If you would like to contribute or send in an article please do- hopefully I will be able to produce versions that run on your PDA over time. Doc and iSilo versions will be available for each article and you will be able to read them direct from the web site but it would be nice to bundle them together in a PDA friendly format so that you can carry articles with you. PS. Watch out for my book 'Tiny Tears' which will be released soon. Thanks Shaun McGill
view
the
archives Why are the good PDAs always so bl**dy ugly? by Shaun McGill
If you scroll down a little you will see my 'Why is the PDA always squeezed out?' article which talks about the lack of cool PDAs available today and having thought about it a little more I realised something else that seems to happen with PDA design.
If a manufacturer sqeezes every high end feature into a new PDA they seem obsessed with making it look as ugly as possible...
Let's start with the Windows Mobile side. The Fujitsu Loox (see The Beauty Within the Beast) is a fantastic PDA in almost every way. It has a great VGA screen, is very fast and copious amounts of memory on board as well as WiFi, Bluetooth etc. etc. It is also owned by three of the most respected PDA journalists in the world- that's myself, Neil Brown and Mike Featherstone:) Despite all that it's incredibly bland to look at and is a bit of a brick to say the least...
The iPAQ hx4700 is well yikes (!) very very very very very ugly indeed and it's HUGE! It packs a superb array of features but sadly they are packed into a PDA which would barely fit in your garage.
Even the Dell Axims are not great to look at in the flesh- very plasticy and a bit too big for my liking.
Strangely HP are responsible for one of the best looking PDAs ever made in the iPAQ 4150 which was a beauty- tiny form factor and lots of decent hardware features but sadly a non-VGA screen.
I really do not know where to start with the Palm devices. I purchased a Treo 600 a while back off eBay and was shocked at how it looked. Putting it to my ear was embarrasing and I quickly sold it. Sadly the 650 looks almost identical so that one is out for me as well. Looks don't matter too much in a PDA but in a SmartPhone the general public will simply not buy them in big numbers.
Now the Tungsten T5 is a different story. OK, no it's not- it's also very bland to look and again I can't see it being a breakthrough device. The Life Drive may be a different story but it's size may put off some people.
Even the Zires are poorly designed from an asthetic point of view and the Zire 31 is a pig! No matter how much alchohol you consumed you would not take it out on the town:) These come from the company that made the Palm Vx- did their decent designers resign or something?
I guess Sony tried hard to buck the trend with the later Clies such as the TH55 and maybe they are an example of looks not making any difference in this market and thus I am possibly wasting my time typing this...
Anyway- this is an argument that will rage on as looks are all about opinion but please remember one thing- I am always right:)
Life Drive Thought by Mike Featherstone (07/05/2005)
Back at the end of October, when common opinion was dismissing the forthcoming Tungsten T5 as a waste of time, I wrote a small article declaring the fact that I was prepared to like it if one ever came my way. As it happens, one did come my way (from an unexpected source) and I do like it - most of the time.
Six months on, we seem to have reached the same position. This time it's the Life Drive that's looming and the T5 that's the incumbent but the same sense of interest mixed with doubt is there in the user community.
Once again, I have to say that I'm prepared to like the rumoured device but this time around, I have to say that I have more doubts than I did last time. At least the Life Drive cannot be accused of not attempting to take the PalmOS world forward as the T|T5 was six months ago. Yes, it's still running Garnet (apparently) but if so, that's not really a great surprise. Yes it's using NVFS memory again; new with the T5, discounted and regarded with suspicion and distrust but actually a benefit with none of the possible problems yet manifest (I'm ignoring the 512 byte block size as this is an implementation issue, not a hardware problem). But on top of all of this re-used technology, the Life Drive apparently introduces an embedded dual wireless capability for the first time to a palmOne device along with a form of hard disk storage in place of the compromise T5 'Internal Drive'.
It's the disk that I'm slightly worried about. Undoubtedly, if this device can carry it off, the addition of a hard drive to a PDA will be quite a coup and expand the capability of handheld computing. If it fails, however, palmOne will probably see another raft of 'high end' users disappear to the competition in the form of WM. I have some doubts over the whole venture, as if I wanted 4Gb, I'd go and buy some SD cards - I don't need it built in (but read what I said about Bluetooth and WiFi in my last article - I'm prepared to be wrong on this too!). The key question for this technology must surely be "What is the vibration characteristic of a PalmOS device user?"
The reason I say that is that the Life Drive being a handheld device is designed to be used in the hand(!) Historically, hard disks have been notoriously sensitive - one wrong move, the heads hit the platters and it's goodbye data. Hence their use in desktop (or at least static) applications. Undeniably, the technology has got better, smaller and more rugged over time but is it good enough to cope with the rigours of handheld life? We'll see, I guess.
Battery life will be interesting too - the mechanical drive of a hard disk system takes power. More than Dynamic RAM hold up? I don't know, but it will certainly have been an issue for the design team in conceiving this unit. Part of the reason for the question is that I'm scratching around for an explanation for the rumoured depth of the Life Drive. Is it the drive itself, or is it a dirty great battery to power it all while still allowing some sort of decent life?
I've already said that my next PDA will have built in WiFi, but I'm not going to guarantee that it will be a Life Drive. My concerns over the drive technology are perhaps enough to stop me becoming an early adopter, but economic reality may be enough to stop me buying a Life Drive at all. Not just because of the top end price rumoured for the model, but also because my T|T5 is only 6 months old and is not yet used to capacity in any case.
I want embedded WiFi, but have no idea what I'd do with 4Gb of internal handheld storage. Unless my T5 breaks, I guess I'm not going to find out any time soon.
Why is
the PDA always squeezed out? By Shaun McGill
(03/05/2005)
I had a
look around my local electronics store yesterday and the amount of
floor space
given to iPods, MP3 players, portable DVD players, stand alone GPS
systems and
cheap digital cameras is huge compared to PDAs. They have their own
little
section in the corner which is largely ignored with no big advertising
displays
or anything to draw the consumer’s attention to the product.
When you
think about what the high end PDAs can accomplish this seems a real
shame- for
example I use my Loox for GPS, DVD watching, MP3 and as a camera (when
a decent
camera is not availableJ) Add a GSM CF card and
it could
double as my mobile phone as well.
So why is
it that the PDA rarely gets any attention from the media, the companies
who
make them and the general publish in general? It seems to me that they
will
forever be seen as a ‘geek gadget’ and even the SmartPhones
such as the Treo
650 are struggling to shake this image.
Strangely
the Sony Ericsson p900 range is almost seen as cool which is bucking
the trend
somewhat and I cannot work out why this is? It seems that looks are
everything
in 2005 and if your product is built for professional use it has little
chance
of capturing a large chunk of the market.
A RAZR3 phone snaps knicker elastic at 100 yards, an iPod draws gasps of approval from all quarters and even a cheap sub £100 portable DVD player that is badly made and looks horrible gets more attention than any PDA.
The problem is that no-one has built a cool looking PDA yet. If Apple made a PDA which looked like a slimmed down iPod and included a nice colour screen the market would start to move. If Motorola built a PDA with similarities to their RAZR mobile phone the market would really shift along but until that day comes we will just have to sit in the minority and enjoy our PDAs for what they are- the best of all things in one tiny package.PalmOS Needs Built-In WiFi by Mike Featherstone (17-04-2005)
I've used a Palm
handheld of one sort or
another continuously for the past four years. Initially, that use was
fairly
minimal, comprising the built in PIM functions and a spreadsheet. The
concept
of web browsing or email using this technology was completely alien to
me and
if you'd have suggested it, I'd have laughed at you.When I got the T3 a year ago, it came with Bluetooth - which I definitely didn't need (still not interested in email). The idea of Bluetooth was useless to me. I bought a PC Bluetooth dongle though, just to justify having it on the handheld. Still I used it for nothing more than HotSync and while admittedly, it was much more convenient than dragging a cradle over to the laptop, still I maintained I used it because I had it, not because I needed it. Slowly however, with first the T3 and now the T5, I've become dependent on Bluetooth technology for my daily routine. When my wife is using the laptop, my email is handled on the T5 via Bluetooth. When my daughter is playing one of her computer games before bed, I'll check the Forum via Bluetooth.
These days, with a Bluetooth keyboard, I'll even type a PDA Thoughts article directly onto the T5 via Bluetooth. In short, I've become reliant and can't quite imagine using a PDA that isn't Bluetooth equipped.
Why am I telling you all of this? Well, as I did with Bluetooth, so I did with WiFi...
The short answer? Yes!
So what can I do?
About the only answer at present is a palmOne WiFi card. While that would solve my immediate problem, it would create others particularly in the area of cases and extended storage. Yes, I have the T5 Internal Drive so replacing my SD card with a WiFi one wouldn't leave me completely bereft of 'non-PalmOS' dedicated memory, but until a backup solution is found, the Internal Drive isn't going to get a lot of permanent use from me. As for a case, have you seen an extended case for a T5 with connected WiFi card? I know I haven't.
The reports of some reliability issues with the WiFi cards aren't exactly encouraging either, though these problems may well settle out in time. At the end of the day, while the WiFi card is a solution and one I may use if I have to, it is not one I want to use whether that decision can be justified or not.
No, what I need (well OK, what I want) is a PDA with WiFi built in. I never thought I'd hear myself say that but there it is, I've admitted it. Whether palmOne responds to my desire is a completely different matter, of course, and one over which I have absolutely no control. Either way, whatever they do, my next PDA will be WiFi equipped.
(Since I started this article, the details of the Tungsten X have started to firm up and it appears that what I am starting to look for might just become available soon - for a price. If the rumours are true, then the next challenge for palmOne has already been declared. If it can be done with PalmOS as it can with WM, can it be done as cheaply with PalmOS as it can with WM?)
The ultimate PDA Day by Shaun McGill (08-04-2005)
A Day in the Life of my PDA type articles used to be seen all over web sites a year or so ago but I have not seen any recently and thought it would be nice to document an extreme version that happened to me a couple of days ago. At the end of the day it dawned on me that I will probably never not own a PDA device (whatever form it takes). This particular story involves a Fujitsu Loox 720 but could apply to most PDAs-
07:00am
Woken up abruptly by the Loox at 7am. Strangely the kids have not woken up early today which is a nice bonus.
07:10am
Coffee made and the Loox is now docked and grabbing overnight emails and the latest news from AvantGo.
08:00am
Arrive at work and check my schedule- the Loox is synced with my work and home PC and my calendar is something I am particularly anal about:
08:55am
First reminder of the day for a conference call at 9am.
10:00am
Have a meeting which is 1.5 hours away. Compact Flash removed from Loox and replaced with GPS CF unit. PDA slotted into Arkon cradle and TomTom Navigator fired up for the journey ahead. As per usual the instructions are near perfect and I arrive ahead of time.
11:45am
Meeting starts. I have no filofax or paperwork with me, just the Loox. To this day it still draws attention as every one else's portion of the table is strewn with paper, books and post-it notes. PhatPad is fired up along with the previous minutes which are held in Pocket Word.
1:00pm
Meeting ends- all action points noted in PhatPad along with date of next meeting in calendar.
1:15pm
TomTom Navigator fired up again and I make my way back to the office.
2:00pm
Everyone stops for a coffee and something to eat after a meeting don't they? Well- the services have Wireless connections so I check for any urgent emails on the Loox whilst I am there. If no WiFi the mobile would be used with Bluetooth to the Loox. Eat my food and progress through a few pages of Angles and Demons (eReader) to pass the time.
My wife is in Orlando so I use Skype for Pocket PC to give her a quick call at 0.10 euros a minute (dirt cheap!) The quality is not great but to save over £10 it is well worth it.
3:00pm
Arrive back at office and export meeting notes via Caligrapher from Loox to PC for minor amendments. Continue with other work matters until home time.
7:00pm
As the wife and kids are away I find some time for a quick game of Virtual Pool Mobile and Warfare Incorporated.
11:00pm
Watch an episode of 24 (converted with Pocket PC- DVD Studio) or read an eBook before finally falling asleep and starting all over again tomorrow.
Could I live without my PDA- no! Are you more reliant on your PDA than me? Prove it- webmaster@247corp.com...
So close to going back to Palm... by Shaun McGill (04-04-2005)
A week or so ago I was about an inch away
from going back to a Palm
PDA after having spent a good 3 months using solely Windows Mobile. I
had been
having a few stability issues with my Fujitsu Loox 720 and was losing
memory
each day which caused frequent soft resets. It all came to a head when
my SD
card corrupted (thanks to Journal Pro) and I lost a vast amount of
information.
You would think by now that I would back up my expansion cards as well
as my
RAM but there you go:)On top of this TomTom Navigator crashed quite a lot and games like Virtual Pool Mobile and Warfare Incorporated were crashing every single time I touched them. I searched eBay for a Clie TH55 but decided to try a hard reset first and manually re-install all of my information and only essential applications and guess what....
...all of the above problems continued to occur. As you can imagine at this point it was 2 fingers up to Mr Gates and another trip back to eBay to find a Clie TH55. I knew I would be missing a few features from Windows Mobile but it got to the point that even having stability is better than anything else.
As luck would have it Ian emailed me that day and advised that Virtual Pool Mobile worked fine on his Loox 720 after having installed the latest ROM flash released in February (he had been having the sam problems as me before)- Fujitsu claimed that it fixed a couple of small issues and thus I never had tried it before.
I decided to give the Loox one last chance and spent 30 minutes re-flashing it which was a tiresome and scary process. I loaded up my essential programs and tried Virtual Pool Mobile to see if it worked and yes it did. I installed Warfare Incorporated to see if it worked and yes it did. I installed TomTom Navigator and it now works fine.
I decided to go for broke and installed PocketBreeze, iLauncher, WeatherPanel and even the dreaded Wisbar Advance and they have all performed well since with no problems at all. Take a look at the image on the left- quite beautiful!!! I think the image signifies what works best for me with Windows Mobile and it's the one main screen with so much information available as soon as you turn it on.
Add to that a huge range of applications that work so well under Windows Mobile such as TomTom Navigator, DVD watching, near console quality game play and a huge range of games and apps available for free or to purchase. Add some nicely integrated wireless and the multi-tasking and we are talking about a quality OS that delivers with the right hardware.
I believe that there were issues with the Loox (well mine for certain) but now that it's all fixed I'm really starting to appreciate the Loox for what it can do- no resets, stability and good speed all round.
There is still something nagging in the back of my mind though- the ultra stability of Palm OS (T5 excluded from that statement:)). It does what you need so quickly and reliably that it's very difficult to just forget about it. In my view gaming is much better on a PPC, multimedia is better (apart from the Clies) than most Palm devices and in general there is a greater flexibility and more likelyhood of useful future programs hiting the PPCs first- Skype is an example of that.
When the Life Drive is released (I was told yesterday that it is a 'when' not an 'if') it could be a huge temptation to a lot of people, myself included, as GB's of storage on a PDA add a whole new meaning to flexibility. I want pa1mOne to give Windows Mobile a competitive kick and that can only be good for all of us. Whatever PDA you own, don't argue about it- they all have merit and they all have bad points, as do all of us...
What is my PDA for? by Mike Featherstone (19-03-2005)
The question came up the other day, 'What do you use your PDA for?' and while I flannelled a bit in response, I couldn't come up with a straightforward answer. Had I been asked what was installed on the device, I could have answered quite easily but as to what I use it all for, or what the purpose of having it all is? That takes a bit more thought.
Back at the dawn of time, the purpose of a PDA was fairly easy to define. They were relatively large clunky devices that would hold a few phone numbers, some addresses and maybe a few other bits and pieces if you were lucky. Sitting firmly in the domain of the 'computer nerd' (or those city business types with more money than sense) they had very little mass market appeal and even less capability. Now, though, technology has moved on so far and Moore's law has had its way for so long that with the introduction of all sorts of multimedia and business connectivity applications, defining the purpose of a PDA in the same sort of simplistic way these days is a much harder task.
So, given all of that, what do I use my PDA for?
In my specific case, of course, this question is complicated still further by the amount of review software hanging about on my device at any one time. While it take's time, effort and a PDA to write a review, I can hardly use that as a justification for owning a device in the first place.
In the end, the answer to this question comes back to the installed software - if having a PDA has a purpose, it must relate to what you can do with it, and that means the software you carry about on it. It also means that the answer to the question will be different for everyone so while I may be able to define an answer for myself, I certainly couldn't do it for you.
PIM Apps: The prime functions of a (PalmOS) PDA are still claimed as the PIM Applications with which they are shipped. (As I've said before, I think this is a bit short-sighted of PalmOne who could make more of their devices if they positioned them differently in the market.)
In my case, I make the odd attempt to get into the habit of using the calendar or task applications but up until now, these efforts have never been maintained over a long enough period to be of any real use to me (I'm back in a calendar phase at the present and may get sucked in to the Agendus wormhole if I'm not careful).
The functions are useful, but I'd manage them without a PDA. This is further exacerbated by the fact that I can no longer synchronise my device at work so all of the benefits of carrying my work calendar and contacts around with me are negated by the fact that I have to enter them into the T5 manually.
Games: I have some games installed but really don't spend very much time playing them (unless I'm going to write about them at some point).
Games are convenient, but I'd not miss them too much if I ditched my PDA.
Finances: I manage my finances almost exclusively on the PDA either in Ultrasoft Money or using various spreadsheets I've developed over the years.
I would argue that this is one area where I really can claim benefit from owning a handheld device. Without it, I wouldn't have a clue how much money was in my pocket - let alone in the bank. It is questionable whether I need to do all the tasks that I undertake, but without a PDA I would still do the same things on a PC or paper with the result of a much less manageable solution.
Reading: I would struggle to justify buying a PDA in order to read e-books but I do read a fair number of them and it definitely relieves the strain on the bookshelves at home (which is something we're looking at reducing still further at the moment - a clear-out is in progress).
Writing: Sadly, I do odds and ends of review editing on the PDA too. This is definitely a non-core task and should never even be considered in my opinion. If such tasks need to be done at all, they should be performed on a PC with a decent sized monitor - so I keep telling myself.
Software: Having found iziBasic, I've resumed my long stalled habit of coding small applications directly on my device. Again, this is a result of owning a device rather than a driving need but the functions these applications perform are, on the whole, small things that I need 'now' when I need them at all. A PC based solution would not be wholly useful.
Having looked at this list, all it really proves is that you shouldn't try and analyse too closely why you have a PDA. From re-reading all of the above, I should probably delete just about everything I have installed except for the financial application and spreadsheets and possibly the e-book reader. The rest are things I either don't use, shouldn't use or don't benefit from using (e.g. because using a PDA for the task actually takes longer than the alternative of using paper or a PC).
Will I do it? I don't know (alright, no I won't) but whether I do or not, at least I've come up with a justification for PDA ownership that I can use as a credible answer the next time I'm asked the question….even if it's not the whole truth.
Devil or Angel? by Shaun McGill (02-03-2005)
This thread in the PDA247 forum has generated
quite a bit
of interest along with the poll at the top of it and I thought it would
be nice
to let you all know what the aim of the sites are, why we do it and
what I
think of the recent criticism levied at the Palm news side.The aim?
The aim at the start was nothing more than a simple news site that was based around the Clie PDA and it was purely a hobby. As it became more popular we started to cover all Palm PDAs and actually generate some income through donations and advertising. There is some money in the bank which is tucked away for a rainy day when extra bandwidth is required or for purchasing PDAs and other stuff for the people who help the site the most. At this moment the aim of the site is to generate income. Some people seem to think this a bad thing but would you spend hours every day adding news for strangers for 3 years and get no reward at all from it? A good hobby site deserves to turn into a business and if the people who run it benefit from that then it's no different to working in an office all day for a salary. We do not add free advertising banners for companies that just offer review copies of their products or discounts expecting a free marketing ride- one accessory company is brilliant at this and seem to get away with it over and over again but I won't name them as you can probably guess who they are anyway:) We treat all advertisers the same and ONLY ever take advertising from companies we would deal with ourselves and respect.
Clie World became Clie Planet became PDANews24 became PDA247 became Palm247 and WindowsMobile247 for many reasons. People still joke about the number of name changes but in most instances there have been good reasons for them. Clie World was not available as a .com so I had to change to Clie Planet. When we moved to covering all Palm machines a more generic name was required so that visitors of non Clie machines would not turn away. Unfortunately PDANews24 was a crap name so I changed it to PDA247. Finally Palm247 and WindowsMobile247 came about because of the need to cover Pocket PCs as well. I specifically wanted to keep the two sites seperate from each other to maintain the focus on each platform and to stop potential criticism (that last bit did not work:))
We always move with the market- as the Clie popularity died somewhat we covered all Palm machines. When it became evident that Windows Mobile was increasing it's market share and that their was little new coming from the Palm side (especially when Sony dropped out) we moved to cover both platforms. The difference with our sites is that we tend to do it before most others, get criticised for it but so far we have been right every time.
When we moved to cover Windows Mobile news as well a decision was made to try to cut out the pointless news posts as much as possible. Not much point listing 7 new releases on PalmGear in a day if you can go to PalmGear anyway and in my opinion fewer quality news posts is better than lots of silly items. We still maintain the personal side, especially at weekends, and will continue to do so but in the past couple of months good Palm news has been very thin on the ground. To give you an idea it took me 15 minutes to add 12 Windows Mobile news articles tonight and over 30 minutes to add 4 Palm news articles. This is because lots of people send in Windows Mobile news but very little Palm news comes in these days and the reason is that there is not a lot around...
Why we do it?
I have explained in the first section why I do it but people like Neil, Mike, Philippa, Gavin and Antonio deserve credit for what they do every day for the sites. Gavin has been sending me countless news items every day for the past few weeks and this helps a lot- most of it is Windows Mobile related but he is a PPC user and it's easier to come up with. He has saved me hours in recent weeks! Mike is always on hand to deal with technical problems with the news posting system (today he added an extra archive link at the bottom of the front page because people had requested it) and has spent far too many hours improving the sites for you all to enjoy. Neil is a rock. The amount of time he spends on the forums, sending in news and writing reviews is amazing. He is also a very funny guy (especially when he grows that beard!) and has helped the 247 sites grow to previous unseen levels recently. Philippa is relatively new to the sites but is posting news like a mad woman (she's not mad by the way- just very good at what she does and an excellent review writer). Antonio is the quiet man who sends in countless news items, useful tips and generally makes me laugh over email every day. And where would the forum be without our glorious moderators who do a lot more than you may think.
The point I am making is that these people do a lot for the tens of thousands of visitors the sites receive every day and when criticism is levied at the sites it finds it's way to them as well. Although money is mentioned in the first section it takes a lot more than that for us all to spend so much time delivering so much content every single day. It needs dedication.
Maybe SmartPhone247, gadget247 and iPod247 will appear in the future and they do so be it. It's good to see different aspects of the technology market and fighting over different brands and products is a touch silly...
Ctriticism
After I posted the example email yesterday I realised that there was no need (it's the top article here) when I read it again. Comments like "Because of Bill Gates and the wretched windoze products I simply despise anything he has ever in the most remote way touched" and "Alas, the loss more yours than mine" are not worthy of attention and did not justify news space. The problem is that this is an example of over 50 received recently on the same subject and I still cannot see the problem. Lots of people seem confused about the WindowsMobile aspect and think that it is dominating both sites, well it's not.
As much Palm news as ever is being published on Palm247.
The Windows Mobile news does not affect it all and is totally seperate.
More Palm related reviews have been posted recently than at any other time.
Our Palm news visitor numbers are higher than at any time in the site's 3 year history.
Admittedly there have been a few more general technology articles posted recently than before but this is because there is less good Palm news available, not many people are sending it in and there is simply not so much to write about. If the trned continues and less articles are posted so be it- there is nothing I can do about the lack of Palm PDAs being made.
A lot of the emails mentioned the lack of direction of some of the news. In my view the 247 sites are more focused than most others out there and some in particular which jump from random subject to subject. What really shocked me was how quickly some long time visitors turned against PDA247 in their emails- they have been happy to read the news for years with no pay back but when something does not go their way they get angry and vent that anger at the people responsible for entertaining them over the past few years.
Most of you deserve the efforts we make and I for one am proud that so many people find the sites useful and entertaining but there are a few of you out there who have no understanding of what goes into running a site like this. If you want to give constructive criticism that is ALWAYS welcome as it gives us an idea of how we are doing- if you just want to attack us when you are not happy I suggest you start visiting other sites as you are not welcome on this one.
Custom Configurations by Mike Featherstone
Many times, I've heard the ability of PDA manufacturers to tailor 'their version' of PalmOS to the specific requirements of their particular brand of hardware heralded as a strength of the 'Palm model' of PDA supply. Having had a T5 fairly early on in its life, however, leads me to do two things:
1. Challenge the assumption that OEM 'configurability' is automatically a strength for a handheld (or any other) OS
2. Suggest that a little more commonality and stability would in fact be a good thing. (I might even dare to suggest that this supposed strength of PalmOS is actually a 'right pain in the ****'.)
Use of the T5 from new while trying to carry on working with my existing software suite (copied over from the T3) revealed a number of compatibility issues in quite a number of different bits of software and made me begin to realise just how much pressure this sort of loose OS configuration control puts on the developers of applications. It also made me begin to think about how much effort is required to cope with this problem as more new devices are released year on year.
'That', palmOne would probably claim, 'is a problem for the developers.'
Shouldn't that be PalmSource? Well, maybe.
Aside from companies with specifically targeted market segments like Garmin or Tapwave, the departure of Sony has left PalmOne as the only sizable PalmOS PDA producer 'out there' and so they are the one with whom these compatibility issues will be most visible. Besides, theoretically PalmSource have an innate interest in standardisation of the OS for the sake of the developer as it's only through the software development efforts of others, ensuring a good supply of available applications, that they can hope to maintain a market segment of suitable size and weight to support their attempts at profitability. Attempts that are not looking wholly promising at the moment, I believe.
PalmOne's line, as I understand it, has long been that they sell organisers that other people happen to write software for rather than selling a computing platform where the use of third party software is the expectation rather then the exception. Making that claim, however, is becoming an extremely blinkered point of view (or maybe it's a blinkered point of strategy?). Personally, I know of very few people who own a PDA and just use it for the built in functions. Admittedly, I mix in circles that are perhaps not the norm for PDA owners (how many PDA owners with a website do you know?) but I think the observation holds true for a sufficient portion of the PalmOS community to be taken seriously.
By taking the palmSource supplied OS and then 'tweaking' it to death (in some cases adding lovely new bugs), the device manufacturers are reaching the point where they are firmly shooting both themselves (and by extension, PalmSource) in the foot and sometimes both feet. Given that 'free upgrades' are still the norm for PalmOS software (though the trend is changing) each new device forces a whole raft of developers to open their products, scratch there collective heads and work out just what on earth has been done to the OS this time, all for little or no obvious reward. There then follows a few weeks of work and a round of testing with users screaming that their new toys won't run their old software before there finally comes a point where the whole system hangs together once again. (I say a few weeks though, actually, that is rather generous and belittles some of the huge changes manufacturers have inflicted on software developers over the years.)
After all this, hopefully the developers will sell enough of their new product version to new users of the new device to justify the cost of the update but I very much doubt that this ever happens in reality.
Having worked through the T5 issues with a couple of developers in recent months, I have reached the point where I really don't understand why they actually bother to support any new PalmOS devices that appear. What worries me, is that if the developers reach the point of thinking the same thing, the OS will go into terminal decline as people leave for the competition in droves. This won't wipe out the PalmOS PDA entirely of course as despite my earlier comments, there are a large number of people that use these machines simply as electronic diaries and task lists but that number does not include me, nor most of the people reading this article. (Actually, recent behaviour from PalmOne seems to indicate a potentially deliberate focus of their attentions toward this market, provoking my 'blinkered strategy' comment above)
PalmOS6 is still touted (by some) as the answer to all PalmOS ills. If this needs to be tweaked to support all the non-standard bells and whistles that the manufacturers have got used to building into their devices, however, don't expect anything soon (or at least be prepared for a number of teething troubles as the new drivers etc have their bugs worked out of them by the user community). I've heard it suggested that this prospect was one of the reasons why Sony pulled out of the PDA market and while I have no idea of the truth of the statement, it certainly sounds plausible.
So what's the answer? Possibly to give PalmSource a little more control of what others do with their OS releases though that will depend heavily on existing contractual arrangements. Possibly, it's for palmOne and PalmSource to re-integrate and once again produce a combined hardware/software offering that delivers sensible and consistent functionality across a range of hardware devices.
Either way, I think there needs to be some sort of resolution soon or I suspect I will be joining the queue at the 247Corp hardware store for a shiny new Axim or LOOX.
No more pens by Shaun McGill (01-02-2005)
A really weird thing happened last week, really weird. I did not use a pen for 5 days and had not even realised it- it's stranger because I am technically office based and attend lots of meetings with customers and other departments at work, yet still I 'wrote' nothing down.
I only realised when I could not find a pen on my desk to sign something that I had not touched one all week. It's not because I do no work (?) but because I use my laptop and Pocket PC for note taking, emails etc. and don't feel the need to carry paper any more. Up to recently it has not been feasible for me to do so but the discovery of PhatPad was wat changed the way I work.
In meetings I write not and action points into PhatPad and export the resulting A4 sized page as a jpg image to my PC when I am back in the office and add a reminder to the PhatPad entry if needed. I can also automatically convert my handwritten notes to text for reading on the PC or Pocket PC as required- this is a great way of copy/pasting actions into Calendar for completion.
All meeting minutes are held on my Pocket PC and checked before to ensure I don't miss any action points and end up looking like a berk- this also gives me a database of up to date information which is useful when on the road. I still get funny looks sitting in a meeting with just a PDA but I am over that now and smile inside when I see people struggling with countless pieces of paper and huge filofaxes. Data input has long been the problem with PDAs but products are coming out now that may well make them common place in meetings and for day to day business.
When I receive a mobile call or message notes are also jotted into PhatPad and a reminder added- this is a much quicker way to ensure everything is covered. It's odd but after years and years of PDA usage this one is becoming everything I wanted a PDA to be years ago- a true Personal Digital Assistant.
No more shops by Shaun McGill (31-01-2005)
I wonder if a time will come when a lot of the high street shops we visit will become extinict, and possibly all of them? If you take a look at the main areas of concumer purchase it becomes apparent that they are all under threat to some degree with certain products nearing the end as a 'real' purchase item-
Music- the onine download market has exploded recently with the introduction of iTunes and other online services. Apparently online sales now beat music sales in shops and in the UK at least the normal music chart is becoming irrelevant with only 30,000 copies needing to be sold to get to number 1. The spate of number 1's from Elvis Presley over the past few weeks is testemant to how some clever marketing can guarantee a record company a big hit. It's looking likely that the download chart will have to be incorporated into the main chart and no doubt the trend will continue of online sales dominating the chart more and more.
Film- I visited my local record store the other day only to find the ground floor was DVD only and that CDs had been moved upstairs (this was a Virgin MegaStore)- they must be worried that as broadband speeds increase we will start downloading our films the same way we do with music currently. As PCs become home entertainment centres this will fuel the speed of change and maybe even the DVD (or whatever comes next- Blue Disc?) will become extinct?
Books & Leisure- Amazon are an example of how easy it is to shop online and as each Christmas passes we hear more stories of people shopping online in numbers never seen before.
Magazines & Newspapers- even our daily news could be fed to our PCs for prinitng in 'special' electronic paper each morning along with any other information we need.
Food- this will be the last to fall. Since Alice was born we have had our food delivered by Tesco more often than not. Supermarkets are horrible places with 'trolly rage' dominating your every move and the inevitable wait just to buy your groceries as the lady scans every single item.
I cannot see any item that will never be bought online and the Internet could signal the biggest change in our culture for hundreds of years. Who knows- maybe there will be a backlash and people will turn away from technology in droves but as each new child is born it becomes more natural to not leave the house and to get everything given to you rather than making the effort to go and get it...
What's the difference between a Palm PDA and a cheap calculator? Nothing... by Shaun McGill (25-01-2005)
That title was meant to gain attention because I'm an ego maniac and want lots of people to read what I write (!) but there is a serious point to it.
A few days back Tony Kingsmill posted the following on the PDA247 forum-
"Microsoft pulled off a smart trick when they decided to use the Windows XP grassy hill wallpaper on PPCs. It instantly imposed recognised a brand on the machines and suggested power over the Palms which are traditionally thought of as organisers."
It is a valid point and one which may explain the perceived jump ahead that Windows Mobile has taken over pa1mOne in recent months. How much of that is true I don't know but there does appear to be a shift and people are viewing Pocket PCs a lot more positively these days, at least that's the feedback I have received from the sites visitors.
When someone who has never owned a PDA before walks into a large electronics shops and sees what's on offer the 'Windows' branding everywhere on the Pocket PCs must be enticing. They probably imagine a home computer in their pocket- outside of the US where Palm is very well known I would have thought that the majority of people when choosing a new PDA will be drawn to the Windows bits and presume the Palm PDA to be 'unknown' and thus 'less good' and may even see it as a cheap calculator at an extreme.
When you are new to a market anything you can latch on to is good and likely to help sell that product. Microsoft have a definate advantage hear but it needn't be like that...
If pa1mOne made a new device worthy of attention that would help them fight off the Microsoft challenge. Sadly, unless the rumoured T7 comes out soon, they could find themselves way behind in this race. The other rumour that they are looking to run the SmartPhone version of Windows Mobile in future machines suggests that the future of the Palm OS is limited (if that rumour is correct). As to the next version of Palm OS I really do not see that even on the horizon- if it comes out this year I will eat my hat but it's looking unlikely.
The really sad part is that if you want a bomb proof digital assistant that rarely fails and is as stable as a Mercedez then you need a Palm PDA- it will not let you down and will be your faithful friend for years to come. If you want an all singing, all dancing device that does almost everything that is currently posible (almost) then you need a Windows Mobile device- be prepared for a few soft resets though...
The Palms are probably better for day to day usage and for keeping you organised but sadly pa1mOne are not doing what Sony did and adding a bit of 'spark' to get the masses involved. I do hope this changes but I am not holding my breath..
Are looks everything? Probably... by Shaun McGill (05/12/2004)
I did something the other day that I thought
I had grown out of- I
spent a good hour or so customising my iPAQ to the extreme. The image
to the
left show what my Today screen currently looks like and to me it looks
lovely
but are looks everything?There is some thought behind what you see here. My objective was to get a summary of unread email messages, a detailed view of the current and forecasted weather, most important was an immediately available calendar and in the ideal world a very quick way to view contacts. On top of that I wanted immediate access to 6 programs that are used the most frequently and finally the ability to change brightness setting and see what the current memory and battery situations are.
Neil comes to mind when discussing customising a PDA as he seems to be in a very different camp to me- he prefers the simple straightforward look that does the job and does it well and who can argue with that? Gavin on the other hand would customise a loaf of bread if he could:)
The options available to the Pocket PC user are way ahead of the Palm varients when it comes to shoving loads of information on your 'power on' screen and it's one of the things that a Palm could really do with. ZZTECHS are trying to sort that with Zlauncher as are a few other third party developers but they are sadly limited in what the Palm OS will let them do.
So anyway.... this look, whilst it looks nice, requires quite a few third party applications to acheive and a smallish financial outlay but you will get a command center for your Pocket PC that gives you quick access to information when you need it. Here's how it was done-
The very first program used is Wisbar Advance 2 (http://www.lakeridgesoftware.com/wisbar/)
which is a
quality piece of work. It costs $9.99 and gives you a useful set of
icons at
the top which show memory and batttery information, sound adjustment
and
wireless management. Add to this new sounds, menus and a whole new look
for
your PPC and you have a very stable, if slightly memory hungry,
application.
There are many skins available for free from various sources and the
majority
are free.
Next comes iLauncher (http://www.sbsh.net/products/ilauncher2/)
which is
very cheap at only $4.95. I haven't used it here to it's full capacity
and have
chosen to only have 6 shortcuts in the shell tray rather than the
standard tabs
which can hold many more applications, settings and games.
Spb Pocket Plus (http://www.spbsoftwarehouse.com/products/pocketplus/?en)
is possibly the grandaddy of all Pocket PC applications. It does far
too much
to list here and again I have not used it to it's full capacity on the
Today
screen. You get a 'close' button which is so so so needed in Windows
Mobile,
the status of various harware settings as shown here (you can add
shortcuts to
applications and games on the Today screen as well) plus many other
options
including full screen Internet Explorer, repeating alarms and the list
goes on
and on. It's almost as if Microsoft left out many needed features for
Spb to
fill the gap and make some money:) Priced at $14.95.
WeatherPanel (http://www.marsware.net/WeatherPanel/features.htm)
is a detailed Weather manager priced at $11.95 which can be customised
using
third party icon sets incuding a brilliant animated set which is used
here (to
see the animation you will need the software and a Pocket PC:)) PocketWeather
(http://www.sbsh.net/products/pocketweather/)
is a
cheaper alternative at $7.95 which actually holds much more information
for the
serious weather watcher. I'm such a child I just had to have the
animated icons
so currently use WP but PocketWeather is technically the better
application. 
PocketBreeze (http://www.sbsh.net/products/pocketbreeze/)
is close
to perfect for my needs and a steal at $12.95. The number of settings
available
are unbelievable and you really can customise every single last bit of
it. If
you hae a busy job and need access to your schedule at all times but do
no want
to dominate your today screen this is the one for you. Exampls of it's
flexibility areshown in the image- I have chosen how many pixels high
PocketBreeze should be yet I still have a view of the next 30 days
appointments
by simply scrolling the right hand bar. If you click a note icon it
pops up in
it's own window meaning you never leave the Today screen. You can also
amend
and delete appointments directly through the application. If you wish
you can
also dispense with the email section on Today and have them shown in
PocketBreeze- a wonderful piece of programming.
The tiny icon shown in the image on the left is your way
into ContactBreeze (http://www.sbsh.net/products/contactbreeze/)
priced
at $5.95. Click teh icon and you are presented with your contacts list
in the
PocketBreeze section. There's two good search methods and clicking a
contact
will take you to their full contact details. One of the annoyances
since moving
from Palm has been the speed of finding contacts- for under $6 that
annoyance
is now gone...
The only difficulty left is finding a way to make of these
applications look good together and fortunatley we have a very talented
person
named Juni who can help out there. The Black & White Skin Suite
(http://www.kolumbus.fi/anders.ruohio/black&white.html)
includes themes for Wisbar Advance 2, PocketBreeze, ContactBreeze, Spb
Pocket
Plus 2, WeatherPanel and WindowsMobleToday (including landscape
support). This
work of art costs only 4 Euros through PayPal or $5 through Handango.
When I
saw this suite the idea came to me to set up this interface for my
Pocket PC. You may scoff at the cost of over $60 to create the above but you are getting a LOT of functionality for this and a great looking interface as well. Three of these applications are MUST HAVES in my books and the others are just GREAT TO HAVE!
Competition
SBSH Mobile Software
have offered 2 copies
of PocketBreeze and 2 of Pocket Weather for a PDA247 competition which
is jolly
nice of them. If you want to be in with a chance just send in a
screenshot of
your main PDA interface (can be Palm, Pocket PC or SmartPhone) and the
best
ones judged by myself, Mike and Neil (may include Gavin:)) which take
home a
copy.All entries to webmaster@247corp.com by 1pm on 19th December (UK time). Please state which product you would prefer as a prize.
(Pocket PC screenshots: use MagicSS (http://www.louterrailloune.com/index.php?page=magicss) and for Palm OS screenshots: use ScreenShot (http://linkesoft.com/)
Palm Gaming - the Key problemby Maya (27/11/2004)
No more Palm Gaming for me, it seems. Or more exactly no more palm games which require any accurate use of multiple keys. Read on to find why…
I am not exactly sure which one was the last straw, as I have been struggling with this problem for quite a while, but it certainly was one of those fast paced arcade-style games that had become so popular with the introduction of the newer Hi-Res+ fast CPU Palm machines, that made me give up at last on this whole genre of games. And not that I do not like arcade style electronic games. On the contrary, I am a big fan and a real addict of such games, from those long forgotten days of the black & white mini LCDs of the kind of Game & Watch, and up until those days, when I find myself carrying around with me a GameBoy Advanced console most of the time.
So apparently, I should have been really happy for the opportunity to fill up the large RAM on my shining new PalmOne Tungsten T3 (and its expansion card) with arcade games, thus having them with me anytime anywhere, while saving me the effort of carrying around an additional machine just for gaming. Yet I am afraid to say, that the sad truth is that this is not really such a great idea. Or more exactly - as far as I am concerned, I don't think it is worth my efforts.
You see - there is one crucial element to any game, and especially of the arcade-type which seems terribly lacking in almost all of the PalmOne machines I am aware of: a reasonable user-interface and controls. The Stylus might be a great and convenient way to make quick selections on a touch-screen, or quickly jot some text (though this might be arguable too), but when it comes to controlling a 2D platform game of the run & jump type, or any decent shooter, what you really need is a good set of keys, preferably a joystick or a decent keypad. And none such exists, in my opinion on your average PalmOne device (save for the TapWave Zodiac, that is).
True, the latest versions from PalmOne have an arrow-keypad of sorts, namely the 5-way navigator. But this is hardly appropriate for any heavy playing as I was soon to find out while trying few of the best game titles of late. Picture this - I am in some delicate position in an advance level of a game, only left with one "life" to spare before that horrible "game over" message appears on screen. Everything now depends on me doing some complicated accurate forward jump & up or something similar. Yet as I press the keys in what should have been the right sequence, I find out to my amazement that my player moved in the wrong direction, missing its target completely. For some annoying reason, the keys were once again interpreted wrongly (if at all). And what about using both hands for control, as seems so natural to most arcade-type games around? I don't have no large thumbs or anything (well, maybe a little long fingernails…), but trying this out on my T3 is simply frustrating, to say nothing of attempting this maneuver with the Palm's leather case on.
And I have not even started discussing the problem with those numerous key-tied applications I guess most of us have. I for example have Zlauncher's QuickLaunch activated by a press on Button 3 (ToDo), ScreenShot5 take picture of the screen whenever I press and hold Button 4 (NotePad) SnapCalc invoked by a long press on the Left 5-way-navigator, and various other applications automatically kick in when I use some other combination of keys. Now this might be really convenient for my regular daily uses of the Palm, and pose no problem with stylus-controlled games like Bejeweled or Fish Tycoon, but you should be able to imagine what happens when I am trying to play some 2D platform jump & shoot. And some of those games save themselves the trouble of letting you choose your preferable controls, which means you have to go through all those other applications you have and either re-program their activation method, or turn them off altogether. Not that directing your character with a Stylus in those games this is possible, is of any real help, as unlike tapping which is quite accurate (if we put aside for a moment the various digitizer problems some Palm machines suffer from), moving things around might be a little bit trickier.
Besides, for some unknown reason it seems that many of the keys on the newer Palm devices suffer from serious hardware problems. Not uncommon is the complaint about the power button or Voice-memo key stopping to function, and other keys also seem prone to some serious functionality problem.
The bottom line is that time and again I find myself losing points or failing some game maneuver due to the inaccurate behavior of the keys. And even when they do work alright there is no comparing the comfort and ease of use of those metal things with the softness and responsiveness you get in any decent playing console. So, for me at least, no more Palm arcades please. At least not until PalmOne gives us a decent keypad also in their non-game-dedicated models.
Grow Up - A rant by Mike Featherstone (22/11/2004)
Since the Tungsten T5 was released earlier this year, the reaction of the vocal portion of the Palm user community has basically taken the form of a slanging match. The T5 is either 'Great' or 'Rubbish' (I paraphrase) it's either the saviour of palmOne, or it's an indication that it's time to call the priest out for the last rites. I have yet to hear a moderate but knowledgeable voice on the forums.
It seems to me that the user base has polarised into three distinct camps:
a) Those who consider themselves 'power users' and claim that their 'T3 is best' and 'how dare the T5 not be better and have function X or function Y'.
These people despise all T5 owners.
b) Those who have bought T5's and go to ridiculous lengths to champion them above all other devices. They point out the oddest bits of functionality as major advances. (How does 'You don't need a battery LED - simply turn on the device and a lightning symbol will be displayed over the battery symbol on the launcher to tell you it's charging' sound?).
These people cannot understand anyone who doesn't have a T5.
c) Those who may have T3's or T5's or anything else but don't believe they have a God given right to dictate their PDA mantra to the rest of the community.
These people are the majority and (hopefully) don't understand why this whole debate has to get so heated.
It has to be said (in my opinion anyway) that group a) come across as arrogant and self obsessed individuals who cannot conceive that perhaps they are not the target audience for all of the devices that palmOne produce, while group b) do themselves more harm than good by being somewhat patronising (see quote above) and over-zealous so that they come across more as apologists for the device than advocates of it.
I would put myself in group c except for the fact that what I am about to say doesn't fit with the description I've given for them and would do that group a vast disservice….so put me in group d) Those who are fed-up with the shouting and feel like doing some shouting of their own.
Those of us in group d) haven't got time for either camp. Both the T3 and the T5 are useful PDAs in their own right, each having a different mix of features and functionality. If one suits you more than the other, I'm happy for you and pleased that you have found a device that so exactly matches your requirements. If you think that palmOne should have released a more capable device this year, I commiserate with you and agree that it's a shame that a whizzier box wasn't forthcoming. Just bear one thing in mind as you nurse your feelings on either of these topics:
THESE FEELINGS ARE YOURS - THAT DOESN'T MEAN EVERYONE ELSE WANTS TO KNOW ABOUT THEM, NOR ARE THEY STUPID FOR NOT SHARING THEM WITH YOU.
Some of the debates that have been going on places such as Brighthand recently (the forums, not the reviews!) are nothing short of childish and are quite pathetic in the lengths that each side is prepared to go to in order to justify their particular choice to the rest of the world. The saddest part of all, though, is that they don't realise that the rest of the world doesn't actually care and doesn't want to read about those who do in such detail!
If you have an objective comment on a particular feature of a specific device, positive or negative, then feel free to post in on one of the many forums that are scattered about - you could even use ours. Only through an informed debate will a general consensus be formed or information and usage tips disseminate throughout the user community.
If you just want to have a go at anyone who thinks differently from you, or put out a protracted sales pitch offering no new information or even just state your opinion as fact, however, then please do the following:
1. Shut up,
2. Grow up, and
3. Let the rest of us get on with our lives without having to read a load of drivel.
I know that I've giving in to the drivel process by writing this article and I know that makes me (almost) as bad as those I'm complaining about. I look forward to reading my email over the next few days! One of my character flaws, however, is the naïve belief that if I talk to people and explain the error of their ways, they will change for the good and society as a whole will benefit. I know it's not true, but the belief still persists in my heart and is very hard to shake. This, then, is my naïve attempt to talk some sense into the 'shouters' in the hope of getting an informed debate going on the subject of the T5 and so avoid all the emotion and abuse that I've been reading over the last weeks while looking for small nuggets of useful information.
Palm v WindowsMobile v Symbian (bye bye Palm...) by Shaun McGill (14/11/2004)
I have been a Palm user for a good few years now and have progressed through quite a few machines including the Vx, m500, Visor Prism, Tungsten T, Tungsten T3, Sony Clie N770CU, T615, NR70, NX70 and 80, UX50, Treo 600 and finally the TH55. As you can see there was a stage in my life where I just 'had' to have the latest machine- the same applied to my first PDAs from the Psion range: series 3, 3a, 3c, 5, 5mx, Revo, Revo+, 7, Sienna and in between all of this I have dabbled with the odd Pocket PC: the very first HP machine, a couple of Cassiopeia's, various iPAQs, two larger Windows CE machines and most recently the iPAQ 4150 (which I have been borrowing from someone at work for the past week- they upgraded to an iPAQ 4700 and will be eBaying this one at some stage). I even tried a Sharp Zaurus a year or so back and must admit that it did not really do it for me but to be fair I didn't give it much of a chance. Anyway, Clove (www.clove.co.uk) lent me a P910i last week to review and test as I was considering a converged device and thus I have found myself with 3 PDAs on my desk which use three different operating systems and now seems the right time to do a comparison and decide where I go next for my mobile computing. I am determined to not get the latest machine every time they are released any more- well that's what I promised my wife:) But enough about my sad little life and onto the PDAs themselves...
Clie TH55
I have been using the TH55 for a few months
and must start by saying
that it is a quality piece of kit. I upgraded from a Tungsten T3 which
whilst
nice was not up to scratch on the multimedia side (always difficult to
compete
against a Clie for audio and video:)) The dimensions of the TH are
superb- it's
easy to hold and feels very natural in the hand. The screen is one of
the best
I have ever seen and even though it has a fairly slow processor the
design is
such that video plays smoothly all of the time (Clie Image Converter
does a
great job of compressing video files by the way) and the audio quality
is
typical Sony- whether it's an MP3 or a video soundtrack the quality is
close to
an iPOD sound.There are some drawbacks such as the buttons which can hinder game compatibility and if you are someone who uses PDA hard buttons (I don't) for application launching these can be a real pain. The other obvious drawback is Sony- they have withdrawn from the market and are quickly removing support for developers so don't expect many Clie enhanced applications in the future.
WiFi is one major bonus with the Clie BUT there are problems. Net Front is terrible in my opinion- even logging in to my BT Openzone account causes a crash and I found myself able to use it 1 in 3 times which is just not good. This happened even on a newly hard reset machine as well...
The operating system is not really worth talking about as you all know it inside out and if you visit Palm247 it's because it's stable, efficient, almost a standard now and... plain boring! I never thought I would say that about the Palm OS but you can read on to find out why...
iPAQ 4150
PDA Essentials voted the iPAQ 4150 their PDA
of the
year and so I thought I would give one a try when my friend at work
upgraded to
a 4700. It follows a very similar design to the iPAQ 1900 series and is
a tiny
tiny bit bigger which is not really noticeable. It's incredible that in
this
tiny PDA HP have fitted WiFi, Bluetooth, 64MB RAM and a 400 Mhz
processor as
well as infra-red, earphone socket, a lovely screen and useable buttons.Having tried many Pocket PCs before including an iPAQ 1940 a few weeks ago I was sceptical and did not expect much. Gavin and Neil who have been very much a part of PDA247 both recently converted to WindowsMobile so I knew that I had missed something and decided to give it a fair hearing this time. The TH55 was locked in a drawer and I attempted to use only the iPAQ for my mobile computing and it has been a very enjoyable experience.
Firstly, the WiFi works flawlessly with the inbuilt Internet Explorer and Email application and has not failed me once. Bluetooth connectivity was a snap to set up and for a man who is somewhat addicted to the Clie Organizer and Agendus I found the bundled Calendar and Contacts applications more than effective for my daily needs. There are many add-ons available for free or around $5 which solve all of the well known issues with WindowsMobile such as closing applications and new windows in Internet Explorer. I needed a WindowsMobile PDA to help with WindowsMobile247 but I never expected it to be this good.
One huge advantage a Pocket PC has over a Palm device is games- the range available is impressive to say the least and because of the ease with which they can be programmed you can sit back and enjoy Age of Empires, Sim City, Tomb Rader and Links and get a similar experience to their PC counterparts. There are obviously some great games for Palm OS but they are few and far between and on the whole the Pocket PC titles are streets ahead of their Palm counterparts.
Stability is the main reason many people use a Palm device but in the past two weeks the iPAQ has only crashed once (due to a dodgy application which is well know to cause issues). It has been rock solid and echoes the experiences of Gavin and Neil who have also had no problems with a Loox and iPAQ 4700. It's a very quick machine and despite the odd lag due to my over installing I have found it to be much more enjoyable to use than the TH55 or any previous Palm device.
Battery life is not as good as the TH55 (nothing is!) but the ability to slot in a new battery or a very impressive extended unit is a must have. The first part to go on most PDAs is the battery and to know that you can just swap them around gives a lot of piece of mind. The design of the 4150 is just wonderful- it's grey plastic at the back which whilst dull makes it fade into the background in meetings but a nice matt silver at the front with shiny buttons for that touch of class arrogant people like me need:)
The screen is not as good as the TH55 in bright sunlight but is still readable and more than up to the job. As I searched for replacement programs that could emulate my Palm usage on a Pocket PC I was surprised to find that everything was covered. The majority of programs are developed for both platforms anyway such as eReader, iSilo and MetrO but with a bit of effort you can find almost every Palm program covered- the only ones I have failed to find a good match for are DayNotez and Bonsai. To save yourself some time whether you are moving to Palm or PPC check out Gavin's handy guide (http://www.clieuk.co.uk/vs.htm) which certainly helped me when I first started.
So, what's wrong with the iPAQ? Um... nothing.
Sony Ericsson P910i
Clove kindly lent me a Sony Ericsson P910i for
review and I will
cover this separately at the end of the week but it's safe to say from
first
impressions it will not be replacing my PDA usage. It's a great phone
and a
more than capable PDA but suffers slightly in speed and feels a lot
slower than
the iPAQ or TH55. Having said that it is by far the best SmartPhone I
have used
to date.Conclusion (where next?)
Well, I never thought this would happen but the Pocket PC wins it by a mile. The TH55 is on eBay and doing well (!) and I am confident that I have used my last Palm device for a while. We still have a Tungsten E in the house for reviews and the running of Palm 247 so that part of the site will not suffer at all.
I know the Palm community inside out and can run that side with little effort and in a way this change makes sense as I need to learn a lot more about WindowsMobile to get that side up and running properly.
It's an odd feeling after so many years using Palms and calling Pocket PC's THE DARK SIDE but there's little doubt in my mind that they have progressed whilst the Palm side has stood still and are currently too far ahead to ignore. There's no dark side for me anymore- just two great mobile operating systems with one being much greater than the other...