>
>I recently acquired an iPAQ Pocket PC 3835, mostly due to gadget envy. I'm
>like that. Anyway, here are some thoughts.
Me too. I picked up an HP Jornada 548 for $299 recently. No way I'd pay
the $$$ they want for most PocketPC's, but I could justify the $299 to
play with, or just to use it as a book reader. Lots of people are
advertising the units for this price, but most don't seem to actually
HAVE it. I had to try quite a bit to find one.
This is a PocketPC 2000 OS unit, not 2002. It's not upgradable, since
with the 2002 OS, MS decided to screw all the existing customers except
the iPaq owners and REQUIRE that all WinCE units use the StrongARM
processor. The Jornadas don't use that processor. They use the SH3
processor. Several other processors also used to be supported by WinCE
before 2002. No longer.
Nice way you treat your customers, Microsoft. (Not that I'm really
surprised, mind you.)
To give HP a nice backpat, it's a really well made, solid little unit.
Feels a lot sturdier than either of my PalmOS units. I'd give 'em
demerits on two points; it only has a Type I CF slot, not a type II (no
1GB microdrives for me) and the rechargeable battery is not removable.
Battery life is OK, I get a day or two's use out of it, which is my
definition of acceptable: my normal use doesn't require me to worry about
the battery running low if I charge it every night.
>The 3800 series has a -really- nice screen. Crisp, bright, 16-bit color,
>TFT, side lit (like notebooks) with fully adjustable brightness. It looks
>really pretty. The screen is probably its best feature. And it has
>nothing to do with the OS :).
The screen on my Jornada is pretty nice, although not as nice as the
iPaqs (only 12-bit color) and more importantly, despite being color, it's
usable outside.
>ActiveSync works more or less seamlessly between the Windows desktop and
>the Pocket PC... when it works at all. The listener has a habit of wedging
>Windows 98 SE and there is no official way not to have it start at boot
>other than to uninstall ActiveSync (unoffically, there is a little hack
>called "Kill Active Sync" which does it).
I haven't had a problem with it under Windows 2002 Pro. But then again,
Win200 Pro is fairly stable (for Windows, anyway. I only have to reboot
every week or two...)
Naturally, it works VERY slickly with Outlook, Office and the Windows OS.
I've always found it humourous, though, that Microsoft Office for the
Mac's supports synching with PalmOS unit, NOT with their own
WinCE/PocketPC units. Goofy of them, no?
>Pocket PC is entirly Windows-centric. No Macintosh, no anything else. But
>there are tricks to work around that if some kind of network connection is
>available. It can browse Samba... er... CIFS shares without issue, and
>WinCE cab files can be installed directly.
While mostly true that it's Windows centric, ther is a company marketing
a Mac equivalent of Active Sync called PocketMac (www.pocketmac.net, I
believe). Also has a tool to extract the CAB files from .exe installers
available. Doesn't support all PocketPC's yet (including mine) although
they are working on it.
You can also use CF cards to transfer and install data and even a bit of
beaming from Palm.
Of course, as I recall the iPaqs don't have any card slots by default; an
add on is required to use cards. I don't think any other PocketPC's have
that issue (it's not necessarily a flaw or limitation, in a way it's more
flexible. But flaw or good design is relative here, I guess.)
>I've long said that portable MP3 players suck, especially when they're
>really pocket diaries masqerading as audio gear. This one proves it for
>two reasons: no play/pause/stop buttons, and no volume control. Everything
>is on-screen, which is fine if you want to walk around holding it in one
>hand and a stylus in the other. Not for me; I'll stick with my MiniDiscs.
Agreed. I'll stick to my iPod. Not to mention Windows Media Player is
rather poorly done; the other Pocket Apps (like Excel and Word and
Reader) seem to be able to find and list all the documents they can open
even if they are on a memory card. Not Windows Media player. I guess
they expected you to load your MP3 files into the half of the 32MB RAM
that's allocated to data storage instead of programs. D'oh!
>And now, into the UI. It looks like Microsoft went through hoops to
>maintain the Windows desktop look and feel, which means the screen is
>always very busy, and there is little or no consistency between third-party
>applications. I tried three different database programs (for some reason,
>Microsoft no longer ships a Pocket Access app but they include the
>libraries so third parties can write their own), and they had nothing in
>common with each other. One looks like XL, one looks like a paint program,
>and the third barfed on a 700KB database.
Hey, it IS windows. Then again, you can do bad user interface with any
OS. I've seen my share of poor Newton and Mac programs too. But those
are usually self-correcting by the "customers". This doesn't seem to
happen to Windows apps for some reason. Pity.
Yes, after FOUR tries at the UI, they STILL don't get it. As usual,
Microsoft tries to rip off other folks work....and does so badly. Except
in the marketing area.
>Calligrapher is now part of the OS. Err... well, it -ships- in ROM. It
>still isn't really part of the OS, and the implementation is rather clunky.
>And the screen is physically too small to write on, IMO. Perhaps my
>opinion will change if I give it the chance to adapt. Still, it lacks the
>simplicity of Newton's HWR.
Too true. I installed it (Transcriber, actually) and it can actually do
some limited HWR without installing that (you have to TELL it to
recognize though) but the PocketPC UI just was NOT designed with natural
HWR in mind, so even though the HWR itself has a lot of similarities to
the Newton cursive recognizer, it just doesn't feel right. I actually
prefer using the Graffiti-ish recognizers.
>Last points: speed issues. Yes, the 3800 has a 206 MHz StrongArm 1100 CPU.
>That CPU is loading apps and saving files on an MS-DOS FAT filesystem. Not
>the SA1100's fault that WinCE is slow.
It's also a plus from one viewpoint: One of the other methods to get
stuff onto the unit is a CF card, which has a Windows/DOS file system.
Very handy.
I'm using the older Hitachi (I think) SH3 processor. No real speed
complaints, compared to the Newton, really. Maybe I'm just more tolerant
of speed issues. I'm not even using USB synching; HP provides a USB
cradle AND a serial docking cable. I use the serial cradle on my PC at
work and leave the USB cradle at home for charging at night.
- Bill
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