Palm vs Pocket PC on PocketNow

[marlof]

<a href="http://articles.pocketnow.com/content.cgi?db=articles&id=75">http://articles.pocketnow.com/content.cgi?db=articles&id=75</a><br /><br />On Pocketnow John F. Tudaro tries to give an open minded view on the pros and cons of Palm OS devices and Pocket PCs. His view is an interesting read, and I agree with many points he makes.<br /><br />Alas he still compares apples to oranges when it comes to battery life. With a Palm it is measured in weeks of non-continuous use, with a Pocket PC in hours of continuous use. Now how can you compare that? And I'm a bit curious to see Pocket Office communication show up on the pro side of the Pocket PC. Yes, I know the Pocket PC has a built in solution and Palm 'only' a third party solution, but according to everything I've heard from people who should know Pocket Word is no match for <a href="http://www.bluenomad.com/ws/prod_wordsmith_details.html">WordSmith</a>. I'd say the disadvantage of having to install a third party application is washed away by that, and I'd call it a tie there.<br /><br />But all in all it is a very nice comparison, and surely a bit more independent than the comparisons <a href="http://www.microsoft.com/mobile/pocketpc/software/compare_software.asp">Microsoft</a> and <a href="http://www.palmos.com/platform/os5/palmvspocket.html">PalmSource</a> have online. ;)

[jtod]

Marlof,

Thanks for noting my editorial on your site. I am actually a Pocket PC User. I must have done a good job of being objective, since you are not the only one to think I was a Palm user :-) Nevertheless, I agree with the idea that it is difficult to compare these two devices in such a subjective manner. But, when it comes down to "real world" usage and "real world" opinions, I feel that some comparisons could be made. Overall, I believe Pocket PCs have a clear advantage over Palm when it comes to technology. Interestingly, however, I am the only one in my department and, I believe, the whole medical school to own one. There are still many barriers to transitioning to Pocket PC; namely, cost, ease of use, and level of administrative support (very important when inistitutions contract to purchase certain PDAs from specific OEMs). This will all change as academic and corporate environments get educated about the clear advantages of the Pocket PC for important day to day computing functions aside from PIM.

John

[marlof]

It's not as much the style of the comparison, as the editorial introduction that lead me to believe you were a Palm user: "pocketnow isn't a site of purely Pocket PC devotees--some of us use Palm! What exactly is it that still draws many people to the "other side"? John F. Todaro, Ph.D., our new contributing editor, presents his unique perspective as to why so many people are still excited by these devices." The original post is edited now, thank for your comment.

[charlie]

http://articles.pocketnow.com/content.cgi?db=articles&id=75

Alas he still compares apples to oranges when it comes to battery life. With a Palm it is measured in weeks of non-continuous use, with a Pocket PC in hours of continuous use. Now how can you compare that?


I think that is a very valid comparison. What an end user cares about is how often they have to worry about the battery. One of the eventual goals of a pda should be transparency. A user should not need to care about how he gets his services or that he even has a pda, he should just be enabled to do whatever he wants with his information whenever he wants without caring about the technology that drives it. Yes, it is important to note that it is not necessarily a fair comparison because a pocket pc is doing many times more work than a palm device but in the end all that really matters is that If I go on a trip, I can't forget my charger. Although a pocket pc may be a more power efficient when you look at power consumed / MIPS, it still sucks that I need to charge my ipaq every night.

charlie

[Jason Dunn]

I think that is a very valid comparison. What an end user cares about is how often they have to worry about the battery. One of the eventual goals of a pda should be transparency.


I agree completely that transparency is key, but I can tell you that my wife uses her EM-500 just like a Palm: on for 20 seconds, off again. She plays the occasional game, but doesn't read eBooks, use a keyboard, etc. Very PIM-ish usage patterns. She's gone up to two weeks without a charge! I could hardly believe it, but it proves that usage patterns are a CRITICAL factor in battery life.

This is why I like to measure things in terms of HOURS not WEEKS of battery life - it levels the playing field. If a Palm m505 user used his PDA as heavily as someone using an iPAQ(which isn't possible without the battery sucking vortex of multi-tasking), the Palm would certainly out-do the iPAQ in terms of battery life, but by a matter of hours not "weeks".

You can't turn a Palm on and leave it running for two weeks and have it last - it will last "X" hours of runtime. If it lasts 20 hours compared to an iPAQs 8 hours, fine - that's a clear advantage to Palm. But to confuse consumers with "theoretical run times based on average use" isn't beneficial to anyone other than Palm. :?

[Take1]

One of the strongest arguments Palmites use (I have a Palm as well as a PPC) is battery life. Have you noticed that this argument is used FAR LESS OFTEN today than a year ago? This is becuase the new Palms are no better (often much worse) than PPCs on battery life now. You'll not find any mention of battery life on promotions for the m515 and m130 (see their site and spec sheets). The T-615 is less than stellar on battery life as well. They are actually worse than the HP 568 and iPAQ 3850 at equivalent backlight settings. Every time Palm incorporates a 'weakness' of the PPC units into their devices (think color, sound, battery life) it suddenly isn't bloat or a problem -- it's zen.

[marlof]

Charlie: you'd be surprised. I've done a test once with my Jornada 548. I only used it when I wanted to look up PIM stuff, and I typed a few notes at meetings. It lasted a little over two weeks, but I only used it an everage of half an hour each day (sometimes less, sometimes more). Now, does that mean we can go quote the battery life of the Jornada as "two weeks of non-continuous use"? I would vote against it, because I don't believe in that type of measurement. Because normally, I would use the Jornada more, and that two weeks would never be met. It totally depends on *your* usage of the device, and the average use doesn't help me there.

What would help me more is telling me how long a Palm or Pocket PC can hold up, continuously using it. I can decide for myself how much hours per day I'd use it, and then can calculate how much days it would go without power. Even there it's hard enough to present hard figures, as for instance the backlight usage is very important to battery life. Those who hardly use the backlight, or leave it on automatic in the iPAQ, get far more battery life than those who use it mid-bright all the time.

But if you measure one in non-continuous use, and the other in continuous use, you get apples and oranges. There is no way that saying one can be used two weeks of non continuous use, and the other 10 hours of continuous use says anything to me. As long as the units in which you measure things like battery life is not the same in two compared products, I don't think the comparison makes much sense.

This post didn't mean to say that I feel battery life in the Pocket PC is upo to a par, or better than in a Palm. I have too little experience in Palm devices to even want to state that. All I wanted to say is that if you compare, please use the same unit of measurement.

[Take1]

What would help me more is telling me how long a Palm or Pocket PC can hold up, continuously using it. I can decide for myself how much hours per day I'd use it, and then can calculate how much days it would go without power.


Yes that would put things into perspective. I understand that Palm uses 40 min/day use to calculate their 'weeks use' while PPC simply states hours continuous use (without backlight).

CNet Asia reviewed the m515 and found the battery life to last about 4 days at 40 min/day:

"As far as the screen goes, it's a 160x160-pixel, active-matrix, 16-bit LCD that supports 65,000 colors. Its reflective qualities allow you to view the screen in a wide variety of lighting conditions, including bright sunlight. However, unlike the m505's screen--which we knocked for being too dim, particularly under normal indoor lighting conditions--the m515's is plenty bright. Unfortunately, as one might expect, the bright display comes at a cost: battery life. Palm says that you can get about one week of power before having to recharge the built-in lithium-ion battery. However, the company doesn't specify whether that's with the low or high brightness setting. With normal use (40 minutes per day) on the brightest setting, we had to recharge at the end of the fourth day."

This means high bright = 4 days x 40 min. = 160 min (2.7 hours).

Palm claims 1 week 'normal' use 7 days x 40 min = 280 min (4.7 hours), which I assume is at low backlight. Palm really wasn't clear on what was 'normal' conditions are.

My iPAQ gets about 5 hours at near medium (2 notches below midway) which is pretty bright (twice as bright as the low bright on the m515). My T-415 gets about 8 straight hours with backlight as does my iPAQ 3150.

I could use an m515 on bright and not have problems as I recharge my PDAs habitually, but Palms aren't as energy efficient (small size and side-lit color LCDs screwed that up for them) as they used to be.

[charlie]

What would help me more is telling me how long a Palm or Pocket PC can hold up, continuously using it. I can decide for myself how much hours per day I'd use it, and then can calculate how much days it would go without power.


good point. do you know of any standard benchmarking tools that will run a pocketpc continuously and record the time it takes to hit a low battery warning? I don't really have the time to write one right now. it could have settings to do things like play mp3's or ebooks or model pim behavior or browsing. maybe I'll get around to it someday. do you think people would pay for such a tool?

charlie