Pocket PC without a PC - experiences

[seidler]

Hi all,

I am running an experiment here: I have an Casio E-200, and no PC. Nothing. Now I thought: ok, I have a PocketPC, why would I need a PC??

But I tell you, and you all know it: you need a PC. A Windows PC. With USB. And Administrator rights. :evil:

It's just crazy. I buy this WLAN card, need drivers. Ok, drivers are on CD. No problem, I go to a public computer with USB interface, download the drivers, it's a windows Setup. Why?
Next thing: Acrobat Reader and ICQ. I can easily download them to my PocketPC, but what the heck am I supposed to do with .exe files? It's just insane that almost every free software comes in (often even both Windows Installer AND) CAB files (or zipped CAB files, no problem either), and this commercial (even though it is free there's still a company behind it) things come in unusable Window installers, and some of them are even bold enough to demand administrator rights from you. And ActiveSync installed. What a crazy world I think: I have a fully functioning Pocket PC with Wireless LAN, but people are making it impossible for me to install software!

Next thing: mail! I tried to search PPCThoughts for this topic. Not a lot on ... Why? Because it's useless. Ok, Ok, I can read text mails. No Attachments. I can download them. They use up my main memory (even though I tell Pocket Inbox to store them on the storage card). But I can't see them. I can't even detach them. Useless.
Then I tried nPOP, a nice program, but not really convenient. Then I tried WebIS @Mail (because I have PocketInformant, too). A lot of good ideas, but this program is so buggy (and doesn't support attachments as well) that it wouldn't even be worth paying $5 for it, not speaking about the $25 they want to have (or $20 for me as PI user).

Anyone sharing my frustration? I have 206MHz, 64MB RAM, more than 700MB "hard disk" as flash RAM, an USB keyboard, USB mouse, WiFi, bluetooth and more. Why do I have to own a PC (where the same technical data would be sufficient - 200MHz, 64MB RAM, etc... - for Windows 98 minimalistic install) to install a program. Why can I not read my emails like everybody else?

0X ... Stefan

[JustinGTP]

Its a good point, but I dont think that a pocket pc was meant to be a desktop replacement. Maybe when they have Windows XP on Pocket PC, it will work better :D

-Justin.

[seidler]

But it really doesn't take much for it to be a desktop replacement. Just some "OverTheAir" installation routines, and a useful Mail application. For Web browsing there is MultiIE, and several screen rotation programs, so this works fine (I type this message on my Casio, too).

So we're back at the basic W?BIC! And because it's cheaper. Why buy a laptop computer when I can have it all, but smaller and for a lower price?

Cheers, Stefan

[PetiteFlower]

Because you really can't have it all; I can't say whether it's simply because Microsoft doesn't want to discourage people from buying PCs, but the PPC was meant to be a companion to a computer, not a replacement....though it's up to the developers to offer a CAB install or not, and I don't know what the difficulty of programming that way instead of an .exe, so I can't really say why they'd pick one over the other. If you're waiting for your PPC to be able to be fully independant from a PC, you'll be waiting a long time, I'm sorry to say.

[xoiph]

I agree that more programs should be availabe in CAB format. As more and more of us go wireless, it's a lot more useful to install a program on demand rather than to wait to access a desktop and Activesync it over. :evil: