Slashdot Log In
Pocket PC vs. Palm Showdown
Posted by
timothy
on Sun Jul 10, 2005 12:40 PM
from the but-but-but-zaurus dept.
from the but-but-but-zaurus dept.
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."
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Full
Abbreviated
Hidden
Loading... please wait.
Alternate conclusion (Score:4, Insightful)
I prefer my organisers to be good at organising, which is why mine runs PalmOS.
Re:Alternate conclusion (Score:4, Insightful)
I would consider the PSP to be a game machine that happens to do multimedia. In my opinion, the UMD drive is useless for personal multimedia as there is no way to make our own discs making the drive dead weight for multimedia other than officially licenced and too-expensive movie discs. The MS Duo cards are needlessly expensive too.
Parent
Re:Alternate conclusion (Score:5, Informative)
And the fact that I can write programs for it without having to learn another programming language is a very nice bonus.
So, if you are insuating that the Pocket PC is NOT useful for organizing, you are misinformed.
Parent
Re:Alternate conclusion (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Parent
Switch? (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Parent
Security? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Security? (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Re:Security? (Score:3, Insightful)
Meh? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Meh? (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Parent
Re:Meh? (Score:3)
Truly spoken like someone who never rides the bus. Firstly, when you need one, it's always crowded, since you usually need it to go to/from work at peak hours, and secondly, even if you happen to ride a bus with no passenger facing you, it's next to impossible to work because it's sHaCkY, the bus always stops and goes all the time, and besid
I've used palm and I've been very happy... (Score:5, Informative)
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 [corecodec.org], 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.
Re:I've used palm and I've been very happy... (Score:5, Informative)
I can predictably crash the treo 600 any time I like, the 650s crash and lockup and go offline just about as much as the 600s but they look a lilttlel better doing it.
I am on my 5th treo in less than a year. Our Ceo is on number 14. We were RMA-ing about 2 per week for some time, we have had AT&T (Now Cingular) in our offices on at least four occasions to complain about the number of failures we have had on these devices.
Our Singapore office uses blackberry instead of treo, and while they dont crash as much they still have their issues.
Any company who builds a device as heavy as the treo with features and what not, while not including wi-fi is lshort-sighted at best, despicable at worst. I am sure that the cellular companies are the ones preventing wi--fi from being a feature on the treos, but lthis whole topic just makes me boil. We spend over 30K per month on cell charges, and a great deal of time is spent on fixing/replacing problems with these horrid devices.
Parent
A Feeling of Deja vu (Score:3, Funny)
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.
Missing option (Score:5, Informative)
Even better, if you already own an iPaq, install Familiar [handhelds.org] and enjoy the stability and openness of Linux just like on the Zaurus.
Serious Nerds (Score:5, Funny)
In fact, they need a Linux device as well.
PalmOS is what a palm os is supposed to be (Score:5, Interesting)
What about Linux? (Score:3, Interesting)
Ah, Well (Score:3, Interesting)
Pretty good organizer/phone with the added benefit of not getting into religious bullshit.
All I want is Web (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Poorly researched (Score:5, Informative)
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.
palm stuff not quite accurate (Score:5, Informative)
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 [lubak.net] provides a bunch of beautiful bitmapped fonts (but not antialiased), while (to give a plug for my own commercial stuff) my own FontSmoother [zlthemes.com] 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.
Showdown? (Score:5, Insightful)
Outdated and Biased review (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Palm LifeDrive (Score:4, Informative)
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