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Palm or Pocket PC ?

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SirFiddler
Board Legend

Joined: Mar 30, 2004
Posts: 11445
Location: Very close to a bottle of chilled Boags

Posted: Dec 21, 2004 - 11:57 AM
Post subject: Palm or Pocket PC ?

I was thinking about buying a palm from Tungsten the other day until I saw a flash HP pocket PC... Needless to say that I did not bother to ask the sales person to explain the differences, my chinese is a bit rusty these days ...
Anybody of you willing to fill me in on the secrets , differences ? What are plusses and minuses ? How does it work with checking your email, accessing the internet ? Both can do ? On a wap basis or do you have to register a la wireless and shiznit ?

Cheers

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Edgewood
FooSlinger

Joined: Jan 28, 2004
Posts: 3906
Location: Colonial Shanghai

Posted: Dec 21, 2004 - 01:50 PM

Personally, I'm a big fan of Palm, having used it for many years in many guises, but PocketPC 2003 is the O/S I'm using now (on my Asus MyPal 716).

PPC2003 is a good O/S, although it has some minor problems. However, it is very flexible, very fast, very small, and when enough decent software becomes freely available for it, I think it'll be better than Palm.

I can personally recommend the MyPal 716 - CF and SD cards, WiFi and Bluetooth, 19 hours battery (19 according to Asus, I get 15-16), Fast IR, the works. Not expensive either. But don't buy it locally - go to HK for better quality and better price.

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Andreas
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Joined: Feb 27, 2004
Posts: 6422
Location: 31 N 121 E

Posted: Dec 21, 2004 - 01:59 PM

I concur regarding the PPC2003. I am using it myself on my XDA2, and it is generally very stable and compatible with a lot of standard applications.

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Edgewood
FooSlinger

Joined: Jan 28, 2004
Posts: 3906
Location: Colonial Shanghai

Posted: Dec 21, 2004 - 02:20 PM

But goddam I hate that I have to use Outlook. I am all set to stop using any Microsoft application - but thanks to PPC2003 I am forced to use **** I N G Outlook!

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Andreas
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Joined: Feb 27, 2004
Posts: 6422
Location: 31 N 121 E

Posted: Dec 21, 2004 - 02:43 PM

It is strange in a way. Outlook Express is good, and I never had any issues with it. Now that I had to change to Outlook I have nothing but trouble. Being both MS products you would expect them not to be that different.

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Edgewood
FooSlinger

Joined: Jan 28, 2004
Posts: 3906
Location: Colonial Shanghai

Posted: Dec 21, 2004 - 06:09 PM

Outlook Express is pretty good, particularly since you can synch with Hotmail using it. But now that Hotmail are starting to force you to pay for the Premium service in order to be able to synch with OE, the only advantage OE enjoys over Mozilla Thunderbird is gone.

Outlook, on the other hand, is garbage. Nothing but problems. It tries to do everything for everyone whilst looking good, and fails miserably. Add to that the fact that it's the number one hackers target on earth...

The PPC2003 extension works fine, though.

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planetkarl.com

Barker

Joined: Oct 05, 2004
Posts: 194
Location: Planet Karl
Status: Offline

Posted: Dec 21, 2004 - 06:20 PM

Is there any way to get those cheaper better pocket PCs from Hong Kong without actually goign to Hong Kong?

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Edgewood
FooSlinger

Joined: Jan 28, 2004
Posts: 3906
Location: Colonial Shanghai

Posted: Dec 21, 2004 - 07:30 PM

Lots of people here are going to HK all the time. Ask around, someone will help out - that's what I did.

The place mine came from is:
Master (OA) Computer Ltd
www.masteroa.com

I paid HKD$3344, and got the PDA (English Version), spare battery, all the cables and software etc, stylus, screen protector, case, everything.

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Henry_Chinaski
Board Lord

Joined: Aug 16, 2003
Posts: 5025

Posted: Dec 22, 2004 - 12:40 AM

Fiddler, it depends on which email system your company is using. If you use Outlook, PPC2003 is a must. It synchronizes VERY smoothly with Outlook. It is starting to have tons of applications for the PPC2003, which was the only edge palm had over ppc.

You can easily edit powerpoint presentations in the ppc for example. For ebooks reading the display capabilities of Microsoft Reading are REALLY good. As mentioned by edgy the operational system is pretty compact and smooth. Writing recognition, another chronical weak spot of ppc is now much improved. It DOES work good and if you are used to Palm letters you can use the same system in PPC. It displays and recognizes chinese characters easily if you have the appropriate software (I recommend Monster Chinese): a pretty handy pocket dictionary when you travel and need to keep a lot of notes and addresses in chinese handy. This saved my life many times already, specially when intoxicated and without any coordination brain-vocal chords.
Planet karl, best way of getting something from HKG is to ask somebody to buy it for you, but do it in the Computer Mall in Mongkok MTR station (i dont know if the store recommended above is in mongkok, if not, you should try to buy it in mongkok). You can get a ton of software there as well (bought a CD with 500 megs of palm and ppc software there). I bought my PPC in HKG and had to service it in Mainland with no problems whatsoever, HP is pretty smooth in this sense, which I doubt asus would be (although they are EXCELLENT as a notebook manufacturer). It's a matter of risk x price.
Basically speaking HP PPCs will count on HP's reputation and as such they will, even if purchased in hong kong, service the handheld here IF necessary (the factory is in Suzhou I guess).

PPC bridged the gap with palm and for corporate users there are hardly any advantage in using Palm anymore if you use outlook. It's a pitty but palm looks like in a tough spot for corporate users.

Hope useful.

Ah, another thing, for an excellent site (and forum) for PDAs try www.mypdacafe.com.

SirFiddler
Board Legend

Joined: Mar 30, 2004
Posts: 11445
Location: Very close to a bottle of chilled Boags

Posted: Dec 22, 2004 - 01:10 AM

cheers for the links guys and the info... helps a lot

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vince_fr

Newbie

Joined: Dec 22, 2004
Posts: 3
Location: Jiading district
Status: Offline

Posted: Dec 22, 2004 - 11:07 AM

Sorry guys, but as a Palm user and fan, I would highly recommend to go for the Palm Tungsten T3, with great autonomy, High resolution screen, lanscape mode and all compatibilities available with PC softwares. Also so many useful freeware around. Also Palm OS is much more ergonomic than PPC. Have a look at this site http://www.tankerbob.com/palm/.
All office docs are no problem including PPT presentation.

PhatAV8r

Raver

Joined: May 31, 2003
Posts: 384
Location: Qingpu District, SHANGHAI
Status: Offline

Posted: Dec 29, 2004 - 04:47 PM

okay, I have to chime in on this. First, I have used Palm, and now have a Sony_Ericcson P800. I will not buy a PCC2003 device to replace the phone. The SE P800 uses symbian system software which is okay, but the phone doesn't have the internal capacity to store many programs (which can only be stored ON the phone, not the memory card).

As far as a Palm versus PCC2003 comparison. The Pocket PC crowd has been saying for literally YEARS now that if the software availability catches up, it will be better than Palm. Well, after all this time, THAT HASN"T HAPPENED.

And there is a lot of software out there for the Palm, and it continues to grow. People find things to use their Palms for every day. The key is that PPC is still trying to be a mini laptop without the muscle to do so. Palm is just a Palm, you can store info, access the web, and do limited computing (like review a spreadsheet or change a few numbers on a plan instead of breaking out your laptop). But it is a PALM and not a laptop, and Palm isn't making excuses about software support.

Get a Palm OS device, pick it based on what you want it to do. If you want a laptop, they sell small ones that operate on XP, and you will be much happier.

lucky

LoopKicker

Joined: Feb 26, 2003
Posts: 844
Location: Sydney, NSW, Australia
Status: Offline

Posted: Jan 02, 2005 - 06:12 PM

FYI, PalmOne bought China Mobilesoft early December 2004 and there was speculation that Palm would change the strategy on its OS. I'd hold myself buying a Palm product until the move is clear. The new T series (T5) is a disgrace, although the Treo650 is excellent.