Viewsonic's PDA in the Midst of a Memory Debate

[Jason Dunn]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,107813,tk,dn121002X,00.asp' target='_blank'>http://www.pcworld.com/news/article...n121002X,00.asp</a><br /><br /></div>Wait...what's this? There's an issue with the amount of available memory on the V35? No way! Oh wait, that's right, <a href="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/index.php?topic_id=5372">we already told you about this.</a> :roll: PDABuzz was the site that originally broke this story, and we gave it some clarity. Why wouldn't PCWorld mention either site? As much as I doubt the integrity of The Register some days, at least <a href="http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/54/28446.html">they linked to our story</a> rather then pretend that they "discovered" the story. Shame on you PCWorld, and shame on you Martyn Williams! :wink:

[alan williams]

Shame indeed. Not to mention the way they put their brand of "light" on the subject.

I find it odd that this is almost destroying the buzz about an otherwise fine PDA.

[JonnoB]

I find it odd that this is almost destroying the buzz about an otherwise fine PDA.

It is a fine PDA, but you can't hold ViewSonic blameless. They deserve the public censure for being so quiet about it. They must know that buyers will compare features such as memory size... and they led others to believe the 64mb is the same as other Pocket PC devices.

[spg]

I find it odd that this is almost destroying the buzz about an otherwise fine PDA.

It is a fine PDA, but you can't hold ViewSonic blameless. They deserve the public censure for being so quiet about it. They must know that buyers will compare features such as memory size... and they led others to believe the 64mb is the same as other Pocket PC devices.
I agree. As always honesty is proving to be the best policy. It also isn't like the first time this has happened in the PDA world. Palm and HP have both had similar issues, as noted in the register article. You would think one company could learn from the mistakes of others, but I guess not.

[Foo Fighter]

This issue goes FAR beyond Viewsonic. There are lies...damn lies...and hardware specs. Why isn't the press reporting on Palm or Sony? Oh that's right...Palm would never resort to this fraudulent marketing tactic. I mean, if they say Tungsten has 16mb of RAM...then I should find 16mb of RAM when I examine the amount of available storage. WHAT'S THIS?!?! Only 14mb?!? You mean Palm lied to us? How can this be?

Even Sony is getting into the act. The NX series only has 11mb of user accessible space left.

This act borders on consumer fraud. It's time we put a stop to this once and for all.

[alan williams]

I'm not saying that ViewSonic is blameless in all of this, but at the same time...

WHen was the last time you saw a Dell add for a desktop, "80gig HD, 78.78gig available"?

Foo is right, there are more to point fingers at than just VS, but what I am saying is that the v35 is still a fine little unit. I just hope it gets a fair shake after this "memory issue" is behind us.

[ThomasC22]

Awww, lets not be too hard on PCWorld...

I will agree that not quoting a source is pretty sad, but at the same time, they are "newsmedia" (at least in their own head) and it's their job to (A) sensationalize the mundane to make it entertaining and (B) micro-analyze things that people are REALLY interested in to find the hidded "FRAUD" in it.

Not the best way of doing things, but welcome to American Journalism...

[Ed Hansberry]

WHen was the last time you saw a Dell add for a desktop, "80gig HD, 78.78gig available"?

Every day. They footnote that 1GB = 1,000MB (not 1,024) and your formatted capacity may be less. Don't think Dell does this anymore, but I know Compaq does and many HD manufactureres. I think they are starting to put the real capacity on the sites.

They don't say though that 1GB-2GB are "unavailble" because that is where WinXP, the MFT, Swapfile and hibernation file (if you have one) go.

[lspinellijr]

Awww, lets not be too hard on PCWorld...

I will agree that not quoting a source is pretty sad, but at the same time, they are "newsmedia" (at least in their own head) and it's their job to (A) sensationalize the mundane to make it entertaining and (B) micro-analyze things that people are REALLY interested in to find the hidded "FRAUD" in it.

Not the best way of doing things, but welcome to American Journalism...

yes, seriously..........if all you read was PC WORLD then you would think that DELL was the only pc manufacturer. funny how DELL is one of their biggest advertisers too.

those rags are just that.

[Janak Parekh]

Every day.
Not only that, this is far from a new tactic.

Historical note: the old Seagate ST506 (that is, MFM, RLL, ESDI) drives' product code used to be STXYYZ, where the X was the form factor (2 meant 5.25" half-height), YY was the capacity, and Z was the interface (I think MFM was nothing, RLL was an R, ESDI an E, and SCSI a N). Most of their modern product codes still resemble this old system.

In any case, the capacity (YY) was the unformatted capacity of the drive, which was theoretically bigger. Their 20MB (yes, megabyte) drive was called ST225. Their 30MB was ST238R (and gosh almighty that was the worst damn drive known to man). The 80MB was ST4096 (40 being 5.25", full height). And so on. Anyone else here played with these beasts (and I use the term literally)?

Manufacturers have always been "padding" their numbers.

--bdj

[JonnoB]

If someone sells an 80Gb drive and there is 78-79 usable... then they should tell people - but I would not take them to court if they didn't. Most manufacturers are in similar situations. If however, someone delivers only 60% of what they promised (like VS), that is plain fraud.

This is especially true when consumers are comparing apples to apples without knowing that the one apple is really an orange - and the seller knows that it is an orange, but paints it red anyway.

[toshtoshtosh]

Eh, I don't see that PCworld has any obligation to link here. It's not like it was a scientific discovery that took months to develop in PPCThoughts Labs :). Someone got their Viewsonic, posted on some boards, then someone else got theirs, posted on some boards, then it became common knowledge :).

[jdavis]

Here's what I see now on the viewsonic site:


Memory:
Includes 32MB ROM and 64MB SDRAM (36.45MB user accessible) so you can store more e-mail, photos and music.

[JonnoB]

Here's what I see now on the viewsonic site:


Memory:
Includes 32MB ROM and 64MB SDRAM (36.45MB user accessible) so you can store more e-mail, photos and music.

If they had done this from the beginning, they wouldn't be so lambasted. Now, I hope this sets a precedent for other manufacturers. Now, if only we could have the same done for monitors. 17" monitors... some with 16.2" and some with 15.8" viewable screen sizes. Arghhh.

[alan williams]

They don't say though that 1GB-2GB are "unavailble" because that is where WinXP, the MFT, Swapfile and hibernation file (if you have one) go.
That's what I'm talking about Ed. They never state how much is taken up by pre-installed software/OS, etc...

heh...at least they will tell us how much of our monitors are "viewable". ;)

[alan williams]

If someone sells an 80Gb drive and there is 78-79 usable... then they should tell people - but I would not take them to court if they didn't. Most manufacturers are in similar situations. If however, someone delivers only 60% of what they promised (like VS), that is plain fraud.
So it's acceptable if it's only a certin percentage?

Hmmm...

Granted, it's more of a "hit" with a PDA, but I don't think I can go along with that.

If we're going to lambast VS for this practice, we should do it across the board with all tech companies that report "funny" specs.

[marlof]

Manufacturers have always been "padding" their numbers.

I always thought that manufacturers manufactured, and marketing padded. ;)

[JonnoB]

So it's acceptable if it's only a certin percentage?

Hmmm...

Granted, it's more of a "hit" with a PDA, but I don't think I can go along with that.

If we're going to lambast VS for this practice, we should do it across the board with all tech companies that report "funny" specs.

No, it is still not acceptable for anyone IMO. 'I' personally would let something go if it were within a certain percentage. I think it is dishonest even if .00001% off. The point I was making is that if someone is 40% off the mark, then they are more than 'slightly' dishonest, they are completely corrupt.

[Jason Dunn]

This issue goes FAR beyond Viewsonic. There are lies...damn lies...and hardware specs. Why isn't the press reporting on Palm or Sony? Oh that's right...Palm would never resort to this fraudulent marketing tactic. I mean, if they say Tungsten has 16mb of RAM...then I should find 16mb of RAM when I examine the amount of available storage. WHAT'S THIS?!?! Only 14mb?!? You mean Palm lied to us? How can this be?

I think this case is a little different. We all know that when we buy a 100 GB hard drive we'll have access to about 93 (or whatever it is), and I've never heard anyone complain that 4-5 MB of their 32 MB was used up. There's a certain threshold of what is reasonable, and the V35 blew past that threshold completely. :lol:

[Xaximus]

They don't say though that 1GB-2GB are "unavailble" because that is where WinXP, the MFT, Swapfile and hibernation file (if you have one) go.

That's what I'm talking about Ed. They never state how much is taken up by pre-installed software/OS, etc...

Of course, that's assuming that everyone buys their hard drives or systems with an OS pre-installed; something I never do. I don't think it's the hard drive manufacturers' responsibility to inform the customer how much space their particular OS will take up in the event they want to install one. In the case of Pocket PCs, Pocket PC 2002 is the only OS meant to be installed, but with hard drives, you're not expected to necessarily install WinXP or any OS, for that matter.

[disconnected]

I'd never thought about available versus total memory before the Viewsonic flap, but is it also true of other Pocket PCs?

On my iPAQ 3975, for example, it shows 63.18 MB of total main memory (not quite 64), and I don't think I ever looked at it before I started installing stuff, so I'm not sure if the whole 63.18 started off as 'free' space.

I don't really know if the part being used in the 'program' allocation is all for programs I'm consciously running, or if some of it is just being used by operating system stuff running in the background. I just did a soft reset, and exited out of the programs that run at startup. I theoretically have no running programs, but my memory settings still show 6.91 MB in use in the 'program' allocation. In addition, I think the OS must make some use of space in the Windows folder.

[Bob Anderson]

Two comments:

Shame on PCWorld

Shame on ViewSonic

Sure we can come up with "excuses" but reality is, neither of these firms are what I'd call "truthful". In the end, they'll probably get better, since I don't think there was an intention to do wrong... it's just the people in charge lose sight of some of the impacts they have with customers.

[klinux]

They don't say though that 1GB-2GB are "unavailble" because that is where WinXP, the MFT, Swapfile and hibernation file (if you have one) go.

That's what I'm talking about Ed. They never state how much is taken up by pre-installed software/OS, etc...

Of course, that's assuming that everyone buys their hard drives or systems with an OS pre-installed; something I never do. I don't think it's the hard drive manufacturers' responsibility to inform the customer how much space their particular OS will take up in the event they want to install one. In the case of Pocket PCs, Pocket PC 2002 is the only OS meant to be installed, but with hard drives, you're not expected to necessarily install WinXP or any OS, for that matter.

Exactly, I don't think we need to hold OEMs resposible for doing that. Imagine if they have to list the space avail info. for machines that have Windows 2000 vs. XP home, XP Pro, Media Center Edition, or tablet edition!

[alan williams]

Exactly, I don't think we need to hold OEMs resposible for doing that. Imagine if they have to list the space avail info. for machines that have Windows 2000 vs. XP home, XP Pro, Media Center Edition, or tablet edition!
And thus, why ViewSonic thought it could "get away with it" I'm guessing. :oops:

[Kirkaiya]

I think that this discussion needs some clarification:

The difference between what Viewsonic did, and what Harddrive makers, and other PocketPC makers do, is this:

Viewsonic went with a DIFFERENT "architecture" than any other Pocket PC maker (with the exception of the HP 1910, but they stated the difference clearly upfront).

Until now, Yes, all PocketPC's had some OS "overhead", where a small portion of RAM was consumed.

However, no pocket PC device before the Viewsonic & HP 1910 used this new technique (new for Pocket PCs) of copying the entire Operating System into RAM.

This is NOT what user's expected - after all, the iPaq 36xx, 37xx, 38xx, 39xx, Toshiba e310, e330, e550, e740, the Casio EM-125, EM-500, the various XDAs (T-Mobile, etc), the HP Jornada 5xx (all of them), and Asus, Razor Zayo, and so on, all used NOR (eXecute In Place, or XIP capable) Flash ROM.

So - it's not that what they (Viewsonic) did would have been unreasonable if this was the industry norm for Pocket PCs. However - the original devices were shipped starting in April of 2000, and after 2 + 1/2 years, people have come to expect that 32 MB means that there will be 32 MB, minus a very small amount for system overhead.

With Viewsonic - you still have that "system overhead" - it's coming out of the 36.45 MB that is remaining after the Operating System is copied, in it's entirety, from ROM to RAM.

I believe that somebody at Viewsonic must have known this was going to cause public confusion, or perhaps they were confused... either way, it was, IMHO, a bit unethical.

I really like my V35, and I'm not returning it for a refund or anything, but I am frustrated that people do not see the fundamental difference with what Viewsonic did.

As for the PC Mag article - well, you know the big magazines, a lot of them don't give credit where it's due. We all know how the author found about about the "uproar" that users are creating - he saw it here, and/or on PDA Buzz or Brighthand. He should have mentioned the site(s) as sources... lousy journalism, but hey, it's PC Rag after all ::wink::

[Ed Hansberry]

Exactly, I don't think we need to hold OEMs resposible for doing that. Imagine if they have to list the space avail info. for machines that have Windows 2000 vs. XP home, XP Pro, Media Center Edition, or tablet edition!

Just to be clear - I was talking about OEMs that tell you how much HD you are getting on new systems, not new hard drives. They know how much is taken by the OS because they are pricing that OS to you.

I do agree though - that is going a bit too far - people know the OS will take up some room and it is generally less than 10%. My point was OEMs and HD makers sometimes tell you it is an 80GB drive then footnote it saying 1GB=1,000MB or 1MB=1,000KB. When you do the math like that, an "80 GB" drive will only have 74.5GB available for formatting. Not good, but not a big deal if it is disclosed.

What viewsonic did was not tell you the OS took up room in RAM (unlike iPAQ 3000 series, all Toshibas, Jornadas, etc) but then yanked about 40% of the RAM from you. That is not cool at all. They have sinced fixed it and as far as I am concerned, it is closed. The only ones that have a right to complain are those that purchased it with 64MB in mind and got 36MB out of it, and I would think 100% of those people are within the return window since ViewSonic took care of this so quickly.