[Gerard]

Making efficient use of limited resources; that's definitely a big part of Palm's (-Source, -One, -whatever -- sorry, but Palm is Palm, regardless of squabbling or re-arranging) past success. Where PPC models have been beefed up with more and more RAM, faster processors, broader expansion potential, more desktop-like flexibility etc., Palm's soft- and hardware have provided a fairly consistent and potent PIM experience. Of course the Palm side has (slowly, kicking and screaming) brought increasing powers (with Palm execs all along telling users how superfluous are the flashy 'extras' of the PPC).

Snappy performance is often the real experience with a PPC as well. It is at times painfully not so, especially when a user gets into several dozen or more third-party installations.

I currently have 64 programs and plugins listed in my installation list, with another 20 or so standalone programs not listed. That's more scaled-down than I used to run, as this X5 is a bit memory leaky under WM2003, but is still a heck of a lot more than many users run. My device responds easily as fast as I can tap, with more than 75% of my use. Slowdowns while running heavier applications such as Pocket Artist or Textmaker can be aggravating, and I hope that moving to a 128MB RAM device before too much longer will resolve this. Otherwise I have very few speed complaints.

The time when the snappiness difference was most recognizable was when a typical PPC ran between 16 and 32MB RAM, and a 133 or 206MHz processor. 33MHz Palms of those few years ago were startlingly faster in typical operations, if lacking in the multi-media department. Hardware and OS refinements have closed the speed gap, even as Palm-based devices have sought to catch up by adding formerly rejected (as being unnecessary) capabilities and have suffered commensurate drops in vaunted battery life. It's close to a level playing field these days, more a matter of user preference or 'flavour' than actual advantage for either. And as we're seeing, with Palm's steady decline and PPC's steady growth, the PPC/WM 'flavour' tastes better to more users. I'd suggest that true multi-tasking accounts for a big part of that. Surely it is not advertising, for such is practically non-existent on the PPC side.