Vincent M Ferrari
02-10-2003, 09:06 PM
As a recovering Palm user, I can only say that a few of the things I've noticed are pretty astonishing.
In the three weeks since I put the Tungsten in the box and said buhbye, the following are unscientific and somewhat subjective observations, and I was tossing them out there on the off-hand chance that someone else agrees:
1. The community of PPC users seems to be generally more knowledgeable about their products. I've noticed that forums that include Palm handhelds are either wishlists for things the OS doesn't have, or software that isn't around, or talk about the next handheld. No one talks about interesting and new ways to use their existing equipment. PPC users can discuss, at length, why they use them, what they like about them, and what they do with them. I've never found a community with the depth of PPC Thoughts for the Palm. The closest is Palminfocenter, and since they underwent an editorial change, the forums and discussions are nothing more than wishful thinking and PPC bashing.
2. The PPC community is much more enthusiastic about their product. Palm users, myself included, were always griping about what it didn't do. Even though I had the top of the line Palm, the Tungsten, there were things it couldn't do (particularly in the realm of multimedia and syncing well with Outlook). I dumped it mainly for the multimedia, and now that the audio patch is out, the system sounds on the TT are all f'ed up.
3. My PPC is generally a surprise to most Palmies. I hold it up to them to see how slim and light it is, and then hit them with the $339 price tag, and watch them squirm as they realize that Palms aren't necessarily cheaper, aren't necessarily smaller and lighter, and judging from the comments that look like, "Wow, it's windows!" not easier to use by default.
4. The main argument Palmies use is the breadth of software. While it's hard to deny, it's easy to ignore. Frankly, the Palm had 50000 applications. Of which, I used about 20, of which I have found replacements for most that work as good as what I was using. The lesson is, if you're only going to use 10 apps, the availability of 50000 is no help.
5. Finally, there aren't many things I wish my PPC could do that it can't. What it does, it does well. It does Word poorly, but frankly I hardly use it. It does do excel really well, and I use that a lot more. I wish Activesync was as smart as Hotsync, but moreso because I see the problems others are having and hope that one day I won't have any issues. I'm sure they'll all be resolved eventually.
Like I said, these are completely subjective and unscientific observations. Truth is, Janak told me I would get used to it, and after setting my mind to it, there are certain things that I can't see being without:
1. Media Player / Pocket Music (depending on the content)
2. Syncing all fields with Outlook.
3. Full action, fully graphical games.
4. A voice recorder.
5. Transcriber: I couldn't go back to Grafiti at this point if I wanted to.
Feel free to disagree with me, I just wanted to share.... :)
In the three weeks since I put the Tungsten in the box and said buhbye, the following are unscientific and somewhat subjective observations, and I was tossing them out there on the off-hand chance that someone else agrees:
1. The community of PPC users seems to be generally more knowledgeable about their products. I've noticed that forums that include Palm handhelds are either wishlists for things the OS doesn't have, or software that isn't around, or talk about the next handheld. No one talks about interesting and new ways to use their existing equipment. PPC users can discuss, at length, why they use them, what they like about them, and what they do with them. I've never found a community with the depth of PPC Thoughts for the Palm. The closest is Palminfocenter, and since they underwent an editorial change, the forums and discussions are nothing more than wishful thinking and PPC bashing.
2. The PPC community is much more enthusiastic about their product. Palm users, myself included, were always griping about what it didn't do. Even though I had the top of the line Palm, the Tungsten, there were things it couldn't do (particularly in the realm of multimedia and syncing well with Outlook). I dumped it mainly for the multimedia, and now that the audio patch is out, the system sounds on the TT are all f'ed up.
3. My PPC is generally a surprise to most Palmies. I hold it up to them to see how slim and light it is, and then hit them with the $339 price tag, and watch them squirm as they realize that Palms aren't necessarily cheaper, aren't necessarily smaller and lighter, and judging from the comments that look like, "Wow, it's windows!" not easier to use by default.
4. The main argument Palmies use is the breadth of software. While it's hard to deny, it's easy to ignore. Frankly, the Palm had 50000 applications. Of which, I used about 20, of which I have found replacements for most that work as good as what I was using. The lesson is, if you're only going to use 10 apps, the availability of 50000 is no help.
5. Finally, there aren't many things I wish my PPC could do that it can't. What it does, it does well. It does Word poorly, but frankly I hardly use it. It does do excel really well, and I use that a lot more. I wish Activesync was as smart as Hotsync, but moreso because I see the problems others are having and hope that one day I won't have any issues. I'm sure they'll all be resolved eventually.
Like I said, these are completely subjective and unscientific observations. Truth is, Janak told me I would get used to it, and after setting my mind to it, there are certain things that I can't see being without:
1. Media Player / Pocket Music (depending on the content)
2. Syncing all fields with Outlook.
3. Full action, fully graphical games.
4. A voice recorder.
5. Transcriber: I couldn't go back to Grafiti at this point if I wanted to.
Feel free to disagree with me, I just wanted to share.... :)