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Good-Bye Nino; Hello from Handspring
arban writes "According to this article on CNET, Philips is discontinuing the Nino, their WinCE base machine. " Phillips is citing lack of sales and consumer response to WinCE machine. On the other side of the coin, Handspring has begun taking orders from their new Palm-OS handheld. Nice and cheap.
There are a handful of applications that offer syncronization between serial PalmOS devices (Visor will need the serial cradle). There's a buggy K app called KPilot. I believe GNOME also has an incomplete counterpart (of course). However, one of the BETTER Linux-Palm Desktop tools is JPilot. It has a built-in Datebook, To-Do List, MemoPad, and Address Book; all very similar to the Windows Palm Desktop suite. While not necessarily as sophisticated in it's syncing technique (basically copies the entire Pilot databases right off the Plot, rather than updates each database by individual records), it's very reliable, easy to use, and (here's the important part) complete to the point that you can use it on a daily basis. You'll need to install the Pilot-Link tools beforehand, but it's worth it!
Check it out here: http://jpilot.linuxbox.com
I see one of the biggest problems of Windows CE as being the damned GUI, which tends to be the problem with most versions of Windows. The Win32 API works marginally well on a low res desktop (remember Win95 at 640x480 resolution?) but on a screen that's much much smaller than your 13.1" monitor is just assanine. The PalmOS is a pretty much "perfect" operating system for palmtop computing, it's super easy to use, great interface on a small screen, and stable. There was an OS before Palm that did that, NewtonOS. I unfortunately was never able to get a Newton even though I really wanted one but I did have the opertunity to use one. If Apple brought the Newton back at a comparable price to the Visor or Palm I'd seriously consider one. If any palmtop designers are reading this, here is what I'd like to see in a palmtop:
1. Easy access expansion slot (preferably a type 2 PC card slot) that can hold anything from flash memory to microdrives.
2. A cradle that uses USB to recharge the batteries and synch it to my desktop or laptop. Not to mention an IrDA port on the corner of the device for use with my Powerbook's IrDA port (the corner so it has wider visibility).
3. A really long battery life, somewhere in the range of weeks (one would be fine). I don't want a colour screen and have third party device manufacturers put little lithium ion batteries in their stuff so my handheld's batteries arent taxed to heck. Enforce a voltage limit of 3.3 and make your device run on 1.1v.
4. Access to the sub-etha net and "Don't Panic" written plainly on the outside. Maybe include travel information for most of the galaxy.
5. Team up with Victorinox to create a Swiss Army Palmtop complete with scissors, fish scaler, and modem.
6. Wireless access given to me in the same fashion as text pager messages (think XML). I dont need cell phone capabilities but I would like be able to hand surf a handfull (pun intended) of web pages parsed to my viewing ability.
I'm done.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
The reason WinCE is failing, and will fail is simple. Unlike Palm, which got a clue a long time ago, people don't want a replacement for their desktop machine. It's ridiculous to try. On the other hand, my Pilot stores the important stuff I need between visits to my PC. The Pilot is small, light and does what it needs fast. WinCE, on the other hand seems to run on grossly oversized handhelds (the Nino is just massive) and the Windows interface just doesn't work well in a small setup, not to mention the complete lack of applications, which is weird since for some stuff it's just a question of selecting a build target in Visual Studio.... but I digress...
The Palm is open, it's efficient, and it works. It's PDA. WinCE is just a tiny, crappy computer.
----------------- "I have a bone to pick, and a few to break." - Refused -------------------
This only shows there is a definite user base that isn't being tapped here. If Phillips is smart, they would back the project, and let Nino users know they have an alternative to CE.
LinuxCE can be found at http://www.linuxce.org
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Take a bloated, mutated, and counter-intuitive desktop operating system. Remove most of its functionality. Squeeze it into a smaller display than it was ever intended for. It's fun for a while, but ultimately unrewarding.
PalmOS Desgined from the ground up to work in a small display. You can pull it out of your pocket and get to the data in an isntant. No fuss, no mess. You wouldn't want to enter serious amounts of text in it, but it's a very practical solution for the needs of the average business person. It's massively popular.
Epoc32 A clean and elegently designed system from a company who've been building PDAs longer than anyone. Designed from day one for mobile use - but aimed at people who really need a keyboard, either because they need to process documents on the run, or because they are geeks and like being able to telnet into their linux boxes from half way up a mountain - which is when the excellent cellphone integration comes in handy. Also let's companies easily develop custom apps in OPL for, say, insurance salesmen to use on the move. Massively popular in it's niche market.
There's a pattern here, I think:
Designed to a PDA environment - people love it.
Designed from a desktop environment - complete flop.
I personally shoulder much of the blame for this on Windows CE. I've had a Casio A-20 for over a year now and I don't ever use it for the simple fact that it's not worth it. I ALWAYS use my Palm Pilot Professional because it's fast, functional, and works.
There is NO REASON a handheld PC should give you an hourglass when "opening" your contacts app, NO REASON. Then add the same problems that Win 9x/NT has like constant reboots and lockups/crashes and that seals Windows CE's fate in my opinion.
This is the reason I have not purchased a new CE unit and most likely will not.
Well, exatly how bad IS WinCE? Is it just anti-MS bias? If it is, we have enough to complain about without making up things.
I've had to compare the Cass E100 to the Palm series for a project at work, and I must say, despite my being prepared to hate the very idea of WinCE, I really liked the E100. I haven't had any stability problems, but this tends to vary from user to user; any unsatisfied WinCE users?
As far as the UI was concerned, I also thought it was a bad idea to "shoehorn" a desktop GUI onto a PDA, but in fact the GUI isn't really the same as Windows 9X/NT; it just has some very superficial similarities. All in all I'd rate it very good, although I chose to focus on PalmOS.
In the area of desktop synchronization, I found the ActiveSynch technology to be rather buggy on NT, but OK on Win98. I understand there's an NT fix avaiable. It's nice being able to browse your PDA, but in the end its so slow that I think the HotSynch approach is actually more practical. Synching through USB on the HandSprings is definitely going to rock, I just hope they don't dispense with the good old serial port (so I can hook up a differential GPS).
The main issue I see with WinCE is that the OS demands a certain amount of memory and processing power, and the UI really won't fit onto a pilot sized screen, so any practical WinCE palmtop is going to be a little too bulky for our particular application. Also the E100's screen couldn't be read in direct sunlight, so that clinched it for us. Price wasn't an issue, the E100 prices were, I thought, very reasonable for the things you get (fast processor, 32MB RAM, active matrix screen). If you had an application that needed these things, I don't think WinCE would be a bad choice.
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