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."

Comments

Security?

[bill_mcgonigle]

And what if you care about security? What's the state of virus/anti-virus (and worms, trojans, etc) on both platforms?

Re:Meh?

[colmore]

http://store.shopfujitsu.com/fpc/Ecommerce/buildse riesbean.do?series=P7D

Your suggestion isn't really that far-fetched. Personally I can't see going with a PocketPC, they can do a whole lot, but they're kind of clunky to use. I'd go for an ultraportable laptop over one of those (better Linux support as well...)

However, you can have my Palm V when you pry it from my cold dead fingers. They need to just do an update on that model. Same screen (at least keep it legible-anywhere green & black) a bit more storage and power, and wireless.

PalmOS is what a palm os is supposed to be

[vansloot]

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).

Ah, Well

[CaptainZapp]

Instead of inserting myself into the fray I bought some popcorn, a front row seat and a Nokia 9300.

Pretty good organizer/phone with the added benefit of not getting into religious bullshit.

Re:Alternate conclusion

[nxtw]

Well, the PSP locks you into MPEG4 and Sony's Memory Stick crap. And it definitely doesn't have good WiFi/Bluetooth support...

I don't even consider my Pocket PC an organizer; I consider it a pocket computer. It has excellent WiFi support; I can access my IMAP4 mailbox, most websites (with Flash support), IRC, AIM, and stream audio. Pocket PCs have been capable of doing all of these things for quite some time. I can also multitask. I have MiniStumbler on it, the pocket version of NetStumbler.

If you want an organizer, a cheap Palm will work. But if you buy a Pocket PC because it is actually a portable device that does many things a PC can, then you definitely don't want a Palm.

Switch?

[tyler_larson]

I've been a Palm person myself: I owned the Pilot 5000 Professional (back when it was USRobotics--still works), the Palm III (from 3Com), the Palm Vx, the Palm m505, a Toshiba PocketPC (kept it only 2 months), the Palm Tungsten T, the Palm Tungsten W, and now own an HP rx3715 iPAQ.

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.