My Palm Zire 72, with a slightly slower chip destroys my Ipaq 4155 when it comes to connecting to the Internet
yes... it takes my WiFi-equipped Clie 5 seconds to connect to a public access point ( even in the midst of NUMEROUS APs )... while it takes my Loox 610 BT/WLAN about a "turn-off WiFi," then a "soft-reset," then a "turn-on WiFi" to connect... and this usually takes around 5 minutes - waiting for the PPC to pick-up the signal, and find the right profile for it...
It's always fun to get into these "holy wars" over which platform is best.
I personally have devices in both camps. (I guess I have MPD.) I love both my main devices (T3 for POS and iPAQ 3955 w/ CF sleeve & batt). I can't pick a device to be "the one." The T3 is easy to use, the screen is super sensitive (I don't have to carve out the graffiti letters), it has DateBk5 (still better than PI), and I have tons of software collected through the years. The iPAQ has wi-fi, the today screen (Pocket Breeze rocks), and better multipedia capabilities (mmplayer on Palm never worked well for me). Each has their strengths. I find it's easier to get to a program and enter information on a Palm than it is on a PPC, but the PPC's today screen makes it easier to see what information I'm looking for with out having to open up an app. So, I'm torn. I look into upgrading the iPAQ (probably with a Dell something since they're generally inexpensive) to see if that might tilt the scales in that direction, but who knows. One thing's for sure in my mind, PalmOne better put out better devices for the power user, or they're going to lose the high end of their base. The T5 is not getting very much (any?) good press from anyone, and even some developers are expressing their frustration/disappointment with PalmOne and the direction they're headed. With Sony seemingly out of the market, PalmOne doesn't have much in the way of competition within the POS ranks, and I fear they're either going to dump the standalone devices (in favor of Treo-like products) or end up losing everything because of people jumping ship. When the developers stop making new programs or improvements to their old programs because PalmOne won't share device specific info with them, they're only going ot have themselves to blame. They need to innovate and come out with something new (at least a device with integrated wi-fi for crying out loud - not make me buy an add-on card that I can only get through them and priced higher than a similar competitive card which won't work because they don't want to share code), and giving more info to the devlopers would be a wise thing, too. Just my 2c worth. </rant>
Actually there are alot of settings on PalmOS that power users can learn to use and alot of third party apps provide hacking utility to satisfy any geeky lust. zLauncher for example, is the best launcher ever on any platforms with so much power in it that it probably deserves to be licensed as a separate GUI for other platforms.
Its a bit mad to say that PalmOS users are 'low' and PPC users are intelligent because they go the extra mile to learn how to operate the device. It proves that PalmOS = easy, PPC = complicated
However seeing the situation in palminfocenter where every little faults are whined about is quite depressing of late.
On PPC, a developer will usually come in discuss the problems with users and try to come up with a solution but on most PalmOS community its just whine whine whine... until palmOne has to come out and give out free 128Mb cards.
Its like giving a toy to a toddler to shut them. I can't fault them since many PalmOS power users act like babies. They demanded higher processing power, when it came they complained about the battery life. Palm tried to improve the battery like by releasing a ROM based PDA, and they complain. You just can't win with some of these people.
On PPC, a developer will usually come in discuss the problems with users and try to come up with a solution but on most PalmOS community its just whine whine whine... until palmOne has to come out and give out free 128Mb cards.
Its like giving a toy to a toddler to shut them. I can't fault them since many PalmOS power users act like babies. They demanded higher processing power, when it came they complained about the battery life. Palm tried to improve the battery like by releasing a ROM based PDA, and they complain. You just can't win with some of these people.
I disagree. First, the main reason developers and users are "whining" is because PalmOne is modifying the OS and not releasing API's. That makes it tough to develop third party apps, which is what power users want. Second, the battery issue could have easily been fixed by getting rid of the slider (which they did) alone. The ROM based OS (which was put out my PalmOne and not Palmsource if I heard correctly) would be nice if it wasn't a hastily put together pacthwork of bad design. I could care less about a ROM based OS if the kludges to make it work result in an incompatible device. I think that most people would have been happy with a sliderless T3 (maybe a bit thicker for increased battery life) and wifi. No need really to upgrade the memory since in general Palm apps are quite small. One of the hallmarks of the Palm platform has been its backwards compatibility. Even the upgrade to OS5 wasn't very traumatic (mainly because most of the code is run in an emulator). With this new device, lots of third party apps are having issues, including ridiculous startup/end times as a result of having to copy the files out of flash to RAM using a rather antiquated process (VFS). But why they still continue to put out "flagship" devices without wifi is beyond me.
Re: palm vs ppc
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