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Handhelds Operating Systems Software Hardware

PocketPC 2003 Reviewed 167

Posted by timothy from the posted-from-a-zaurus dept.
Sander Sassen writes "Prior to the official launch of the Microsoft PocketPC 2003 platform next Monday, Hardware Analysis puts an Asus MyPal a620 PocketPC to the test and details what new features PocketPC 2003 brings to the table and whether it is worth it to upgrade from 2002."
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PocketPC 2003 Reviewed More

PocketPC 2003 Reviewed

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  • Ipod Harddrive (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Sh0t ( 607838 )
    Why don't they make a pocket pc with the Ipod harddrive inside?

  • haha (Score:5, Funny)

    by Poofat ( 675020 ) on Saturday June 21, 2003 @10:43PM (#6264881)
    From the top of the page:

    Please register or login. There are 6 registered and 589 anonymous users currently online. Current bandwidth usage: 1672.32 kbit/s

    Good 'ol slashdot.

    • Re:haha (Score:1, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Neat! The Slashdot effect in near realtime.

      Please register or login. There are 8 registered and 756 anonymous users currently online. Current bandwidth usage: 2596.05 kbit/s

    • Re:haha (Score:2, Funny)

      by DarkAurora ( 324657 )
      I see your:

      There are 6 registered and 589 anonymous users currently online. Current bandwidth usage: 1672.32 kbit/s

      And raise you a:

      There are 10 registered and 1169 anonymous users currently online. Current bandwidth usage: 2293.60 kbit/s
      • Can you beat my

        Please register or login. There are 11 registered and 1423 anonymous users currently online. Current bandwidth usage: 2692.13 kbit/s
        • Yes There are 9 registered and 1957 anonymous users currently online. Current bandwidth usage: 2566.65 kbit/s
      • Bwaha! In a short moment:
        There are 0 registered and 0 anonymous users currently online. Current bandwidth usage: 9501.01 kbit/s

        argh...
      • I'll call.

        I've got
        There are 7 registered and 2361 anonymous users currently online. Current bandwidth usage: 2890.11 kbit/s
    • Please register or login. There are 11 registered and 1382 anonymous users currently online. Current bandwidth usage: 2983.19 kbit/s

      What fun! man wget.
      • Please register or login. There are 10 registered and 2511 anonymous users currently online. Current bandwidth usage: 2851.48 kbit/s

  • Is that a PocketPC in your pants (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 21, 2003 @10:44PM (#6264883)
    Or are you just glad to see me? Oh wait, it's Slashdot, must be a PocketPC.

  • Very cool. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 21, 2003 @10:44PM (#6264885)
    I heard it's going to be the first handheld capable of playing DVDs too. I don't know if 400MHz is enough to do SVCD decoding, but I wouldn't be surprised if somebody comes up with a package for that too.

    I just wish somebody would add wireless networking to the things already like they did with the tablet PCs. Those are sweet.

    • Re:Very cool. (Score:5, Informative)

      by Doom Ihl' Varia ( 315338 ) on Saturday June 21, 2003 @11:11PM (#6264995)
      If it can do DVD decoding, it can do SVCD. They are both MPEG-2. SVCD is lower quality though so it is even EASIER to decode. Plus, you don't have to deal with decryption of the DVD data.
    • Wow DVD playing.

      Perfect for a nice slim pda????

      Is it just me or is Microsoft puting in feature-ware or marketingware to fud off palm?

    • Re:Very cool. (Score:3, Interesting)

      by SEGV ( 1677 )
      You can already rip DVDs to a 250MB DivX that will fit on a 256MB flash card and play fine on a Pocket PC 2002 device. I like to watch Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon when I am bored.
    • I just wish somebody would add wireless networking to the things

      The Toshiba e740/750 come with built in 802.11b (or Bluetooth in Europe). And wifi CF cards are available for most other pocketpc devices.

  • Small and Big (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Ken@WearableTech ( 107340 ) * <ken@kenwillia m s j r . com> on Saturday June 21, 2003 @10:46PM (#6264895) Homepage Journal
    The changes for the end user are going to be rather small. The changes for the developers who are going to move to .NET tools for PocketPC programming rather than the hacked versions of VS6 we are using now is going to be a larger change.

  • Is PocketPC 2k3 Xscale optimized? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by SClitheroe ( 132403 ) on Saturday June 21, 2003 @10:47PM (#6264901) Homepage
    Is PocketPC 2k3 Xscale optimized?

    That's really the million dollar question. PocketPC 2002 is not, and it's a real shame, because it hurts the performance of those 400mhz Xscale CPU's pretty badly.

    • Yes, but... (Score:5, Informative)

      by cloudless.net ( 629916 ) on Saturday June 21, 2003 @11:00PM (#6264950) Homepage
      Yes it is, but no benchmark has been published yet so I have no idea how good the optimization is. Developers must rewrite their applications for Pocket PC 2003 in order to take advantage of the optimizations. The review kinda sucks because it tells us nothing about the performance.
      • WEll it did say some things, in fact in the last page of the article the author discusses how there is no benchmark available.

        I have an old Casio E125, which has a 150mhz MIPS processor and 32 megs of ram. Video does play, but it is always pretty choppy and never more than 1-3 frames per second which can get annoying but you get used to it. THe author explicitly states the new Xscale optimized unit can play video perfectly... Which is a great bonus.

        PocketPC 2003 includes a new version of Internet Explor
    • No I think the million dollar question for this place is whether the f#@&*ing IE for PocketPC 2K3 supports PNGs with alpha channels properly yet.
    • SOme of the newer units are running with the PXA255; which performs (my understanding) much better than the older Xscale processor. Mostly because they upped the bus speed for memory. (I have a Dell Axim with the PXA255, the bus speed is supposedly 133Mhz instead of 100, while newer PocketPCs often have 200Mhz bus speed.

      (I suspect they played it safe with the Dell design as it was simply a redesign of the prior unit.)

      But, I'm hoping the new PocketPC will help to improve things as well.
    • Next million dollar question: will Microsoft offer free upgrades to the PocketPC 2003 OS for those who purchased an Xscale device that is currently underutilized in the PocketPC 2002 OS?

      And since I'm fairly sure they won't be free, will they at least be discounted?

  • Price (Score:5, Funny)

    by jesler ( 683123 ) on Saturday June 21, 2003 @10:55PM (#6264934)
    The article lists the price as

    Price: +/- 350 dollar, 329 euro

    I assume they use "+/-" to mean approxiamately. If not, I'll choose the -$350 option and you can pay me to use this thing.

    • Re:Price (Score:2, Funny)

      by Waffle Iron ( 339739 )
      You actually don't want the -$350 one because that version is made of antimatter. It's a little too hot to handle.

      • +1 Informative, No

        +1 Funny, sure

        Waffle Iron, you have succeeded in proving that someone needs to chlorinate the moderation pool.

        P.S. If you see this in M2, please vote it unfair.

    • "I assume they use "+/-" to mean approxiamately. If not, I'll choose the -$350 option and you can pay me to use this thing."

      You're thinking small potatoes. I'm gonna go buy thousands of truckloads of these babies and retire.

    • Nah, dude - that's the over/under. You bet a certain amount of money that they'll either charge you more or less than $350. Personally, I would go with "over" - word around the campfire, you know what I mean? *taps nose*

  • Not really a review of Pocket PC 2003 (Score:4, Insightful)

    by cloudless.net ( 629916 ) on Saturday June 21, 2003 @10:55PM (#6264935) Homepage
    In fact it is more like a review of the Asus MyPal a620 Pocket PC. I was expecting to see the detail of new features in the new OS, but it only tells me about the new media player and not much else. I am more interested about the performance of the new OS, as it is supposed to be optimized for the Xscale CPU. By the way, the MyPal Pocket PC has a terrible name and is very ugly, don't you think? I think the Taiwanese manufacturers should hire some better designers.

  • Familiar (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 21, 2003 @11:13PM (#6264999)
    Just use familiar [handhelds.org] with opie [handhelds.org]. You'll be happier, and have more spare change to buy things that matter.
    • A bad StrongARM Linux Poem written on the spot...

      Familiar is my newest best friend
      Opie makes things look good for me
      Pocket PC's come not to an end
      For Linux on a PDA is FREE!

    • Re:Familiar (Score:3, Insightful)

      by *xpenguin* ( 306001 )
      Why? Pocket PC will cause you a lot less pain setting things up, and since it's already included in the device, you don't save any money by installing an inferior alpha-quality OS on it.

  • XHTML support? Yes! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by donutz ( 195717 ) on Saturday June 21, 2003 @11:13PM (#6265001) Homepage Journal
    As a network connection will most likely also be used for web browsing Microsoft completely revamped the rendering architecture of the PocketPC Internet Explorer which not only speeds thing up considerably but also offers support for more internet standards. Standards that are now available in PocketPC 2003 are XHTML, CSS, HTML 4.0, JavaScript 5.5, WAP 2.0, WTLS, IPv6 and many more, which makes the PocketPC web browser compatible with the vast majority of websites found on the internet and intranets which often use some of the more exotic protocols.

    All I can say is ABOUT TIME! I don't even bother trying to do any web browsing on my Dell Axim X5 running Pocket PC 2002. It's just disgusting that they have an IE 3.x based browser running on something so new!

    I wonder if we'll see any upgrades to the browser for Pocket PC 2002, or if we will need to purchase a new device with 2003 on it. Let me guess...
    • I wonder if we'll see any upgrades to the browser for Pocket PC 2002, or if we will need to purchase a new device with 2003 on it. Let me guess...

      How about I guess. Let's see... Microsoft makes about $8 on each license for Windows for Pocket PC, which they get whether you buy a new device or upgrade an old one. Microsoft also required all PPC2002 units to have a minimum size of upgradable system flash memory. Now let's look to history: Compaq iPaq Pocket PC 2000 handhelds had upgrades available to 2002, an

      • Finally, if you're really that anti-Microsoft, you can load Linux on the thing and stop complaining.

        Aha! At least there's one point in your argument where you're wrong: it really belongs to my employer, so I don't wanna screw it up by trying linux on it (well I do wanna experiment but dont wanna deal with the consequences ;)

        Seriously though, it's just my cynicism combined with the fact that whenever something new and good comes out, it seems like it's usually not compatible with what I've got. Oh well. H
      • you can load Linux on the thing and stop complaining.

        Or, in my case turn it into a $200 brick. The only Linux distro for PPCs seems to be for IPAQ only (and not those claming to be IPAQ compatable).

        • Or, in my case turn it into a $200 brick. The only Linux distro for PPCs seems to be for IPAQ only (and not those claming to be IPAQ compatable).

          That's Linux's problem, not Dell's or Microsoft's. Pocket PC is not designed to be an open platform, and it's not marketed as such. If you wanted a Linux handheld, you should have bought one. I was just arguing a possibility, as the platform is fairly consistant across manufacturers.

          • That's Linux's problem, not Dell's or Microsoft's.

            Nope, it's my problem and no one elses. I read that this boot loader would work on Ipaqs and ran across some reviews of this Amigo PD-600C PPC was an IPAQ in sheeps clothing and made the equation that it would work.

            Yes, most of the hardware has the same specs, but it seems that most of the hardware is made in completely different ways (like you just said). I really just wanted to throw it out there that since you mentioned loading Linux on a PPC, that
            • Too bad... Palms can recover from a failed flash upgrade, part of the boot code detects an invalid image and boots into debug mode listening on the serial port.

              Unfortunately for all the PPC suckers, no such thing exists -- Failed ROM upgrade = dead device.

  • Odd... (Score:3, Informative)

    by Shadow99_1 ( 86250 ) <theshadow99 AT gmail DOT com> on Saturday June 21, 2003 @11:15PM (#6265010)
    Huh I thought Pocket PC 2003 has been out for awhile because at work we've been selling a Toshiba E760 (which looks to be a E755 running Pocket PC 2003) for over a week now... I hadn't been keeping up on Pocket PC OS stuff very much so I didn't think anything of it when they came in... Of course once I saw the article I went to Toshiba's website & realized they don't even mention it... Huh, I wonder how fast I'd be fired if I wrote a review of it for the slashdot crowd & posted it tomorrow..

    • Re:Odd... (Score:5, Informative)

      by gantrep ( 627089 ) on Saturday June 21, 2003 @11:40PM (#6265094)
      The operating system is officially released on the 23rd. [idg.net] However there have been several models of handhelds out for a little while that come with 2003. I've got a Toshiba like you that I got 3 days ago that came with it. It's an e355.
      • Hmm we got that one today at work, but I think Toshiba's site actually lsits that one & since the E355 just arrived today I hadn't had a good chance to see if it was 2002 or 2003 yet...

  • Sloppiest editing I've ever seen. (Score:5, Funny)

    by GlenRaphael ( 8539 ) on Saturday June 21, 2003 @11:23PM (#6265043) Homepage
    Boy, they must have been in a big hurry to get that article [hardwareanalysis.com] out before someone else beat them to the punch!

    Page 1 says "Mircrosoft" will launch the thing, and "thereâ(TM)s some changes"

    According to page 2, 2.5G is now "fully supported a offers GSM suspend/resume" while meanwhile, "on the multimedia site of things..."

    Page 5 tells us there are "a few welcome extraâ(TM)s" and "we clocked between 10 till 12 hours on the battery..."

    Quick, somebody make this guy a Slashdot editor!

  • Toshiba e355 (Score:4, Interesting)

    by gantrep ( 627089 ) on Saturday June 21, 2003 @11:31PM (#6265071)
    I just got a Toshiba e355 and like the article says, it includes windows media player 9. The biggest thing for me anyway, is that pressing the home button brings up Home Version 2.00 with a games tab, a programs tab, a main tab and a running tab. The running tab makes it much much easier to actually close programs. I haven't noticed much else different between 2003 and 2002(I used to have an HP1910 until it stopped syncing and Best Buy replaced it with this three days ago.)

    And for any wondering about the Toshiba e355, I can transfer files fine using Synce [sourceforge.net]

    And here are some specs [bargainpda.com] for it.

  • Microsoft goes out on a limb (Score:5, Funny)

    by SensitiveMale ( 155605 ) on Saturday June 21, 2003 @11:32PM (#6265074)
    From the article "On the multimedia site of things Microsoft has wisely adapted Media Player 9 for the PocketPC 2003 platform, offering even smaller file sizes and smoother playback.

    And I heard from MS developers that they were gonna drop Media Player 9 on the PocketPC and go solely with QuickTime.

    Next we'll read that MS has wisely adapted pocket versions od Word and Excel rather than WordPerfect and 123.

  • Palm to iPaq (student view) (Score:5, Insightful)

    by 1000101 ( 584896 ) on Saturday June 21, 2003 @11:34PM (#6265078)
    I'm a CS major and recently switched from a Palm to an iPaq. Microsoft's PDA OS is so much better than Palm's, it's hard to imagine using anything else. At first I thought the $500 price tag was outrageous, but it has helped with my studies and organization tremendously. Bash MS all you want, but their PDA OS is by far the most versitile on the market today.
    • Sounds like my story. I switched from a Palm IIIe to a Sharp Zaurus 5500. All of a sudden, I could do all kinds of crazy stuff, like browse the web with my 802.11 card, use SSH, mount shares, stream music (via shoutcast as well as via ESD or whatever), etc. all combined with the PDA features that make my life as a physics grad student much easier on top of making my life as a geek much easier. It additionally rocks, because of all the community support of Linux on the platform.

      Only problem is, Palm IIIe
    • I disagree completely. I've got at least one of just about every PDA out there - several Palms, PocketPCs, even the Zaurus. Palm has a great collection of apps available, and it's much better at synchronizing with Outlook than is the PocketPC. PocketOutlook is awful compared to what's available on the Palm. Further, I get weeks of battery life out of my Palm. The one feature that I really like on PacketPCs is the way the file system appears under Windows as a USB hard drive. That one feature was almos
      • >>The one feature that I really like on PacketPCs
        >>is the way the file system appears under
        >>Windows as a USB hard drive.

        The Sony Clie allows you to do such, though only with the contents of the Memory Stick.
    • Hmm, I don't know, but I've found my Blackberry rather helpful for my studies. The little thumbpad is helpful for taking down assignments and firing off quick emails to the prof before you forget. The built-in phone is great too. IMO, a little better for productivity, all utility, no fuss, no gimmicks.

      Battery life is great too, I find it lasting around 2 weeks, which is amazing considering I tend to read slashdot during lectures =)
    • I'm a CS major and recently switched from a Palm to an iPaq. Microsoft's PDA OS is so much better than Palm's, it's hard to imagine using anything else. At first I thought the $500 price tag was outrageous, but it has helped with my studies and organization tremendously. Bash MS all you want, but their PDA OS is by far the most versitile on the market today.

      Would you care to elaborate? Basically all you said is that it is better. How is it better?

    • Re:Palm to iPaq (student view) (Score:4, Insightful)

      by IronChef ( 164482 ) on Sunday June 22, 2003 @04:00AM (#6265889)
      I have an iPAQ and I love it, but let's not sugar-coat things. PocketPCs have real issues. Cruise Brighthand and you'll see a lot of people who can't get their alarms to fire reliably without buying 3rd party utilities, for example. And there are lots of other classic Microsoft oversights, like how task alarms are FIXED at 8AM, and the travesty that is Pocket Word/Excel.

      The PocketPC named perfectly, for it is a Microsoft PC that fits in your pocket. We all know what that means. Some good stuff, some not so good stuff...

      When I counsel people on buying PDAs, my advice is simple... If you just want a reliable organizer, get a Palm. If you want a tiny computer that can be very powerful (but you are prepared for it to also be very aggravating at times), you should get a PocketPC.

      I have a PPC and I will never go back to Palm, but I can sure see why people buy them.
    • So what can a PocketPC do that a palm cannot?

      - Browse the web?...Palm browsers are better than PocketIE
      - VPN?...Palm has VPN clients.
      - Office Documents?...Documents To Go does a better job of translating Word/Excel Docs than the PocketWord and PocketExcel.
      - PIM information?...Palm is the best at this. Install Agendus and it gets even better.
      - Custom Applications?...Palm has thousdands more
      - Development?...Palm has many RAD tools and C++ tools.
      - Admin Tools?...SSH, Ping, Telnet, etc are available for Palm
    • Hmmm... I had the opposite experience. I had a palm for a while which I used for simple PDA type tasks -- calendar, tasks, mail, and small notes. Nothing too fancy. It even had a couple of silly games on it. But it worked well, was exceptionally stable (I didn't even know it _could_ be reset until my brother showed me how). And the battery lasted forever. And it was really thin, too. I could easily fit it in my pocket without any problems.

      Then, I got an iPaq. It's stability leaves something to be d
    • But why the hell do I need dvd playback for a pda?

      We are talking about pda's right?

      I originally bought my palm m100 for school. I have sevre ADHD and need a pda to alarm and remind me of projects and to keep track of todo lists.

      The palm does this perfectly. I also have FreeBSD integration with the desktop suite and the included software is great.

      What I want to know is how long is your battery life? Mine is about 2 months. Can you beat that?

      I do not need mp3 playbay, and external dvd support, or the cra
  • Previously on Slashdot it was mentioned that Palm DocumentsToGo did MS Office compatibility better than PocketPC software. If this hasn't improved, other features may not matter.

    Microsoft should know better by now that Office is top priority.
    • Palm DocumentsToGo did MS Office compatibility better than PocketPC software

      With software out of the box, yes.

      When you add third-party software to the picture, no - not by a long shot. See my sig.

      Martin Kotulla
      SoftMaker Software GmbH

  • is it possible... (Score:4, Informative)

    by dfj225 ( 587560 ) on Saturday June 21, 2003 @11:41PM (#6265098) Homepage Journal
    to upgrade the os on an older pocket pc? I just bought a new Dell Axim and would very much like to install Pocket PC 2003. Also, I would settle on just being able to install the updated version of IE, cause the one on there now sucks.
    • also...if anyone knows of any good free browsers for my pocket pc that would be great too.

    • Re:is it possible... (Score:4, Informative)

      by thynk ( 653762 ) <slashdot AT thynk DOT us> on Sunday June 22, 2003 @12:13AM (#6265185) Homepage Journal
      I just bought a new Dell Axim and would very much like to install Pocket PC 2003.

      Hmmm... I was interested in this since I order 2-4 Axims a week for work. I did a bit of digging around and here is what I found. This was on one of the Dell support pages Dated 17 Jun 03


      Thank you for using the Dell Community Forum.

      Yes, Pocket PC 2003 is real. I do not have a firm date when Dell will begin shipping Pocket PC 2003, or when upgrades will be available, or who will be eligible for free upgrades.

      One warning. I have been told that many applications that work in Pocket PC 2002 do not work in Pocket PC 2003. It appears that Pocket PC 2003 is a major Operating System upgrade and that some applications will have to be recompiled for it.

      I am at the moment testing a few applications on Pocket PC 2003, and so far I have only found one application, the game Argentum that will not run. I do not have a list of applications that will work with Pocket PC 2003, but I will try to keep you posted about any applications that I have trouble with.

      Hope the moderator of that forum isn't too upset that I quoted with out requesting permission, but to the best of my knowldge this is a open to the public site.

      It does look like there WILL be an upgrade path, that a ROM for the Axim has been developed (as this moderator had one) and that it doesn't melt your PPC when you install it.
      • Hummmm...sounds like I have a hope. I am not really worried about program compatibilty, as I mostly just use the included programs, seeing how I haven't had much time to find 3rd party ones that I like better. Can you please keep me updated? Or at least send me a link where I can remain self updated. my email address is dfj@comcast.net
        • Dell Support Forums [dell.com] - give this a try, I found it in the General Software section.

          I'm also not to worried about program compatibility, as we home brew all out own software (or 98% of it) - much to the displeasure of our IT department. The thing I'm looking forward to is the improved WiFi support - we have a hard time keeping these able to talk to the server.
  • Being a typical Slashdot reader I'm posting before reading the article.

    Does anyone know if _any_ PocketPC has a built-in thumbboard like the current Palms, Sony Clies, Handspring Treos, Blackberries et al

    To me it is a serious shortcoming and if its not in this release then the PocketPcs devices will fall further behind the PalmOS powered devices

    See Palm/Handspring Treo 600 device, the Microsoft SmartPhone is going to be left behind if they don't implement support for a thumbboard.

    Cheers

    VikingBrad

  • The big question is: (Score:3, Insightful)

    by iCEBaLM ( 34905 ) on Sunday June 22, 2003 @01:11AM (#6265418)
    Will I be able to upgrade my iPAQ H3870 or is HP/Compaq going to be retards and make me buy a new handheld if I want it?
  • Looking over the article I can't see any mention of battery life. Just something I would like to know before buying a PDA

    Rus

    • Re:Battery life (Score:2, Informative)

      by -audiowhore- ( 153163 )
      ummmm RTFA? last paragraph of the summary and conclusion here [hardwareanalysis.com]:

      "Overall, the Asus MyPal a620 proved to be an excellent PocketPC, with great battery life, easily making it through a full day of extensive use and hours of multimedia playback. On average we clocked between 10 till 12 hours on the battery, which is a little more than weâ(TM)ve seen from popular PocketPC 2002 devices. If youâ(TM)re in the market for an affordable, yet powerful and versatile, PocketPC be sure to give the Asus MyPal a620
  • I really do.
    But every time I think of all of the possibilities of an open hand held computing platform, I almost cry when I actually look
    at whats being done right now, and in the
    near future.

    Another proprietary portable operating system ...
    How long have they been getting to where this stuff is actually usable for more than one or two special applications? Then they release something that does video ... WOW ... when it should have been possible years ago ...

    Whatever ... Move on ...
  • I've been eyeing the Samsung i700 for a bit... Do you think it'll be upgradeable to 2003? I guess the big draw of 2003 for me from the article is the better Web browser. My companies web site makes a fair amount of use of CSS, and I recently redid all my personal websites in XHTML 1.0 with CSS...

  • PocketPCs (Score:3, Funny)

    by instinctdesign ( 534196 ) on Sunday June 22, 2003 @01:59PM (#6267949) Homepage
    Tiny computers running Windows are not a good idea, when I get upset at them there isn't anything to prevent me from throwing them out a real window...

    (to quoteth my brother)

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