Pocket PC Screen Resolution

[Jason Dunn]

There are some very interesting discussions going on in response to <a href="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=8874">Andy's post</a>, but I wanted to bring the issue of Pocket PC screen resolution front and center and have a discussion about it. One user comment seemed to be typical of most I've seen on this issue:<br /><br /><i>"There MUST NOT be a fixed screen size/orientation with the next PocketPC OS! Windows CE is written to handle any screen size, and with v4 handles on the fly screen size/orientation changes. Why remove such a large portion of Windows CE functionality for PocketPC users?"</i><br /><br />It's not as simple as flipping a switch, having the resolution double and everything working as nicely as before. I know that Windows CE .Net supports different resolutions, including landscape mode, but unless I'm mistaken, it's not a truly resolution-independent OS. That's the real key: in a resolution independent OS, when you change the resolution, every other piece of the user interface will dynamically change as well. That's not what we have, <a href="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/articles.php?action=expand,8911">so let's talk about what we do have.</a><!><br /><br /><span><b>The Reality</b></span><br />Let's say you double the Pocket PC resolution from 320x240 to 640x480 - you'd think that would be a very simple switch to make right? It might be, but unless you were to adjust the font size upwards, text at 640x480 would be too small for many people (just imagine the entire UI on your device with everything 50% smaller - text, icons, etc.). This pain would exist on a pure Windows CE .Net device as well - you can bet that any OEM deploying Windows CE .Net devices will lock down the resolution or perhaps pick one alternative resolution and do the work to make it look good.<br /><br />Have you ever tried to adjust the system font size on a Pocket PC using a <a href="http://www.doctorce.com/regking.htm">registry hacker</a>, either up or down? It's just as nasty as it is on the desktop - dialogue boxes and menus get ugly (overflowing/underflowing text), and the UI simply breaks. It's no longer a good user experience. I loved having a smaller text size for cramming more info on the screen at once, but I cringed every time a dialogue box (say, an appointment) popped up - it was so ugly! It's not something I'd want to show other people as an example of what the Pocket PC OS looks like. Now throw multi-lingual support in there - did you know any dialogue box written in German requires about 30% more text? And what about landscape mode? That's a whole new set of factors.<br /><br />And let's think about performance for a second. At 320x240 the OS is tossing around 76,800 pixels. At 640x480 that number <i>quadruples</i> to 307,200 pixels. I already seen too much sluggishness with screen redraws right now - and you want to take the same hardware and try to hurl 400% more pixels down the pipe? Let's say the next generation of hardware with the Intel PXA255 is up to the task for 2D tasks - what about games? How many engines can dish up 300% more pixels and still give acceptable performance? Remember these developers put a lot of work into having a great user experience at 320x240.<br /><br /><span><b>The Real Issue</b></span><br />The real root problem is that Microsoft didn't create the Pocket PC OS (or Windows XP for that matter) to be truly resolution independent - most of it is hard-coded for a fixed resolution (or several resolutions). On the desktop you can go into advanced display settings to adjust the screen DPI upwards to make everything bigger, but we don't have that option on a Pocket PC. It helps on those 15" screen laptops that are native at 1600 x 1200 resolution, but it's an ugly kludge that defeats the purpose of running at the higher resolution.<br /><br />Platform unification is critical to getting developers on board - just ask any developer who's trying to code J2ME games how frustrating it is that every phone has a different resolution. It's <b>very</b> difficult to get the same experience across multiple resolutions - you need a lot of overhead code to compensate for all the variables. Microsoft cares more about the platform than any single piece - which is the same reason why they haven't created an "XScale version" of their OS.<br /><br /><span><b>Where We Go From Here</b></span><br />The bottom line is that Microsoft wants to see this happen - we heard this from several people during the MVP Summit. They don't like seeing Sony devices trump the Pocket PC in resolution any more than we do, but they need to do a lot of work to make it happen <i>in the right way</i>. And that takes time...more time than most of us are willing to wait for, but I'd much rather see Microsoft do this from a low level and have it work the way it should.

[Foo Fighter]

I'm not so sure that locking the PPC UI down to 320x240 is such a calamity. By limiting this spec, developers have a standard base from which to develop. Right now the PalmOS development environment is become horribly fragmented; 106x160, 320x320, 320x240, 320x480....it's a mess. And there is a trade off with higher resolutions; improved image quality/sharpness at the price of power consumption. Sony's NX series offers dismal battery life, thanks largely in part by that big beautiful screen. Then there is the text viewing experience. Have you seen hi-res text on the Tungsten T and Sony models? It appears microscopic in size.

So take heed, higher res isn't always a pixel utopia.

[dgallina]

Unless the GUI becomes vector-based and Microsoft adds a user-accessible font DPI adjustment the multple-resolution problem will remain.

The short-term solution is relatively simple IMHO:

Pick a new standard resolution and re-do the GUI artwork and fonts (DPI) for that new resolution.

One high-resolution portrait and another high-resolution landscape mode would be sufficient for me personally.

LCD panels look much better at their native resolutions anyways, so why bother pixel halving / doubling / scaling to other crappy-looking resolutions in the first place?

Diego

[hrianto]

Jason:
Where We Go From Here
The bottom line is that Microsoft wants to see this happen - we heard this from several people during the MVP Summit. They don't like seeing Sony devices trump the Pocket PC in resolution any more than we do, but they need to do a lot of work to make it happen in the right way. And that takes time...more time than most of us are willing to wait for, but I'd much rather see Microsoft do this from a low level and have it work the way it should.


In the mean time for those who CAN NOT WAIT.... feel free to experience the PALM devices. :twisted:

[Foo Fighter]

I doubt a vector based a GUI is even possible on a mobile device. If MacOS X is any indication, a vector based composition engine requires a lot of horsepower which current mobile chips just don't have. And the memory requirement would be outrageous.

[suhit]

Umm, what about SVG (http://luxor-xul.sourceforge.net/talk/jug-nov-2002/slides.html)? It is a W3C standard, and there are some good screenshots available at PocketSVG (http://www.pocketsvg.com/).

I don't know about the memory requirements but it certainly is possible.

[Paragon]

I have one question......Why is 320x240 such a bad thing?

Dave

[Foo Fighter]

Umm, what about SVG (http://luxor-xul.sourceforge.net/talk/jug-nov-2002/slides.html)? It is a W3C standard, and there are some good screenshots available at PocketSVG (http://www.pocketsvg.com/).

I don't know about the memory requirements but it certainly is possible.

Not the same thing, suhit. SVG is for vector based graphics/presentation application. This is a FAR cry from a Vector composition engine layer built into an operating system. Too much caching and drawing going on. Sure you can display vector graphics on a PDA...Macromedia has already done this with its mobile Flash player.

[Foo Fighter]

I have one question......Why is 320x240 such a bad thing?

You wouldn't be asking that question if you had looked at the Clie NX70. :lol:

[Paragon]

I have one question......Why is 320x240 such a bad thing?

You wouldn't be asking that question if you had looked at the Clie NX70. :lol:

:)

Yes but most of the applications I bought 3 years ago for my 3600 Ipaq still work on my Dell. It's a handheld computer, not a high resolution media editor. For me I see pretty much what I want on it at a quality level I find exceptable. I would only want to see that improve if I did NOT have to give up anything to get there.

Dave

[Peter Foot]

At 320x240 the OS is tossing around 76,800 pixels. At 640x480 that number quadruples to 307,200 pixels. I already seen too much sluggishness with screen redraws right now - and you want to take the same hardware and try to hurl 400% more pixels down the pipe?

I'm sure that should be 300% more pixels - a total of 400% of the current number. :wink:

Hey but its still a lot!!!

I think the compatibility, cost and performance factors of increasing the resolution make it impractical in the near future. For well designed applications its surprising how much information you can cram on the screen, it all depends on how efficiently you convey it, that doesn't always have to mean loads of text.

[sub_tex]

Well, after using the Zaurus C700 (clamshell one) and seeing that screen up close, there was no doubt in my mind that not only is this doable, but it's perfect.

The Zaurus has system wide font scaling for 4 or so sizes (sort of like how the EPOC and Symbian devices handle it), and apps only need to worry about two modes of presentation, not 2 different resolutions.

When running old Zaurus apps, the screen scales down to 320. That seems fine to me.

PPC could offer similar functionality. I think people want landscape and portrait together more than they want higher res. You can see more text on a landscape screen.

And since 640x480 is vga and would allow MOST web pages to be viewed without much difficulty, perhaps handling those two resolutions would be all that is needed.

(for now. :wink: )

[Gen-M]

I would be perfectly happy with 320x240 as the default if 640x480 (or greater) was also supported for specific applications.

For a lot (most?) applications the current screen works fine. However, there are situations that demand a better resolution. Web Browsing, Microsoft Office Applications (using alternatives to POffice apps)....

Why do I have to carry my laptop to do simple things comfortably?

With add-ons like the ones from http://www.iisvr.com/ we can bypass the physical LCD limitations.

Xscale with doubled bus should be able to handle the pixel volume.

[Jonathan1]

Don't know how they do it. Don't care how they do it but I want a high res screen. Making the excuse that it’s a standard and that is a good thing or that it makes everything compatible doesn't fly. How many people out there are still running their monitors at 640 X 480??? What would have happened if the ‘puter industry said well 640 X 480 is “good enough”. It’s ludicrous to be forced to work on such a low res screen especially with larger displays coming from manufacturers such as Toshiba. To be honest I’ve seriously considered a Sony Clie. It really does kick the crap out of Pocket PC’s screens which shouldn’t be the case.

[Ethan]

Why not do something similar to what Palm did? Double the resolution (quadruping the pixels) but build in a compatibility mode layer which each pixel is drawn four times. So, all old software will work the same, and look the same. There would be a performance hit, but Palm pulled it off, right? This would mainly apply to PIM apps that don't need mucho performance/resolution anyway.

Then apps that really need the higher res (multimedia, games, etc) can do away with this mode, access the screen directly, and take advantage of the higher resolution. Hopefully dialog boxes and things like that can still be called through a similar compatibility mode, so they'd also look the same as before, overlaid on a higher resolution screen.

As for landscape mode...thats not quite so simple.

[surur]

Can I assume that those in the know (the MVP's that went to the summit) are trying to let us down softly, i.e. the next pocketos will have the same resolution as always?

I personally feel we are well overdue to higher resolutions, and if the number of pixels are a problem, just use a graphics accelerator (such as can be found in the toshiba already)

To get higher resolutions we will need new hardware in any case, so they might as well go the full 9 yards and include chips to offload stuff from the much overworked x-scale chips.

And as other people have said.. for legacy apps that cant scale to better resolutions, just include a compatability layer, where those pixels are doubled. They have something similar for XP, why not the pocketpc?

In any case... I'm sure we will not be seeing new resolutions anytime soon (from the drift Im getting in any case) which is a real pity...
Lets just hope they managed to repair the connection mangler :(

Surur

[Bob Anderson]

Jason... first off thanks for the well written article.

To those complaining about screen resolution: quit complaining!

I say this because reality is the bulk of PDA users wouldn't want to have that much more resolution crammed into the same form factor. And the headaches that come along with the "doubling pixels" effect on our platform would just be silly.

(How many of you have followed those new laptop users that send posts to the support boards asking why their fonts aren't crisp, etc., when in fact they are running their LCD laptop at it's non-standard size? It's painful to watch. Then you have to "listen" to them continually complain about the quality of their display... when it's really the settings that are to blame along with their lack of understanding of the technology they are using!)

The PDA world is better off not even getting into that mess. Let's let MSFT take it's time to, as Jason points out, "Do it right." In the meantime let's collectively ask MSFT work on stuff like activestink, connection mangler AND last, but not least, REAL word and excel tools for the PDA!!!

We can get to screen resolution later... get the basics working properly first... PLEASE...

[Scott R]

I say this because reality is the bulk of PDA users wouldn't want to have that much more resolution crammed into the same form factor. And the headaches that come along with the "doubling pixels" effect on our platform would just be silly.

(How many of you have followed those new laptop users that send posts to the support boards asking why their fonts aren't crisp, etc., when in fact they are running their LCD laptop at it's non-standard size? It's painful to watch. Then you have to "listen" to them continually complain about the quality of their display... when it's really the settings that are to blame along with their lack of understanding of the technology they are using!)
As has already been pointed out, Palm's pixel-doubling method works just fine. The end result for apps that don't do anything "extra" to take advantage of it are smoother fonts. The problem with funky fonts on a laptop is because changing a laptop's 1024x768 (for example) resolution to 800x600 doesn't scale evenly, so ever 3rd (just throwing these numbers out here) pixel has to get dropped. Going upwards from 240x320 to 480x640 would simply require pixel-doubling and so wouldn't result in any defects.

Of course, 480x640 is a lot of pixels to have to light up. Given current battery technology, the devices would need to be fairly thick to account for a decent sized battery.

Scott

[Scott R]

Can I assume that those in the know (the MVP's that went to the summit) are trying to let us down softly, i.e. the next pocketos will have the same resolution as always?
I was thinking the same thing. If one of the MVPs posts an article discussing why repeating alarms isn't as cut and dry as it seems and requires significant thought and effort to do it the right way, be afraid. ;)

Scott

[PJE]

I feel that the next PocketPC OS needs to support both portrait and landscape orientation on 320x240 and 640x480 displays. Now whether the manufacturer installs a high resolution screen should be down to them.

As long as the basic application set provided by Microsoft - PIM, PocketOffice, etc... - support the new higher resolution, and the the graphic chip can on the fly support scaling of a 320x240 display to 640x480 (a simple task) then I would be happy (for now). Programmers of the current applications would soon embrace any new functionality as a means of selling upgrades.

When talking about unlimited screen resolutions things get more complex, especially when the resolution is not a simple multiple of 320x240. On Media2Go machines - which would seem to be ideal candidates for getting some of the PocketPC's crown jewels - a 16:9 display would be nice.

Anyway, I'm happy with my Axim, and will not change the hardware until a higher resolution display is available (assuming PocketPC.net can be installed on the Axim X5) - unless the new 200MHz bus XScale is shown to e much faster...

Regards,

PJE

[Jonathan1]

Jason... first off thanks for the well written article.

To those complaining about screen resolution: quit complaining!

I say this because reality is the bulk of PDA users wouldn't want to have that much more resolution crammed into the same form factor. And the headaches that come along with the "doubling pixels" effect on our platform would just be silly.

(How many of you have followed those new laptop users that send posts to the support boards asking why their fonts aren't crisp, etc., when in fact they are running their LCD laptop at it's non-standard size? It's painful to watch. Then you have to "listen" to them continually complain about the quality of their display... when it's really the settings that are to blame along with their lack of understanding of the technology they are using!)

The PDA world is better off not even getting into that mess. Let's let MSFT take it's time to, as Jason points out, "Do it right." In the meantime let's collectively ask MSFT work on stuff like activestink, connection mangler AND last, but not least, REAL word and excel tools for the PDA!!!

We can get to screen resolution later... get the basics working properly first... PLEASE...

With 40 BILLION in the bank I think they are more then capable of doing both. This isn't Palm we are talking about who laid off nearly a quarter of their staff. Microsoft HAS the resources to fix ALL of the issues that plague the Pocket PC BUT, and you can roll your eyes on this, the conspiracy theorist in my thinks that you make it too good and what reason would users have to upgrade. (XP vs Win 95, 98, ME as an example.) Bob MS can do higher resolutions. It will just take a bit of real innovation and ingenuity to make it work right. As for hardware…please. :roll: I don’t see any problems on the Clie.

[Bob Anderson]

I say this because reality is the bulk of PDA users wouldn't want to have that much more resolution crammed into the same form factor. And the headaches that come along with the "doubling pixels" effect on our platform would just be silly.

(How many of you have followed those new laptop users that send posts to the support boards asking why their fonts aren't crisp, etc., when in fact they are running their LCD laptop at it's non-standard size? It's painful to watch. Then you have to "listen" to them continually complain about the quality of their display... when it's really the settings that are to blame along with their lack of understanding of the technology they are using!)
As has already been pointed out, Palm's pixel-doubling method works just fine. The end result for apps that don't do anything "extra" to take advantage of it are smoother fonts. The problem with funky fonts on a laptop is because changing a laptop's 1024x768 (for example) resolution to 800x600 doesn't scale evenly, so ever 3rd (just throwing these numbers out here) pixel has to get dropped. Going upwards from 240x320 to 480x640 would simply require pixel-doubling and so wouldn't result in any defects.

Of course, 480x640 is a lot of pixels to have to light up. Given current battery technology, the devices would need to be fairly thick to account for a decent sized battery.

Scott

Scott - yeah, I guess if the screen was limited to 480 X 640 then I guess the "doubling" approach would be OK... but that won't satisfy the "power users" that are complaining the loudest... they'd just say why can't I do (insert some strange pixel combination, or 16:9 format, or ???) and would beat up MSFT because it didn't deliver something better. :roll: If you want something with better resolution, I think you'd be better off with a Tablet PC.

Jason mentioned something about really seeing MSFT distinguishing between market segments, i.e., Smartphone, Pocket PC, Tablet PC, et. al. and I think this screen resolution issue is EXACTLY the kind of issue where segmenting the market makes sense... Do we really need to have a full 320x240 on a smartphone? If so, why don't I move up to a PPC Phone Edition; what 320x240 isn't enough on my PPC? Why not move up to a Tablet PC?

Listening to some complain, I should be able to run a full length DVD with surround sound on my PPC! Yeah, well, in 5 years we probably will... but for the next version we'll just have to live with better activesync functionality! :lol:
I should have mentioned, however, that I think MSFT should at the very least support landscape and portrait modes on the next gen PPC.

[PJE]

I think all this talk of arbitary screen resolutions is just confusing the issue. I feel the resolution jump should be to 640x480 with the option for portrait and landscape. Sharp has already shown a PocketPC sized 640x480 display when has been reported to be very good.

Most PocketPCs currently use a graphics co-processor, so it should be relatively easy to add the scaling for backwards compatibility. I'll leave 800x600 and widescreen for PocketPC 2004 :wink:

My 2c.

[Bob Anderson]

With 40 BILLION in the bank I think they are more then capable of doing both. This isn't Palm we are talking about who laid off nearly a quarter of their staff. Microsoft HAS the resources to fix ALL of the issues that plague the Pocket PC BUT, and you can roll your eyes on this, the conspiracy theorist in my thinks that you make it too good and what reason would users have to upgrade. (XP vs Win 95, 98, ME as an example.) Bob MS can do higher resolutions. It will just take a bit of real innovation and ingenuity to make it work right. As for hardware…please. :roll: I don’t see any problems on the Clie.

Jonathan - yep, you're right, MSFT has 40 Billion + in the bank -- but lest us forget how they got it there in the first place: Innovation at the appropriate times and places.

If I'm not mistaken, MSFT is losing money on it's mobile business right now. Bill Gates isn't stupid, he's not going to pull the plug on PPC and Smartphone, but he's not going to triple his spending on it either! How do you think his company ended up with so much cash - it's called balanced managment, that's what it is.

As for your conspiracy theory... about not making it too good, I can see merit to that... after all, Windows 98 is what 95 should have been from the get go, and an argument could be made that XP is what should have come after 98, instead of ME and NT 2000...

The key difference, between the mobile (PDA) market and the core O/S scenario is that MSFT had no competition in the O/S market, really... whereas in the Mobile market they are still the underdog. MSFT likes to be the market share leader, therefore as assets are available it will invest them to develop market share and profitablility... I highly doubt that screen resolution, for the costs to do it "right", will deliver better results than say, making Word and Excel docs truely usable on the PPC device...

I bet you the new PPC O/S will, for all intents and purposes, blow us away like they did a couple years ago when the first PPC O/S came out, whether or not screen resolution is changed.

[Timothy Rapson]

Right now the PalmOS development environment is become horribly fragmented; 106x160, 320x320, 320x240, 320x480....it's a mess. And there is a trade off with higher resolutions; . Have you seen hi-res text on the Tungsten T and Sony models? It appears microscopic in size.

So take heed, higher res isn't always a pixel utopia.

Couldn't disagree more.

This is not that hard. My NR can run many text programs in full HVGA even with the oddest screen in the Palm world. Full-screen lets 90% of text programs work just as if they had been written for HVGA. Now, the PPC is more of a GUI based OS, supporting TT fonts in virtually all programs, but, since this is built in on PPC, the fonts should scale without any help. Only bitmapped dialog boxes should require any real work.

Of course, the real programs, the suites and WordSmith did have a ton of work to do in making up their own font schemes. But they all managed it. It should be far easier on PPC.

And the screen smoothness is well worth the work. It looks great. Full VGA is doable on Zaurus with fair battery life and screen redraw times. (as another poster noted above.) Even my 66 MZ dragonball is plenty fast to redraw the screen.

What was the first consumer screen independent OS? NeXT? It ran on a 33 MZ Motorola 68000. Any new X-scale should be able to scale it for VGA.

[Jason Dunn]

I have one question......Why is 320x240 such a bad thing?

160 x 160 = abysmal
320 x 240 = decent
640 x 480 = to die for

Text on the newer Palm devices is nice and CRISP - it looks so natural.

More pixels on the screen = higher DPI = better readability.

[EvilOne]

Making things work better or be more compatible is more important to me than different screen resolutions. M$ still has some issues with their ActiveSync that they need to work out along with making their "Pocket" versions work better with their desktop companions. But of course this is just me. Don't get me wrong, I would love to see other things happen with the PDA, but I think fixing things that are known issues/problems should be a high priority.

[daS]

I’ve seen a demo of VERY impressive vectored graphics scaling software on a Pocket PC. It can take a large number of file formats such as Word and Excel plus images and even video 8O and scale them in real-time to any arbitrary resolution. I zoomed in on a document until the screen was filled with just a portion of a single letter, which still showed smooth curves! :infinity:

Unfortunately, the company that produces this wonder is only interested in OEM deals, so we may never see it on our own Pocket PCs :cry: , but it eliminates any arguments that this can’t be done on the current platform.

The problem as I see it is simply lazy programmers. Instead of using the tools that are provided to dynamically size controls based on the screen and font sizes, they take the easy way by assuming that all Pocket PCs are 320x240. Microsoft is as guilty of this as anyone else: Have you even had the alarm notification dialog pop up on startup when you’re in landscape mode? The buttons you need are positioned off the screen! The dialog has so little on it that it would have been easy to dynamically size it, but they just didn’t bother. Sure the OS doesn’t use a completely vectored GUI, but the tools are there to allow different size system fonts, the programmers only have to elect to use them. :roll:

Allowing other screen resolutions would simply expose all the programs that were not designed with growth in mind. Perhaps a few years of Windows CE.NET devices with various screen sizes (anyone seen the Samsung Nexio (http://www.samsungelectronics.com/pda/index.html)?) will allow developers to fix the sloppiness and then we can see these screens show up on the Pocket PC platform. 8)

[PJE]

Making things work better or be more compatible is more important to me than different screen resolutions. M$ still has some issues with their ActiveSync that they need to work out along with making their "Pocket" versions work better with their desktop companions. But of course this is just me. Don't get me wrong, I would love to see other things happen with the PDA, but I think fixing things that are known issues/problems should be a high priority.

Agreed, but Microsoft is a big company they can work on more than one thing at once.

Here's a thought. Why not sell the 320x240 devices as PocketPCs and the 640x480 units as PocketPC Pros. They could use the same base software, but imagine PocketWord at the higher resolution with full table/graphic support... drool!

PJE

[Jason Dunn]

With 40 BILLION in the bank I think they are more then capable of doing both.

If you think the mobile devices team has access to all that money, or an unlimited amount of resources, you have no clue how Microsoft or any other enterprise works. Best stick to what you know.

[Jonathan1]

I

The problem as I see it is simply lazy programmers. Instead of using the tools that are provided to dynamically size controls based on the screen and font sizes, they take the easy way by assuming that all Pocket PCs are 320x240. Microsoft is as guilty of this as anyone else: Have you even had the alarm notification dialog pop up on startup when you’re in landscape mode? The buttons you need are positioned off the screen! The dialog has so little on it that it would have been easy to dynamically size it, but they just didn’t bother. Sure the OS doesn’t use a completely vectored GUI, but the tools are there to allow different size system fonts, the programmers only have to elect to use them. :roll:


David. The thing is all Pocket PCs ARE that res. They have been for close to 3 years now. There is NO pocket PC out there to date that has gone above or below the 320x240 res. It’s a standard on the Pocket PC. Its not a matter of being lazy. It’s a matter of money, time, resources, and practicality. A programmer shouldn't have to try and anticipate what changes are going to go into the next round of OSs. They deal with the here and now. Heck we don't even know IF MS is going to change the res at this point and you are suggesting that people spend more time on the "what if" principle.
*shrugs* My .02 cents.

[Jonathan1]

With 40 BILLION in the bank I think they are more then capable of doing both.

If you think the mobile devices team has access to all that money, or an unlimited amount of resources, you have no clue how Microsoft or any other enterprise works. Best stick to what you know.

Jason. So you are telling me that IF Microsoft, or Gates, wanted to they couldn't access that money? It’s all a matter of choices. If Microsoft wanted to could they not throw the PPC development team 500 million which if memory serves is how much they threw into the advertising campaign for the X-Box when it was released. My point was that they could work on both....if properly funded.

PS-40 billion has been among other things used to buy and invest in other companies. You'd think that if they can by companies left and right they could invest in their own product. You'd think...

[Duncan]

320 x 240 works just fine at this point in time. Looking through my PPC apps I'd be hard pressed to find anything that doesn't use the resolution beautifully.

640 x 480 will:

1) Require a faster more efficicient processor

2) Considerably more RAM - just to keep pace with the current abilities of the platform!

3) More battery power (Sony - nice screen BUT pathetic battery life).

4) The rewriting of countless excellent programs - leading to a lull in application improvement and development.

5) Better screen tech - all those extra pixels will just suck power as they all need to be lit.

6) Be wasted in most apps that the PDA form factor is ideal for. Yes games and Office apps (and arguably internet - though I have no probs with Thunderhawk) - but what else?

Not to say that 640 x 480 shouldn't happen in time - but the device needs to have next gen fuel cell power, OLED type screens and 800mhz processors to be worthwhile - assuming that these emerging techs. will lead to at least the same usable life and speed as we currently have - and I'm not paying over the price of an iPAQ 5450 for one. The ceiling has been reached there.

Crystal ball time though - I reckon that the next PPC OS (2003/2004) will have two resolutions built in - portrait and landscape. That will be enough of an improvement for the time being. Otherwise I'm not buying another PPC until the improvements outlined in the paragraph above have been introduced!

[daS]

David. The thing is all Pocket PCs ARE that res. They have been for close to 3 years now. There is NO pocket PC out there to date that has gone above or below the 320x240 res. It’s a standard on the Pocket PC. Its not a matter of being lazy. It’s a matter of money, time, resources, and practicality. A programmer shouldn't have to try and anticipate what changes are going to go into the next round of OSs. They deal with the here and now. Heck we don't even know IF MS is going to change the res at this point and you are suggesting that people spend more time on the "what if" principle.
*shrugs* My .02 cents.
I’ll admit that my use of the word lazy was more than a bit harsh. :oops: My comments were more directed to those that were implying that there was some inherent limitation of the Pocket PC platform preventing different size screens.

I have managed quite a few handheld development projects, and with the exception of those that were expected to run on Handheld PCs and tablet type CE devices (like the Fujitsu 150) we never bothered with dynamic sizing either. So I either include myself in the lazy category :wink: , or agree with you that it’s a matter of priority and resources. On the other hand, the programming guidelines suggest one does otherwise. Also, Microsoft could make it easier. They have started with things like side and corner anchors for controls in the .NET Framework, but I can’t recall if these are supported in the Compact Framework.

The point is, if the controls (especially MFC controls) handled different size fonts and easier dynamic positioning then it could be done.

[Fishie]

With 40 BILLION in the bank I think they are more then capable of doing both.

If you think the mobile devices team has access to all that money, or an unlimited amount of resources, you have no clue how Microsoft or any other enterprise works. Best stick to what you know.

Jason. So you are telling me that IF Microsoft, or Gates, wanted to they couldn't access that money? It’s all a matter of choices. If Microsoft wanted to could they not throw the PPC development team 500 million which if memory serves is how much they threw into the advertising campaign for the X-Box when it was released. My point was that they could work on both....if properly funded.

PS-40 billion has been among other things used to buy and invest in other companies. You'd think that if they can by companies left and right they could invest in their own product. You'd think...


Yes they did but not only does the XBox sell better then the PPC they also get a cut FOR EVERY PIECE OF SOFTWARE SOLD for the XBox and they are still bleeding money on it.

In any case, ive witnessed the beauty of a ce.net 640 by 480 screen and my Intermec with its older HPC2000 OS has a similarly gobsmacking 800 by 480 screen and things work ok there for most text based programs, Avantgo however for instance is a complete disaster with text so small that even those with the best of eyes need strong magnifying glasses to be able to read the text.
A lot of PPC programs will struggle unles reworked to take advantage and regardles of resolution, if you make a PPC with a vga res screen you run into a different problem, the aspect ratio of the screen is completely different from that of a tv/monitor so text on a website will be cropped up.
For those wondering yes the CE based high res screens killed the NR70s screen.

[daS]

320 x 240 works just fine at this point in time. Looking through my PPC apps I'd be hard pressed to find anything that doesn't use the resolution beautifully.
Try to think outside the Pocket PC box. :wink: Microsoft has killed the Handheld PC because it had a limited market. Unfortunately, those people and companies that needed a keyboard and larger screen don’t have any options with the Pocket PC. However, if the Pocket PC platform supported different size screens, then there would be potential for clamshell devices.
Be wasted in most apps that the PDA form factor is ideal for. Yes games and Office apps (and arguably internet - though I have no probs with Thunderhawk) - but what else?

Well considering that the Pocket Office and PIE applications are major reasons many people buy Pocket PCs, I would think that a higher resolution screen with be very welcome!

But as for the “what else”. How about almost any vertical market application? Every medical application for the Pocket PC I have been involved in found the screen real estate to be the most limiting factor. Doctors wanted larger fonts and/or more information on the screen. However, they didn’t want to carry around a device with the size and weight and pathetic battery life of a full-size tablet PC. The Pocket PC (or more specifically, Windows CE) offer instant on, greater software stability and easier support than Windows 9x/NT devices, but a bigger screen would be very welcome for most applications.

[Skoobouy]

Not underestimating the challenge posed by allowing 640x480 displays, I still think that there will be some urgency on the matter sooner than people know. Look, two years ago PalmOS defenders said "We don't need no stinkin' QVGA." We simply cannot make the same mistake.

I agree with Jason that VGA Pocket PCs need to be done right, but I don't think they need to be absolutely flawless. The clock is ticking, the competition is heating up, and QVGA Windows CE screens have been around for a very, very long time. If the Microsoft Mobile is telling us that it is simply too difficult to do "correctly," then I can't help but question whether they are not guilty of a lapse of foresight.

If VGA PocketPCs aren't a reality within 18 months from now, Microsoft Mobile will be deadlocked in a catchup game with Palm. And that would just be sick and sad.

[Paragon]

With 40 BILLION in the bank I think they are more then capable of doing both. This isn't Palm we are talking about who laid off nearly a quarter of their staff. Microsoft HAS the resources to fix ALL of the issues that plague the Pocket PC BUT, and you can roll your eyes on this, the conspiracy theorist in my thinks that you make it too good and what reason would users have to upgrade. (XP vs Win 95, 98, ME as an example.) Bob MS can do higher resolutions. It will just take a bit of real innovation and ingenuity to make it work right. As for hardware…please. :roll: I don’t see any problems on the Clie.

Oh Jonathan.....Your self medicating again aren't you....I can tell. Your using words like conspiracy, and rolling your eyes. You scare me when you do that. :D

As Jason mentioned The PPC team does not have access to an unlimited amount of funds. Any department regardless of how well the corporation as a whole are doing are only going to be allowed to loose so much money. The PPC dept. at MS is loosing millions every year.

You and I both moderate on another forum and there for read a ton of posts. We both know there is no single issue more talked about, more cursed than Activesync. I for one of probably millions would rather see them spend their time and resources on fixing thing like that before they go and mess it all up again with something like better screen resolution.

I truly believe that for most people this issue is way down the list of importance.

Dave

[guinness]

Going VGA on a PPC would be all fine and good (assuming that the size of the screen would increase as well, NVD was pretty hard to use in VGA res, even in landscape mode on my Axim). I would personally go for allowing for landscape as it makes it easier to read Word, Excel, or web pages. VGA would only be useful for me if it had a 5-6" screen, smaller than, I would find it hard to read anything.

[HR]

I am puzzled by the people who question why we need higher resolution. It's like asking why we need bigger harddrives or memory. This is a rhetorical question.

And to all those who think that it is unimportant because it is used only for multimedia and games, not so. If you really want to have a good user experience editing a word doc or viewing a web page on a 4' screen, you need to go to a higher resolution. This will make possible to cram more text into the same screen. In other words, smaller text becomes readable. Take a look at the typical newspaper print. It is pretty small, yet readable, because of the very "high resolution" that regular print allows.

[Paragon]

Hey HR

Being one who has questioned why. I think I should make it clear, I'm not against it at all. I just believe there are higher priorities. :)

Dave

[adamz]

Why didn't anyone buy the 640x480 and 800x600 Windows CE Handheld PC Professional devices that were out years ago? Those had all your high-resolution, large screens, instant on, lightweight, good battery life features that you're complaining about. Heck, they even had built in keyboards!
Higher resolution is fine, but don't go making Pocket PCs that don't fit in pockets.

[surur]

Im sure there are plenty of people here who paid $500-700 for their pocketpc.

That market has now gone with the $300 pocketpc's, and it would take something very amazing to get people to pay that much again for one.

Having said that, those people who paid those prices were obviously willing and able to spend that much, but would require the features to justify it.

Besides wireless (which is already becoming comoditized (especially by toshiba)) the killer differentiating feature is obviously a hi-res screen (not a fingerprint reader :wink: ) and Im surprized the OEM's arnt pushing for it, if only to protect their gigantic profit margins.

I think microsoft should wake up and smell the coffee. Im also wondering if its not all about pushing people to tablet pc's instead, if only for the higher res and bigger screens.

Surur

[Kathy_Harris]

Speaking as a person that would like to get more than 1600x1200 on their 15" laptop screen, a minimum of 320x320 is a must for PPC, with an option for 640x480 (if that can be swung). It would probably make my PPC 2x as usable.

[Bob Anderson]

With 40 BILLION in the bank I think they are more then capable of doing both. This isn't Palm we are talking about who laid off nearly a quarter of their staff. Microsoft HAS the resources to fix ALL of the issues that plague the Pocket PC BUT, and you can roll your eyes on this, the conspiracy theorist in my thinks that you make it too good and what reason would users have to upgrade. (XP vs Win 95, 98, ME as an example.) Bob MS can do higher resolutions. It will just take a bit of real innovation and ingenuity to make it work right. As for hardware…please. :roll: I don’t see any problems on the Clie.

Oh Jonathan.....Your self medicating again aren't you....I can tell. Your using words like conspiracy, and rolling your eyes. You scare me when you do that. :D

As Jason mentioned The PPC team does not have access to an unlimited amount of funds. Any department regardless of how well the corporation as a whole are doing are only going to be allowed to loose so much money. The PPC dept. at MS is loosing millions every year.

You and I both moderate on another forum and there for read a ton of posts. We both know there is no single issue more talked about, more cursed than Activesync. I for one of probably millions would rather see them spend their time and resources on fixing thing like that before they go and mess it all up again with something like better screen resolution.

I truly believe that for most people this issue is way down the list of importance.

Dave

Well put... It's not that more screen resolution wouldn't be nice, it's just that in comparison to other issues with PPC, screen resolution is not nearly as important!!! And to think for a minute there I thought common sense on this forum was dead!!!

[Will T Smith]

http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=80469#80469

[Cypher]

Pocket PC OS has a bit of advantage here. The TrueType fonts are scalable, unlike Palms series of fixed-sized fonts. The UI is fairly scalable too. A scaled-up resolution wouldn't look as "jaggy" as the scaled-up Palm apps do. The real problem, as you see when you play with NVD or JSLandscapeX, is when the dialogs are formatted to a particular orientation and you're using the rotated (90 degrees) variation.

I suspect, due to costs, quadruple-resolution PPCs would be relagated to the high end. I'd be very interested in such a beast, primarily for word processing, e-book reading, and spreadsheet work. It'd also be nice for videos.

[daS]

I suspect, due to costs, quadruple-resolution PPCs would be relagated to the high end. I'd be very interested in such a beast, primarily for word processing, e-book reading, and spreadsheet work. It'd also be nice for videos.

Well the Samsung Nexio that I noted in my previous post is the closest thing I've seen yet. VGA screen, slightly bigger than a Pocket PC, but not too much. A fold down keyboard. Too bad they don't see a market here in North America! :cry:

[Jonathan1]

I truly believe that for most people this issue is way down the list of importance.

Dave

:P HEHE. True. It isn't #1 on EVERYONE'S list. It just is on mine. That's why my next device after my Jornada will most likely be the Samsung’s NEXiO that runs CE.NET and 800 X 480. That’s' assuming that I can import it into the US. :P

[toshtoshtosh]

Pretty much everything has been said already, so I'll just throw in my vote in one of the camps. 640x480 WILL make a huge difference in usability once properly implemented. Too bad it looks like we're gonna have to wait a bit longer.

PS: I'm not sure if one of the MVPs here confirmed that there is no 640x480 in the next PPC OS, but ed on brighthand indicated that this is indeed the case.

[st63z]

I'd vote for VGA and landscape support, too. 4" VGA screen on the same form-factor PPC. The hardware side of this seems to have become almost commodity (per the # of other ~4" VGA handheld devices as have been mentioned in past threads). The software side (both OS reworking and next-gen apps) for a straight-up backward-compatible pixel quadrupling definitely seems doable too, though I see the point about fracturing the market base into 2. But if Palm has the guts to move forward in such a fashion...

And you can't deny the advantages of approaching 200ppi... seems everyone's targeting 200-300ppi as the holy-grail "paper" resolution that will make everything better :) Smaller fonts and widgets become readable, so many things become more possible...

[Duncan]

I think we have to distinguish the difference between WANTING VGA resolution and it being a GOOD IDEA.

If I could have VGA in a PPC form factor without losing anything in terms of power and speed and knowing that I could continue to use forms of PPC software I have come to trust and depend on - then absolutely, bring it on!

However - currently VGA would mean slower, more power hungry and a period of waiting while software I need gets updated.

Thus I will only ask for VGA WHEN it becomes practical - OLED screens, newer types of fuel cells (instead of current battery tech.), faster processors and a sufficient period of time/amount of incentive for current PPC software to get the necessary upgrades.

There is no great hurry here. Palm may be 320 x 320 now but they are hamstrung by the need to support several types of processor, three different resolution sizes (and different approaches to using those resolution sizes - cf. the Tungsten T and Clie N? series uses of 320 x 320) and colour/black and white. Soon they will have three not quite entirely compatible OSs all in current Palm OS based machines!

I reckon that MS can afford to take their time and let technology catch up to the point where 640 x 480 is practical and makes real sense - which (despite the Zaurus and the CE.net machines - not directly comparable to the PPC for a number of reasons...) is not now!

[PJE]

I think there is a reason everyone's screaming (well I am) for 640x480 support. PocketPC 2000 and PocketPC 2002 will both have been on the market for 18 months by the time they are replaced (given the rumors).

In 18 month's time Palms will have super high resolution screens. I t is therefore IMPERATIVE that microsoft sets the resolution bar high, even if there is no hardware forthcoming for the next 12 months. It will force all programmers developing new software to take into account screen size and rotation when they are programming. Thus when the new 640x480 (or higher) machines - and also mini tablets such as Mira 2 or whatever they call it, there will be a supply of quality software from the start.

The main reason that the old tablet/clam shell windows CE devices did not suceed was LACK OF SOFTWARE! Until software is written it's the chicken & egg problem.

Forcing PocketPC to be Portrait/Landscape and allow resolutions higher than 320x240 will prime the market for software for these new machines.

My 2c

PJE

[sub_tex]

The main reason that the old tablet/clam shell windows CE devices did not suceed was LACK OF SOFTWARE! Until software is written it's the chicken & egg problem.

Well, that and the fact that they cost almost as much as a laptop.

If the jornada 720, say, was 400 bucks, it would have sold a little more, and then people would be asking for apps, so developers would start making apps to make money.

But when only 10 people buy it because they're so expensive, there's no market there to even try and make apps for it.

I wouldn't.

[Jason Dunn]

And you can't deny the advantages of approaching 200ppi... seems everyone's targeting 200-300ppi as the holy-grail "paper" resolution that will make everything better :) Smaller fonts and widgets become readable, so many things become more possible...

You'll find zero arguments from me on this at all - higher PPI would be glorious, but my point in this article is that:

a) It's not as simple as people think it is
b) It might not be the right time to jump to 640 x 480 for a variety of reasons

[ctmagnus]

It might not be the right time to jump to 640 x 480 for a variety of reasons

Optomitrists would make a killing, though.

[Ekkie Tepsupornchai]

I've said before that I don't think 640x480 would be beneficial on a screen measuring 3.5". I do love the Sony resolutions of 480x320... THAT's sharp!!

As others have mentioned, you couldn't just pixel-double legacy apps though, so I see how this would not be a cut-and-dry change.

[HR]

I've said before that I don't think 640x480 would be beneficial on a screen measuring 3.5". Until you get to the 200-300 dpi resolution, any increase in resolution is beneficial.

[Ekkie Tepsupornchai]

I've said before that I don't think 640x480 would be beneficial on a screen measuring 3.5". Until you get to the 200-300 dpi resolution, any increase in resolution is beneficial.
Not with the trade-off in power for a portable device, it isn't...

[st63z]

Can someone explain just how much bigger a power draw this would be? So you have more (smaller) active-matrix (?) pixels on the screen to drive, and a bigger bandwidth/computational load for the CPU/graphics subsystem to manage. But about the same backlighting, etc, right?

Sure, would be nice to wait for OLED and such, but it seems the capability's already widely spread in existing hardware technologies. Are we saying all these other existing 4" VGA handhelds have really poor design?

[HR]

[quote=ekkie]I've said before that I don't think 640x480 would be beneficial on a screen measuring 3.5". Until you get to the 200-300 dpi resolution, any increase in resolution is beneficial.
Yes, but you can say this about storage, memory, processor power, or any technology in existence. The fact is that as technology improves, you will draw the same power with 640x480 display as you now draw from 240x320. If that were not the case and your line of logic prevailed, we would all be running with 64kb memory PDAs.

[Duncan]

We can draw parallels with laptops - as processor speed, screen size and screen resolution have increased, battery technology has not been able keep up.

That is why there are major pushes in three key areas of tech. -

Power - the need for a better 'fuel' source than the best existing battery technology.

Screens - the race to develop screens that emit their own light - thus getting rid of the need for a backlight - also displays that do not need to constantly refresh - instead doing so only when an image alters - and improvements on the current, expensive, pixel tech.

Processors - developing smarter (rather than faster), less power hungry processors e.g. Banias (or whatever it's called this week!).

Those three areas are as much a problem for PDAs as for laptops - and if PDAs are to become faster, run longer and have better displays - it isn't going to be on existing technology. We have hit a technological ceiling in all three areas - solutions are in preparation but not yet ready for prime time!

Are we saying all these other existing 4" VGA handhelds have really poor design?

Yes and no. The Sony NR/NX/NZ series Clies have pathetic battery life - shockingly poor (before anyone weighs in to contradict me - this is based on observation - a colleague has one - and users on Palm boards have been known to make the same observation!). The Palm Tungsten T also has a considerably poorer battery life than the models it replaces.

The clamshell handhelds - including the Zaurus and Handheld PCs - are bigger units with suitably bigger batteries.

Lets get things clear - VGA PDAs, with good battery life and fast processors will happen, and within a year or two, but only AFTER several new technologies have been 'released'. At this point in time you can't have VGA without suffering loss in other areas, and it would be several months before you had programs, in any number, that make use of the extra pixels.

[Ekkie Tepsupornchai]

[quote=ekkie]I've said before that I don't think 640x480 would be beneficial on a screen measuring 3.5". Until you get to the 200-300 dpi resolution, any increase in resolution is beneficial.
Not with the trade-off in power for a portable device, it isn't...[/quote
Yes, but you can say this about storage, memory, processor power, or any technology in existence. The fact is that as technology improves, you will draw the same power with 640x480 display as you now draw from 240x320. If that were not the case and your line of logic prevailed, we would all be running with 64kb memory PDAs.
You can only fall back on that logic to certain extent (the size of storage cards don't apply here).

The screen is easily the biggest power draw in day-to-day use and going from 320x240 to 640x480 is quadruple the number of pixels, not to mention the increased power you need from your CPU or graphics chip to keep that refreshed. Sure, as battery power increases and CPU technology gets better, 640x480 may become more feasible, but on a 3.5" screen, is the increase in DPI in going from say 480x320 to 640x480 worth sacrificing the amount of battery life you lose?

I say not, unless you want to increase the 3.5" screen size, which doesn't draw any extra power except in the fact that the unit has more physical area to light up.

Since PPCs have started up, we've seen HAST screens, sidelit reflective screens, and now backlit reflective screens. Each was an improvement in usability, though they all remained as the major power-drains to the unit. PPC manufacterers have had to improve all other aspects of the PPC to help boost battery life.

[Scott R]

I can't help but make the observation that this thread reminds me of what many PPC advocates have accused Palm advocates of in the past...Saying "who needs feature X" when only the competition has feature X.

Scott

[Ekkie Tepsupornchai]

I can't help but make the observation that this thread reminds me of what many PPC advocates have accused Palm advocates of in the past...Saying "who needs feature X" when only the competition has feature X.
Don't get me wrong Scott. I'd love to see PPC's go to the Sony resolution of 480x320. I've said that since my first post into this thread and it's one of the reasons I do envy the later Sony models. I just don't see the extra benefit (especially in light of the trade-off) of going from 480x320 to 640x480 on a 3.5" screen. It's a margin of diminishing returns... that's all I'm saying.

...and I certainly don't know of any pocket held competition that goes to 640x480.

[Gen-M]

I don't see where the built-in screen should be the constraint - Toshiba e740 with expansion pack supports external VGA screens. The IIS CF Head Mounted Display and hold-to-eye displays support VGA for any PPC with a CF slot. Margi and Colorgraphics have supported VGA or better for presentation for a while now.

All I'm asking for is that the operating system support VGA. Programmers will not program to VGA or variable resolution unless there is a potential return. Supporting VGA in the OS will promote that.

Some of us would like to keep our Pocket PC in our pocket. The only real need for a built-in screen is to share what is displayed with others, or to draw a diagram or use handwriting recognition.

[Fishie]

Urm can someone here explain me why a 3.8 inch vga screen would draw more power to lit the screen then a 3.8 inch screen with say a res of 160 by 160.

Its not the pixels that give light its the front or backlight so the increase in powerconsumption would still be lower with backlight turned of on a vga screen then it would be on a 210 by 320 screen with the backlight on its lightest level right?

If so how can annyone claim it would greatly diminish battery life?

Yeah you have more pixels to feed but the pixel dont need much electricity themselves and most of the juice is needed for the back/frontlight so please can someone explain(be as technical as you wanna be) why it would be such a great extra drain on battery power.

[st63z]

^ That's what I'd also asked in my earlier post...

As to VGA handhelds, I have a short memory, I'd have to search past threads. But there were at least like 4-5 other units counted off as I recall.. Not readily available mass market competition, but... Plus many announcements of such high-ppi handheld screens being made available by component manufacturers in various sizes...

That bsquare WinCE unit with the landscape format and pop-out keyboard and 4" VGA as I recall. And the OQO and that T-something units, both desktop Windows units in PPC handheld size, both w/ 4" VGA as I recall. And that old one that's a little bit bigger, I forget what it was, you know, the one w/ the Bluetooth stylus or whatnot that's been shown around for the past few years (not sure if it ever made it to market). And that Samsung Nexio (I think) w/ the wide VGA (800x480), but I think it has almost a 5" wide screen though... Hmm, I know I'm forgetting a couple...

Anyways, I think it's easier to make a high-ppi screen in small handheld sizes, although IBM, ViewSonic, etc, already have like 200ppi large-screen monitors available as I recall...

[PJE]

Urm can someone here explain me why a 3.8 inch vga screen would draw more power to lit the screen then a 3.8 inch screen with say a res of 160 by 160.

There shouldn't be much difference in the actual power used by the display - the backlight will be the same, but the power for the drive electronics will be differencr (although not significantly).

There will be a power hit from the computation to manipulate the screen memory, but this could be relatively small for most applications if there is an off-CPU graphics chip with enhanced capabilities. For applications like Word which have fairly static displays the power difference would be relatively small, but games may take more power.

As much as I'd like 640x480, battery life is equally important and must be balanced. If you can get a dual SDIO slot VGA PocketPC in the same size as my Axim (using the CF space for more battery) I'd be very happy.

PJE

[st63z]

P.S. MS would sure do a lot of good if they'd re-design all their various Windows GUIs for this level of PPI... :) Ah but I'm going round and round in a circular argument to what Jason has said...

[Fishie]

Exactly what I tought, the battery hit wouldnt be all that big, meaning other things in the Clie´s are eating away battery life.
My Intermec 6651 has a screen that simply kills that of all the Ipaqs and Clie´s out there, resolution is an incredible 800 by 480 and the screen is 8inch or so meaning the backlight has to cover far more realestate.
Yet with an 1800MaH battery I can get up to 10 houres of use.

So claiming that a higher resolution PPC would simply eat away the batteries seems seriously misinformed to say the least.

Im all for it.

[HR]

The screen is easily the biggest power draw in day-to-day use and going from 320x240 to 640x480 is quadruple the number of pixels, not to mention the increased power you need from your CPU or graphics chip to keep that refreshed. Sure, as battery power increases and CPU technology gets better, 640x480 may become more feasible, but on a 3.5" screen, is the increase in DPI in going from say 480x320 to 640x480 worth sacrificing the amount of battery life you lose?

I say not, unless you want to increase the 3.5" screen size, which doesn't draw any extra power except in the fact that the unit has more physical area to light up.

Since PPCs have started up, we've seen HAST screens, sidelit reflective screens, and now backlit reflective screens. Each was an improvement in usability, though they all remained as the major power-drains to the unit. PPC manufacterers have had to improve all other aspects of the PPC to help boost battery life.
This is the typical I vs you argument…But this is not what I am arguing.

Fine. Maybe now you prefer more time between charges and less resolution and I prefer more resolution and less time. But this is not the issue. The issue is that in time, the 640x480 will draw the same power that a 320x240 draws now. So, power being equal, would you prefer less resolution (or memory, or processing, etc.)? I don't think so.

[ppcsurfr]

I think a 640x480 screen on a Pocket PC is pointless. A 320x 480 screen would be lovely... but anything beyond that might not be noticeable as you will have to render ovjects to be bigger anyway.

I guess the best option is to allow for higher res external devices like monitors which may use some for of graphics accelerator card or so.

[HR]

I think a 640x480 screen on a Pocket PC is pointless. A 320x 480 screen would be lovely... but anything beyond that might not be noticeable as you will have to render ovjects to be bigger anyway.

I guess the best option is to allow for higher res external devices like monitors which may use some for of graphics accelerator card or so.
Not exactly.
The higher the resolution, the smaller font you can use, which means smaller print (like a newspaper), which means way more text on the screen real-estate, which means less scrolling, which means better user experience.

As I have repeated many times before, more memory, more display, more storage is inevitable in the world of computers/PDAs/etc. Otherwise, we will all be running 286s, with 64kb of RAM and 2M harddrives.

[SteveR]

More pixels, like more of anything, would probably be nice. I wouldn't turn such device(s) down, even though I'm just as lazy a programmer as everyone else and I make my screens out of 240x320 dialog boxes.

What I REALLY want is a StrongARM/XScale with decent floating point capability. Applications that would fly running on an AMD Elan 486 board :!: are rather painful to operate when ported to the iPaqs and the Intermec 700 that I'm coding for now, even with nearly 10x MHz ratings.

So what I want is math co-processing, Santa. You can keep your fancy-schmancy screens.

Steve

[HR]

More pixels, like more of anything, would probably be nice. I wouldn't turn such device(s) down, even though I'm just as lazy a programmer as everyone else and I make my screens out of 240x320 dialog boxes.

What I REALLY want is a StrongARM/XScale with decent floating point capability. Applications that would fly running on an AMD Elan 486 board :!: are rather painful to operate when ported to the iPaqs and the Intermec 700 that I'm coding for now, even with nearly 10x MHz ratings.

So what I want is math co-processing, Santa. You can keep your fancy-schmancy screens.

Steve
Well put.

They just have to fix the slow bus problem.

[Janak Parekh]

What I REALLY want is a StrongARM/XScale with decent floating point capability.
Hmm, you're not going to see this soon. :( By removing the floating-point unit, they managed to squeeze down the size and power consumption substantially. This has been one of the traditional tenets of ARM chips, across-the-board. Maybe when next-gen batteries come out...?

--janak