Palm Vs. PPC

[Oregon Trail]

I am buying a PDA as a gift. The user will not be interested in anything but using it for games, an alarm clock and perhaps a calculator. Which platform is better for games. Which platform has more games available? The user interested in casino, solitaire, matching games such as Bejeweled. Golf is also a possiblity. Golf would probably be the closest to an action game. I realize that screen size and color vary widely. Any suggestions? Currently a Casio E-125 is being used, but I am open to a Palm operating system.

[Menneisyys]

I am buying a PDA as a gift. The user will not be interested in anything but using it for games, an alarm clock and perhaps a calculator. Which platform is better for games. Which platform has more games available? The user interested in casino, solitaire, matching games such as Bejeweled. Golf is also a possiblity. Golf would probably be the closest to an action game. I realize that screen size and color vary widely. Any suggestions? Currently a Casio E-125 is being used, but I am open to a Palm operating system.

There aren't as many Palm OS games as for the Pocket PC, even if the "big players" like astraware (http://www.astraware.com/ ) and PDAMill ( http://www.pdamill.com/ ) pblish their games for both platforms. (I'd add that not all PPC games of PDAMill have been ported to the PPC ).

PPC has much better emulators and game parsing (for example, that of Lucasarts and Sierra) engines (see the list at http://www.pdarcade.com/modules.php?name=Sections&op=viewarticle&artid=102#37
); as for emulating MS-DOS (and making it opossible to play some old DOS games), see http://pocketpcmag.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=13745 .

There're very few Palm OS games that are painfully missing from Pocket PC; for example, Acedior (http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=36624 ) or Archon ( http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=40106 ).

The queston of screen quality, however, is another question. On this, you may want to read http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=39067 .

[Oregon Trail]

Thanks, that was my perception about availability. Any suggestions for a PPC?

[Menneisyys]

Thanks, that was my perception about availability. Any suggestions for a PPC?

I'd get a VGA device because of the screen. Of them, preferably an iPAQ hx4700, a Dell x50v or a Fujitsu-Siemens Pocket Loox 720. Please check out the link collection at http://discussion.brighthand.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=117248 on this question.

[Menneisyys]

I'd also add that the PPC is better than Palm because StyleTap, the new Palm emulator runs tons of Palm OS games very well. So, even if you see a Palm OS game that has no PPC version, you will have a great chance of being able to run it in the emulator. See http://www.firstloox.org//forums/showthread.php?p=28459 on this. The opposite direction is not true: there are no PPC emulators for Palm OS-based devices.

[Ripper014]

Considering that he is only using it for stock games... I would consider the latter... leaning more to the Loox... though not available easily in North America... only because of the size of the Hx4700 and the touchpad (not really an issue with the games your mentioning).

The cheapest alternative... and should work well with your requirements would be the Dell x50V... though it only has 64mb of ram... it is enough for what you want (battery life is lacking though).

The other choice is to take a little trip into Canada... and get a Toshiba e830... Vancouver is only a day trip away...