SD wifi cards, another plus.
It has turned out to be the best entertainment and "road warrior" PDA that I've ever owned, bar none.
jh
from a pda/cellphone standpoint, you should be careful about promoting the PalmOS.
it won't be around much longer. they're already testing their devices on pocket pc for the next treo.
Articles misses the point slightly - the markets are being completely consumed by convergence with the mobile phone market.
A bit like asking "What's better, penny farthings or tanks"
Sure standalone devices have their uses, but time and time again I've come across people who just don't take their PDAs with them. One device is enough, and their phone always takes priority.
So what about a nice Symbian phone? I recommend the Moto A1000.
Interestingly enough, I like the HP a lot more than the equivalently price Palm. The hardware speed has finally caught up to the software, and all those "cool features" like handwriting recognition finally actually work well enough to be useful. Palms have gotten larger, and PocketPCs have gotten smaller, so size is no longer an issue for me. For the first time, I've found that I can be as productive with my iPAQ as I can with a similar Palm device.
I picked the iPAQ because the competitors in the Palm arena have gotten just too expensive for the features when compared to PocketPCs. And until the situation improves for Palm, I'm sticking with what I've got.
"With sufficient thrust, pigs fly just fine. However, this is not necessarily a good idea...."
RFC 1925
And no music album has been composed on PocketPC PDA...
p hp?cat=1847
http://www.archive.org/audio/audiolisting-browse.
I'm going to give my ametuer review (or really, my gripes and some niceties) about my new PalmOne LifeDrive.
:)
When deciding whether to stay Palm when ready to dump my old Palm IIIx, I looked at the money and policy invested in Palm software for my business -- contact management software, mileage tracking, and this really damn neat Planetarium program. Then I looked up a few things that I knew I would need: SSH, Terminal Services, and a PPTP VPN client. I found all of them, so I stuck with Palm.
Originally I purchased a T5. It was very slim and sleek, and with a 1GB SD card, this was a perfect mate to go with my latop and desktop systems. However, it did not have built in WiFi, and the only WiFi card I could find is by PalmOne and doesn't support WPA, which is in use at 95% of my 802.11 installations.
As an aside, I called SanDisk who makes an SD WiFi card for the Zire which DOES support WPA. They told me that Palm has refused to respond to their request for documentation on the WiFi API for PalmOS Garnet 5.4.x, so they will not support this OS. Shame. When I called Palm, they told me I should drop an extra clam on the LifeDrive.
I looked at it. It's pretty cool with a 4GB CF microdrive. It's slower than its RAM-based compatriots in openning applications and loading associate databases, but it's not so much to be a big problem. One thing I notice about the LifeDrive is that PalmOne touts it as a mobile manager perfect for business, but none of the quick buttons are business: by default you have Homes, Files, Media, and Favorites. Now, the favorites menu is pretty cool, and I could easily put my business apps on the first screen on the favorites. However, I'm a bit old-fashioned and like my ability to call up my contacts and calendar with a single button press. I redefined the buttons and so now I am there again.
A GREAT feature is the ability to give access to the 4GB hard drive to a connected computer via USB Drive Mode. I can copy music, documents, or anything I want or need to the 4GB hard drive with the USB cable. However, I don't find this confusing or cumbersome as the article says. It seems pretty straight-forward to me.
Oh, and I am fine with the UI and fonts. And if you don't like either, there are plenty of launch-replacements and skins for download. Personally, I haven't tried them because I was more interested in gaining basic stability
Poor tech support certainly is a problem. This is my third unit, the previosus suffering some kind of software problem which put it into a reboot-cycle. I asked Palm if there was some way to glean useful information from the unit, like a memory dump, or if I could just send them a dump of my profile so they could determine the problem. No such utilities or abilities exist for the LifeDrive, and I find it a little irritating that they would release something without having good diagnostic tools available. How do they expect to fix things based on user reports if they can't get usable technical information?
I finally got this unit working, then found that my headphone jack was broken. A quick trip to Staples and that was replaced (again.) (A BIG thumbs-up to Staples: I had my T5 for a week and based on Palm's treatment of the situation, they traded me up to the LifeDrive, then replaced several LifeDrives for me while we troubleshot the problems I was having.)
I have purchased MMPlayer to watch DivX, Xvid, and some other formats, Kinoma Player and Kinoma Producter to port my DVDs (requires additional DVD ripping software) to MP4 format perfect for viewing on the LD. It's not a nice distraction from work. RealPlayer is available for Palm, but it does not support video (BOOO!)
For my work I use pSSH (free,) Mergic VPN, and Remote Plus (RDP/TS client.) These also all work great, and I suspect that pSSH will be much more fun once I get my Bluetooth keyboard.
Conceptually, this unit is fantastic. However, it has numerous issues which I find quite annoy
When I bought the Treo 300, I stopped using my PocketPC. After that Treos have kept me from touching a PocketPC again. If M$ had emulated the Treo model I would have never gone with Palm. It's sad that a Linux-based alternative hasn't come around: Treo-like, but with Linux.
http://212pix.blogspot.com/
I've had various Palms and PocketPC devices...enough that I lost count. And through out it all...I realized one thing. I'm just a very disorganized person. These things don't save time nor help me organize nor help me manage all the information I have...because I'M NOT. And if I were a that type of person organized and anal enough to use it, it wouldn't matter to me WHAT I used...I could use a spiral bound notebook and I bet I'd be just as organized.
But now, I use Motorola MPx220 and I support few people in our company that use their Treo650 connecting to our Exchange server. There is no comparison. If your company use MS infrastructure, you gotta go PocketPC. It allows you the sync Contacts, Calendar, Emails over wireless (wifi, cellular, etc). Palm Treo does this...but they use a crutch product called Versa Mail which really sucks. And it ONLY syncs emails . It does sync calendar items, but very unreliably. It doesn't sync contacts at all. You have to hotsync with your computer for that. I think if Treo650's next version synced with Exchange server completely, then I'd consider it again.
If you are after gaming, multimedia, good WiFi+Bluetooth support, a lot of accessories and versatility, go with Pocket PC. If you are after small and stylish devices with good battery life, simple interface and simple PIM apps, go with PalmOS.
:-) This whole article is a shill, or at least someone who hasn't done any research recently.
Oh good grief, would he please get out of the 20th century?
Every palmOne device in the past two years includes an "Agenda" view (aka Today screen). All but the very lowest end includes an MP3 player and an office suite that is more compatible with MS Office than Pocket PC's alternative is. Most of the new ones include Bluetooth. There are ample fancy games for Palms. Almost all Palms now use 320x320 or 320x480 screens, which are larger than the 240x320 standard for Pocket PCs. The palmOne LifeDrive has the most storage available of any handheld by several orders of magnitude. It's closest competitor is palmOne's own Tungsten T5. Their newer models use non-volatile storage so that your data isn't lost when the power runs down, unlike Pocket PCs.
If you're comparing against a Palm m505, sure, the comparison is true. But you'd then have to compare against a 4 year old HP, as well, and the Jornada's of that era sucked.
--GrouchoMarx
Card-carrying member of the EFF, FSF, and ACLU. Are you?
Essentially, the Treo is an outstanding phone and a so-so PDA. Most of the functionality has been designed so you can get to it quickly with just your thumb while cradling the device in your hands. More than 1,000 contacts in the phone (like me)? Four keystrokes (Contacts > two initials of the person's name > one extra stroke to pick the right number > push to dial) get you a connected call -- and you can do most of it without looking at the screen.
In contrast, the Pocket PC devices (mine included) are terrific PDAs but so-so phones. The same functionality I did in four strokes with my Treo takes a lot of clicks and movement -- some of which cannot be practically done without the stylus. On the other hand, I can run a lot of apps I couldn't run on the Palm and memory management seems better for apps that consume a lot of RAM.
I'm probably less of a menace to society with my Pocket PC, if only because I can no longer email and SMS while driving.
"It was a summer's tale: Just a boy, his Linux, and a head full of dreams..."
I'm actually typing this from a Fujitsu P series, and I will admit it's great and highly portable, but it still has to boot and running always on still gives you only 4 hours, 8 with the add-on batter pack. Isn't the whole idea at some point is to get some type of realistic convergence on all these devices? Seriously, I hate having to pack a PDA, and a cell phone, and a laptop, and an MP3 player, and my solar powered battery charger, and my 18 different adapters, and my........you get the idea. My girlfriend just got an Audiovox-PPC 6601 and I have to admit it's pretty slick with a 1GB SD card, handles cell duties, PDA, and music duties reasonably well, although it's not great. I figure the amount it would cost to buy all those devices separately, you're probably looking at at least the same amount if not more. I think something like the OQO or the Fliptop will prolly be the ideal device, but I still think they're having issues with getting extended battery life out of it.
Has this reviewer actually used a PocketPC device? For god's sake... If you thought the old Windows network configuration was confusing, get ready for PocketPC.
I had the task of configuring one of those brand new Dell PPC's with bluetooth and wifi, for a wireless network we have here.
It took me 90 minutes (I shit you not) to get the damn thing working. Granted, I have zero PPC experience, but aren't they trying to sell to NEW customers?
Problems:
* The WiFi config tool could almost never find wireless networks. It would just sit there searching for no apparent reason, and looked like it hung.
* Does anybody know when to use the WiFi wizard, versus "connections," versus.. whatever the THIRD way of setting up a network device was?
* The names make no sense. You have a base station name, then you have a profile name, then you have a connection type name. WHAT? How the fuck is Joe Blow supposed to understand "use this connection to connect to: work/The Internet" the problem is, "Work" is a network connection name, but I think it might also be a VPN reference.
You go around and around and around in absolute menu hell.. none of the different components of the configuration seem to actually accept changes, or make any kind of difference. For fuck's sake, it was literally the worst configuration nightmare I've had in 12 years' worth of computer shit.
BeOS was the OS for multimedia, before Palm bought the remains of Be Inc. I find it painful to see that, according to this review, the OS to have, when in need of multimedia, is Pocket PC.
Palm has shown is has wasted BeOS. So now it's time to open up the source. You owe us, dammit!
"Honey, I feel a certain distance between us..." "Really? A 31ms ping ain't that bad..."
Firstly I should confess I've never owned a PocketPC . I've got friends who have them however. I've happily stuck by my m500 and recently acquired LifeDrive. The main reasons are:
Complexity: do I need a fully fledged PC in my hand? Sure, the PocketPC doesn't crash as much as PalmOS but rebooting (once every 2 weeks or so for me) is a minor inconvenience. PocketPCs don't run that fast even on considerably faster hardware than the Palms because of the complexity of OS. Faster processors eat into battery life too.
Anger: I get angry enough at Microsoft when I use my PC at work/home and it behaves erratically (how politically correct was that phrase!). I can't carry that much anger around with me - it isn't healthy!
PIM Apps: Should be simple and seamless. The Palm's good in this area - a lot of stuff has been in the OS for years, and it all works really well in day to day operation.
I've read a great article about designing the Palm Pilot UI where they mentioned trying to create a feeling of zen calm in the user. Microsoft probably aims for more of a berzerker rage :-)
How in the name of fuck did this get moderated as Interesting, when the first is clearly referring to to "looks" as in user interface style, explictly mentioning Clear Type as an example of how this is acheived. The Palm devices 'stylish' remark is likewise a reference to the device itself, and not the UI.
Also, the article you are referring to is simply an auto-generated reference to an article within the site database, based on keywords. There are no similar articles available for Palm systems on that particular site, hence no link for them.
The kind of people who write this kind of nonsense are the kind of people who wear tin beanies and worry in great depth about the stealing of their thoughts.
My wife's a doctor and when she started using a PDA Palm OS was the only one that Skyscape supported. I wonder if Palm is often thought of as the more "professional" of the two and so the Palm gets some job-oriented programs first?
I think PDAs are becoming a niche item servicing a shrinking market. If you have a circle of friends that includes a significant number of non-geeks, stop and think - how many of them had PDAs in the past, but no longer have/use them? I came up with six names from my list without much effort.
I bought a Sony Clie a couple years ago, back when everyone thought that PDAs were the next big thing. But after a few months I found that, other than with games, I pretty much never needed the interactive nature of it. I'm not scheduling meetings on the go, since most of my meetings involve multiple people and therefore a fair bit of coordination. I didn't need to run spreadsheet and word processing apps while on the train - and frankly I really could use my Powerbook on either the train or the bus if I really needed that functionality.
Now I've got a less-than-cutting-edge Motorola V600 phone which lets me view my calendar or address book, sounds reminders and alarms, and even takes the occasional phone call. It's smaller than my Sony, and provides all the functionality that I actually use.
#DeleteChrome
I have tried many different types of handhelds, and have found that pocket pc is best for me. I use my pocket pc as an mp3 player, to keep my schedule going as well as for some occasional gaming during a commute. I also have a full size keyboard plug-in that I can use for unexpected times when I need to type and do not have a laptop with me.
I have found that the Dell Axim Pocket PC with CompleteCare warrenty is the best way to go. The warranty covers accidents such as drops and spills and I have received a refurbished unit four times in the past three years, (they overnight it) with very little downtime. My latest model has lasted me 8 months now and I am waiting for a new high end model from Dell to purchase later this year.
While i was reading it, it showed it's age in several ways, the most obvious to me was the part about not being able to install apps to palmos. I can easily install apps to my device without any hacks.
Show this to your friends and family that don't know what a real hacker is
I own a middle of the line palm pilot and a top fo the line Pocket PC that was given a 10 out of tend and a kick ass by maximum PC, and I think my old palm pilot with its pitiful 33 mhz processor was better. Why? For a few very simple reasons, first of all Pocket PC OS 2003 crashes, many times a month and sometimes hard where you lose all your data unless you actively back it up, my palm crashed very few times and only with a specific application which I used a crack on. Just two weeks ago I lost all my data that isnt automatically backed up by the desktop synching software (a surprising amount) and curse the fact it was designed so that when the batter goes out you lose your memory. I had to read the manual to erase the data off my palm pilot, you cant do it no matter how long its been sitting in a drawer.
Secondly, the batter life on the pocket PC is close to three hours, and on my palm it was twice as long or longer, so not only does it not run as long, you lose your memory if the battery totally dies...If I forgot to recharge it for a week, even if I didnt use it, it will lose its memory.
Third, Information management is not as responsive, it takes a good 5 to 10 seconds to get my contacts up, or to get to the to do list so Ican enter something, which even though it has well over a 10times faster processor than my palm it takes longer to load a contact or my to do list. Even worse is how long it takes to access my notes, it takes a good 20 seconds or more before I can begin writting a note, and if I dont type for a while and it turns off, it automatically closes the note I was working on and I have to reaccess it, which is a much shorter peroid of time the second time but still annoying.
Third, the pocket pc can play MP3s, but so can the palm, and the palm not only sounds better, but loads the songs more quickly and includes software that is better than the horrible version of media player on the pocket pc, but the tunes sound tiny no matter what software I use. No I cant play movies on my palm, but movies on my pocket pc are dreadful to watch and have to be converted and uploaded through a very cumbersome process that may actually take longer than the video you wish to watch.
I cant surf the web whatso ever with my palm, but even though my pocket pc has wireless, you can imagine how horrible it would be to surf the web by setting your resolution to 320X200 and not having your browser resizing the pages...I can see the slash dot logo and thats about it...everything else is scrolling around, its almost like playing the worlds worst puzzle game.
Yes you can play games on a pocket pc better, and they have prettier graphics and better sounds, but hte controls are horrible, especially on pocket pcs, my old palm while not good for gaming whatso ever still has better controls than my pocket pc. My pocket pc you can only hit one button at a time, so you can run, or jump, but not do a running jump...ensuring you a trip in to the abyss before the end of the first level of the game.
I wouldnt hate the pocket pc so much, but the two biggest problems, losing data at least once a month if I dont contantly backup or recharge every chance I get and the fact that it runs slowly for basic Information management functionality just makes it pretty worthless. Thankfully I can output to a projector or computer monitor with it, as well as type to a usb keyboard and it has a voice recorder and you can command it by speaking to it (which isnt as useful as it sounds..but it works well). But all in all the Pocket PC mentality is the mentality of everything but the kitchen sink, more worried about adding features rather than focusing on making what features you have extremely easy to use and refined.
The pocket pc is the anti-ipod, and the palm while not perfect is such a better device, and the only reason I dont go back to my old palm is that since my pocket pc sucks so bad I have just gotten used to not having a pda at all and using my cell phone to take contacts and quick notes on the voice re
I have used Palms, PocketPCs, Psions, and other devices. The one I prefer is the HP 100LX that is not made anymore.
From the whitepapers I've seen from Nokia they are at least putting serious thought into these issues, so we may end up with a device that not only runs Linux but it also actually useable, yeah! Now we only have to hope that the rumours of the lousy performance turn out to be an issue of the devices still being in beta at the moment...
In a couple of places I heard about wiki engines that could run onto the palm, and then you get a Memo application with bold and italic fonts for instance, that you moreover can sync to external wikis... :-)
I personally am too weak at computing to advance here but if you start something do warn me
Hervé
Herve S.
I started with a Palm III and then went to the Palm VII (it was free). Nice, easy-to-use PDAs but that's about it. So, I gave the Pocket PC a try.
I used to even be a reviewer for Pocket PC Thoughts. After 2 Pocket PCs and a couple of years, I gave up. I got tired of always carrying a device around. I also don't make enough money to keep up with the latest trends.
Honestly, have you looked at the prices of Pocket PCs and Palms lately? Ridiculous! Besides, I sit at a PC all day at work, why would I want to surf the web on a 4 inch screen? It also gets tough to sit back and watch new and better software come out that I can't use. Hardware is even worse. I tried a Bluetooth GPS receiver. What a pain. I sold it and bought a handheld Garmin which I love.
So, for me, apathy won out.
I wonder why HP, Dell, and others went with Microsoft's OS instead of PalmOS for their PDAs. Was Palm not licensing their OS yet?
--
Given enough personal experience, all stereotypes are shallow.
Been there, tried that...
...bought a Nokia Communicator instead
...have been happy since.
Can any of the pocketPC or Palms be somehow hooked-up to a monitor? If so, what kinda resolution?
I mainly do server side development, and rarely do anything more taxing than email/browsing when I'm not doing that, so I get by with pretty meager hardware. Supposing I could get a decent resolution out of a PDA hooked up to a monitor, it might be cool to have it as my daytimer/addressbook while traveling and then "dock" it when I'm at home/work. Is it possible?
Truly spoken like somebody who never rides the bus (at least in the Atlanta). I absolutely abhorred the hour it took to get from the stop in my town to the nearest rail station. (MARTA bus 180, W. Broad Street/Campbellton Road instersection to the College Park rail station). Yes, the schedule says about forty minutes... Don't believe it. I could DRIVE from my house to Georgia Tech in the time it took to ride from the bus stop to the rail station-- not including walking to the stop, WAITING for the always-late bus, riding the train in, and walking to campus from the North Avenue station. Heaven help you if the driver needs to take a break...
Riding MARTA was so inconvenient that I only did it once or twice-- when the car was in the shop getting a new clutch.
It's my experience that there's PLENTY of time for "useful" activity on public transportation.
Pocket PC's win over Palm's anyday. the PalmOS and most of the Palm device itself is about 10 years out of date (oh wait, I forgot, they came out with color last year didn't they?) Ok, they made use of the SD card while PPC's were still using those HUGE CF cards.... but let's face it, other than a fancy rolodex, it's not good for much anything else. From a productivity standpoint you would have to go with the PPC. This is just my opinion, I do have an Ipaq 1415 which I use quite frequently, however my main handheld is my Zaurus SL-5500
Since the OS is very "simple", when you use anything that is network based, the system will often lock up or just sit there waiting for the network stack to do something.
I've had crashes so severe on my old Clie while I was browing the internet that it wiped out the entire machine. Fortunately, the Sync will get it back to the same state, so it wasn't the end of the world.
I find palm pretty robust, but the network implementation is bad, and the fact that 6.0 of the OS is only meant for phones means their PDA's will never be as robust as they should be.
On the other hand, I really do like my new Lifedrive, even if it is a tad big.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
"MySQL is the Geo Metro of database systems"
Yeah that's true, MS SQLServer is the Pinto of DB systems.
Oracle is a '79 4-6-8 Cadillac deville
They all suck.
How is pda popularity these days? I'
ve been out of the loop. A few years ago seemed like everyone had or wanted a Palm. Then PowerPc was trying to sell idea of doing all kinds of pc stuff on a pda. I never felt any desire to have either kind. Are they a declining gadget or do they have the future Palm and MS hoped afterall? Like I said I'm out of the loop these days.
I recently got fed up with the crashing on the LifeDrive and ran through several PPC devices trying (unsuccessfully) to replace it. There's no doubt that the specs for the PPC devices are better than the Palm devices, but the WM is so frickin' horrid it evens the field out.
The reviewer is just plain wrong about his assertions that PPC is better with the memory than Palm. Its just plain not true. Search the PPC forums for the term "reset" and you'll find that a lot of PPC users reset their devices regularly, some claiming even 5-10 times per day, to reclaim memory lost to leaks on the system. I didn't believe it when I first got my device, but then I tried and I'll be damned if I hadn't lost 5 megs (of 40 megs, mind you) to memory leaks in less than a week.
There are some huge technical issues with WM, and there's an incentive for MS to NOT fix them. Some of the issues with the interface and the way the OS works have existed since WinCE 1.0 came out, and aren't going to be fixed any time soon. MS has a HUGE incentive not to fix PPC in that for the same price as a high-end PPC ($600) they could be gaining a sale of a full version of Windows XP on a laptop. They wouldn't want to do anything to discourage purchase of their primary cash cow.
The world of PPC isn't as unified as the reviewer might have you believe. The PPC that I ended up with (the Dell Axim X50v) has a badass graphics chip in it (the Intel 2700g, with 16megs of onboard memory;quite good for a VGA device), that isn't supported by the OS natively, or many developers, therefore the device gets lousy benchmarks and performs like crap on most games, even though its graphics co-processor blows everything else on the market out of the water.
There is no real DirectX for PPC. It would be great if there was, but there ain't. A lot of games still use the GDI interface to write to video ram, thereby bypassing the utility of the graphics co-processor. There is a subset of DirectX referred to as GAPI (or Games API), but that doesn't support the 2700G either. There's a hacked up version that does, though, so if you're willing to do a little fiddling, you can get decent performance from games that use that dll.
It floors me that MS has a beautiful API and HAL for just this issue (DirectX) and they don't bother putting it in all of their devices.
by Mike Buddha -- Someday the mountain might get him, but the law never will.
Hmm.. Nokia claims that the Series 60 phones are "smartphones". Is this so? I think not.
Here is a very basic comparison between Nokia Series 60 phones and the Palm III PDA released 7 years ago:
I've been trying Nokia smartphones. I don't like the 9300 and the 9500 smartphones, so I decided to go for a Series 60 device such as Nokia 6670.
It is very interesting to take a Palm III which was released about 7 years ago and compare the PDA functions with the functions of a modern Nokia Series 60 smartphone.
Most Nokia Series 60 phones have hardware that is far superior to the hardware of the Palm IIIxe. Let's compare the hardware of the two devices:
Nokia 6670
Released: very recently
CPU: 123 MHz (32-bit ARM-9)
RAM: 8 MB
Screen resolution: 176×208 pixels, 65536 colors
Memory extension: MMC extension card
Palm IIIxe
Released: 7 years ago
CPU: 16 MHz (Motorola 68328 Dragonball)
RAM: 8 MB
Screen resolution: 160×160 pixels, 16 shades of gray
Memory extension: none
So, a Nokia Series 60 phone is more powerful than a Palm IIIxe. Now, let's compare the software.
TO-DO List. The TO DO list is a basic but very important PDA application. A business person typically has a lot of items on his TO DO list. The items are usually long - for example "Discuss the enhanced engine project with Tim and the board".
Palm IIIxe: on the Palm IIIxe, the long items will appear word-wrapped on the TO DO list, so the user is able to see the whole TO DO item.
Nokia Series 60: on a Nokia Series 60 phone, the long items will be cut short - for example, the item above will appear like this:
"Discuss the enhanc..."
So for serious use, the Nokia Series 60 TO DO List is almost useless. Also, for some unknown reason Nokia has chosen big fonts for their TO DO List application, so only a few TO DO items are visible.
Notes or Memo. This basic application is also very important for a PDA or smartphone. A busy business person will have a lot of notes.
Palm IIIxe: the first line of every note is considered the title of that note. The notes are shown sorted by title. So if I have a lot of notes, when I'm searching for a note named "Shopping list" I know where to find it - it starts with S, so I know its relative position among the other notes, because the notes are sorted by title. Palm IIIxe also offers a powerful search function.
Nokia Series 60: the notes are sorted by the date they were entered at. If I search for a note called "Shopping list", or "Shirt size", I'm plain out of luck - I have to go through every note.
There are many other differences.
What is my point with this comparison?
The Nokia Series 60 phones claim to be "smartphones". Yet, the Palm IIIxe released 7 years ago is way better than Nokia Series 60 phones because of its software.
The problems that I described are not minor glitches - they are very important usability problems.
So - when will Nokia fix this? Being a developer myself, I estimate that the changes described above and the needed testing amounts to very few work hours.
Yet, the result would be a large leap in usability as a smartphone.
My advice for the Nokia Series 60 phones developers: buy an old Palm III, use it for a month. See in which ways it is better than a Series 60 phone.
Then, when making the next version of Series 60, incorporate some of the changes.
I consider that currently Nokia Series 60 phones do not deserve to be called smartphones. That name will be deserved only after they are at least comparable with the Palm III PDA released 7 years ago.
I am trying to get the following set up.
I want a palm/pocket PC that will connect to the internet through a cellphone via bluetooth or a device that can use a CDMA/GPRS/ or EDGE card.
anyone got any ideas for me,
I picked up a Sony Clie a couple of years ago, but returned it because it didn't multitask AT ALL.
Example: (1) use the browser to connect to a T-Mobile hotspot and enter login information; (2) surf a bit; (3) find some info you wish to retain, so copy it to the clipboard (say an address); (4) "switch" to the Memo application and paste the text -- at this point the browser _QUITS_; (5) "switch" back to the browser -- you are no longer connected and must re-login to the hotspot -- also you lose the context of the page you were at.
Has Palm fixed these issues? Or was this a Sony implementation problem?
The parent was modded Insightful, but someone decided to make it Flamebait.
You jest.
One of the things that greased the wheels of my switch from Sony Clie TH-55 (PalmOS) to Dell Axim x50v was that the Palm machine had the execrable Graffiti 2, while the Block Recognizer on the Axim actually implemented Graffiti 1 almost perfectly.
I found it ridiculous that the Pocket PC device did a better version of one of Palm's signature features, Graffiti, than Palm themselves did.
Plus, I required a browser than implemented client certificates properly, and IE does while nothing I could find on Palm did (NetFront on the TH-55 didn't). And the Axim's bluetooth and WiFi implementations were better than the Sony's.
Plus, I'm no longer banging my head on that stupid 4K note limit.
Still, I do miss the simple 'search everything' on the Palm, but I don't miss the total nightmare of a user interface that Sony invented for their revised standard applications on the TH-55; truly an example of Sony's programmers being utterly clueless about the PalmOS user experience.
Ah, good point, I didn't really consider that! :)
;)
My life lasts around 2 hours, so I am never really straining there, I can always find a plug...
Though admittedly there have been a couple occasions that I thought about hiking to the woods and coding there for a change of pace... and I have been deterred by the battery life problem...
MoM++ - A Classic Expanded - [Master of Magic 1.5]
http://mompp.sourceforge.net/
I don't know why no one picked up this point.
The review states that PalmOS crashes too easily, and too often, and seems to imply that somehow PocketPC (PPC) is more stable than Palm.
That's nonsense.
PPC is NOT stable. It crashes very often and it requires a soft reset every day or two to keep it running smoothly. Of course, you can probably avoid rebooting for a week, but in my experience, performance drops considerably after 24-48hours of uptime.
I guess one might argue that Palm is not stable in the sense that, often a poorly written program can cause fatal errors and force a reset. However, once you find out which program it is, and avoid those poorly written programs, then you are fine. I have NEVER had to reboot palm because of performance issues.
Poorly written PPC software also crashes the PPC system. Of course, at times you can force shutdown of the application program without resetting, but often PPC becomes quite unstable after that anyway and you might as well reset.
To me, PalmOS is a very stable platform, and they are very fast. One might argue otherwise by simply looking at processor speed. But the fact is Palm devices may be running slower processors, somehow the programming makes it a lot more efficient. Applications run faster and are more responsive on Palm.
For example, MIMs (an Australian-based drug book) takes a good 5-10 seconds to boot up on PPC, but takes 2 seconds to boot up on Palm. iSilo also loads up faster on Palm.
Mind you, on PPC, once the program has been loaded up, switching between the programs (instead of having to load up the program) does speed up the speed very considerably. However, having multiple programs running in memory impacts (rather considerably) on stability and the overall responsiveness of the unit.
I first starting using Palm (Vx) then switched to the PPC (Toshiba e710), then switched back to Palm (T3), then switched to PPC again (O2 mini), then at last, back to Palm (T3). I have used each device exclusively for at least 6 months. I've also test drived a fair few pocket pc for my friends as well.
I kept going back to Palm. But then again, that is probably because I have no use for fancy multimedia and I do not use my PDA for emailing or internet. I certainly don't care about PPC's tighter integration with Windows. Of course, these things might mean more to other people than it does to me.
But my point is simply that PPC is NOT stable at all, and certainly not when compared with PalmOS.
I just use a Treo, and an Axim. Whichever is better, I win :)
Motorola has a cell phone that functions as an FM radio, vga camera, PDA, IM and e-mail client, bluetooth, expandable up to 2GB storage on a card, play mp3 and other formats. The model is E680i - $300 to $400 (price varies wildly)
Gah! Was the Tapwave Zodiac 2 included? www.tapwave.com Legodude522
Because I have low karma, I need pills.
Reviewer hasn't used a Palm in a very long while. Resolution on the Palm is very good, much better then Pocket PC, you're getting them for cheaper price. A gig of SD memory is going for dead cheap you can store hundreds of applications, ranging from GPS bluetooth maps, to 512 meg TomeReader compilation of the whole wikipedia, to Red Alert/Dune like games, to simple spider, maze, bubble like puzzle games.
I can go days without charnging playing mp3s.
My friends have Pocket Pcs, their battery power lasts fractions of what I get out of my Palm. Their applications crush, they often have to restore applications from backups because their Pocket PCs reset when they loose power. You do get a wider array of applications, especialy since many good tools such as Total commander have experimental pocket pc versions.
I'll switch to pocket pcs only once the stability and power issues are resolved.
So, basically, what the article is saying is this:
If you want bugs with your handheld, use a PocketPC based device. If you are willing to put up with some technical and feature benchmarks not being met, get a PalmOS based device.
It's all about the negatives, the "gotcha's" that will cause you more problems than any other thing with a computing device. If the device isn't capable of it, you won't even notice until the device is capable. If the device is supposed to be capable, but isn't because the feature is buggy, then you are going to be mind-numbingly frustrated from day one.
This isn't dismissing the instability with the most recent PalmOS release, but I think the instability is more akin to MacOS 9's instability before MacOS X came out. The OS is basically a hold-over to stay competitive and keep people interested until the newer, better, and TOTALLY DIFFERENT OS is ready. I have a feeling that once PalmOS is completely Linux based, all the instabilities will be gone.
Besides, the current PalmOS version is 5. All v.5's suck in some way or another.
I have no tag line
I don't care about small (they all are), stylish (who cares?), games (cards are okay, for the rest I have my PC), multimedia, etc, etc.
I care about battery life. A lot.
And thus I use a very simple Palm device to keep all my data, telephone numbers, addresses, events.
What good is a big thing playing DOOM and video files, when I have to recharge it all the time?
Free PC version of ChipWits at http://www.breueronline.de/klaus/chipwits/
You can fix at least two of those problems with minimal effort and no cost.
On some Treo 650s the SIM tray isn't as good a fit as it should be, so slip a small piece of card under the SIM in it's tray. This will help keep it in place, and may stop your calls dropping out and the wireless mode turning off.
Yo only need to use a small, thin pieve of card, but works a treat!
In theory you are right, but this method is not going to work if you want to run some else's applications (and you will because most likely default applications won't suit you). If one application can take out whole system then the system is badly designed. You can use DOS as well -- just make a task switcher! The only way to beat them is unix-like system that can run palm applications and kill them if they go postal. My friend bought Treo 650 and now he curses every day as it reboots constantly for no reason. PalmOS is a dead end. Unfortunately it's way too late to compete with Microsoft, they will make their pocket operating system stable and robust as they did with windows xp at last. And even if you succeed in creating superpocketOS you won't have enough third party applications around.
You can buy Palm batteries here: http://palm.pdainternalbattery.com/. As another data point, my Clie PEG-SJ20's battery has held up fine for 2 years, even though I often use it for 4 hours at a stretch with 40% backlight and a Stowaway keyboard. Lithium batteries like to be charged often; I charge mine nightly.
I'm probably bias that I prefer Palm over PPC. However, one thing kept me from even *considering* getting a new Palm is that the Palm OS's lack of non-English language support.
Right now, to view Chinese on most Palm devices involving installing special programs whose workings date back to DOS-age.
OTOH, PPC support Unicode internally.
I know some consider supporting Unicode on mobile devices is a waste of valuable storage space, but I suppose using UTF-8 encoding is quite efficient and storage is not really that scarce, like when PDA only has 2MB RAM years ago.
If PalmSource gets to support Unicode for text in PalmLinux (they don't have to bundle a complete set of Unicode fonts, that could be optional, but the OS should use Unicode internally...), that would be great, IMO.