Moving to PPC, is VGA worth it (and must it be a 4 inch screen)

[hickssp]

With so many PPC coming it is just a matter of working out which one is worth investing in (and coming from a Sony, which manufactorer will not withdraw from the scene).

I have seen my friends HP4155 and with it's 3.5 inch SVGA screen I find it hard to image better clarity (for reading) in a VGA screen. How useful is VGA for reading docs and do you need to get a 4 inch screen (about 20% bigger than the FS 3.6 inch screen) rather than one of the smaller ones on offer from FS or Asus

[hickssp]

With so many PPC coming it is just a matter of working out which one is worth investing in (and coming from a Sony, which manufactorer will not withdraw from the scene).

I have seen my friends HP4155 and with it's 3.5 inch SVGA screen I find it hard to image better clarity (for reading) in a VGA screen. How useful is VGA for reading docs and do you need to get a 4 inch screen (about 20% bigger than the FS 3.6 inch screen) rather than one of the smaller ones on offer from FS or Asus

[DiGiTYZED]

It's not really better in my opinion. I have a 4" VGA PPC and I've played with all different types of font sizes, potrait and landscape modes, real vga and se vga and even different apps and couldn't find it easy to read. The font had to be really small and there was too much scrolling involved. It just was not efficent for me, I don't know how others do it. You could make the font size really small but unless you're Clark Kent or Jason Kidd you're going to have a hard time.

I will note that the documents were not really formatted for the PDA screen. I was viewing manuls in PDF format and documents converted from web pages to PDF and RepliGo format which I realize were formated for a real world screen. But if I think about it, those are real world uses.

[Janak Parekh]

I so totally disagree. It's not that somehow, magically, you'll be able to see 10 times more stuff on the screen -- your eye has limits as to how tiny the print can be. It's that the print on the smaller side of things is that much sharper and easier on your eyes, and is generally more readable, letting you handle a greater range of print with less eyestrain.

I find myself using WM2003SE's VGA mode by default most of the time. Things like games, documents, etc. are incredibly sharp. eBooks are fantastic. No, I'm not going to view 8.5"x11" PDFs in full-page view, and I don't see how that could be readable on a 4" screen even with higher resolutions... but reflow mode works extremely well, especially in RepliGo. SE_VGA is useful when applications aren't fully SE compatible or make things "too large".

And hickssp, you don't need a larger screen per se. By default, Second Edition increases the size of all the print so that it'd be very readable on a 3.6" screen. Take a look at this small article I wrote up to get an idea of what goes on and what the alternatives are. As to whether it's necessary, that's really up to you. I carry both 240x320 and a 480x640-based Pocket PCs around, and they're certainly both very functional.

--janak

[Duncan]

I find it hard to image better clarity (for reading) in a VGA screen. How useful is VGA for reading docs and do you need to get a 4 inch screen (about 20% bigger than the FS 3.6 inch screen) rather than one of the smaller ones on offer from FS or Asus

Standard VGA gives a huge amount of control over how much you show on the screen, and how detailed/clear it is.

The difference between 4" and 3.6 or 3.7" (the only current VGA alternatives) is not really significant. For each size of screen the smallest fonts are very readable, and each can be a bit of an eye strain at times...!

[DiGiTYZED]

See, Janak is obviously Clark Kent. I can't stand reading on my screen. It's unbearable.

Unless the text and document has been formatted for a PDA screen (like AvantGo channels/pages), forget it.

I don't feel I should have to tweak & twat and play with "reflow mode" if I paid $650 for a bigger screen.

AvantGo channels/pages are the only documents I can read with reasonable efficiency.