Take Your Pick: Palm OS or Pocket PC?

[Jason Dunn]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/0,4621,311506,00.html' target='_blank'>http://www.entrepreneur.com/article...,311506,00.html</a><br /><br /></div>"PDAs these days come across more like little bitty laptops than the portable to-do lists and calendar carriers they started out as. As more power and more features get heaped on, choosing the right handheld for your business style has gotten more complicated. We took a whole stack of Palm OS and Pocket PC devices out for a walk to see what’s appealing—and what could use a little tweaking. <br /><br />One basic question that greets every handheld buyer is, Palm OS or Pocket PC? The chasm between the two isn’t all that wide. With the right software for either system, you can pretty much do anything, from reading Word documents to getting e-mail. Many buyers simply prefer the OS they’re already familiar with. The Palm OS interface is still as user- and battery-friendly as ever, while Pocket PC effectively mimics its big brother, Windows."<br /><br />Ok, you Palm-users correct me if I'm wrong, but is a modern Palm unit with a colour screen and fast processor any more "battery friendly" than a Pocket PC? All the reviews I've read have led me to believe that modern Palm-based units give roughly the same amount of battery life as most Pocket PCs. Is this just more inaccurate journalistic hype, or is there something to it?

[Chris Spera]

"Is this just more inaccurate journalistic hype, or is there something to it?


I have a Tungsten|T3 that I picked up not too long ago. Compared to my 5455, this unit is way better on the battery. Compared to my 1945, this unit is about the same on the battery.

I would think that, on a level playing field (native hardware and OS on both. No upgraded units...like my 5455), battery life is going to be very similar.

The only thing that I wish I could do on my T3 is take better advantage of the hardware and memory. It has a 400mHz xScale processor with 64MB of RAM, and I really don't think that PalmOS 5.2.1 comes close to making appropriate use of the hardware in this unit.

However, it does do landscape natively, without resetting, which is an amazing thing...


Kind Regards,


Christopher Spera

[jonathanchoo]

Battery life is around 20 minutes longer on my T3 when compared to my old h2210...and it does have to cope with a larger screen higher resolution screen though. Both has 900mAh battery. Standby time is even better - my T3's battery drop 10% a day when left off while my h2210 dropped 20%.

Watching widescreen movies on my T3 is even more enjoyable than the h2210 and it is £40 cheaper in the UK...

Thats not to say I won't own any more PPC devices in the future but currently for me the T3's performance is value for money.

[bjornkeizers]

Ok, you Palm-users correct me if I'm wrong, but is a modern Palm unit with a colour screen and fast processor any more "battery friendly" than a Pocket PC? All the reviews I've read have led me to believe that modern Palm-based units give roughly the same amount of battery life as most Pocket PCs. Is this just more inaccurate journalistic hype, or is there something to it?

Battery life of a modern unit is the same as a modern PPC's - generally 8 hours or so. In the old days of the IIIE I used to be able to run my Palm on 2 AAA batterys for two months!

I got about 2 weeks out of my IIIC, a week out of my M130 and my Clie SL10 gets about 2 days! And that's not even color! Things like memory cards and color really drain your battery in no time.

[quidproquo]

Back before the Palm's could handle real multimedia.... I would have said their battery life was better but I think now, they are about even - just depending on what you do with them.

Back when I had a Palm Pilot Pro, I could go for months before a battery change! 8O Again, monochrome and no multimedia.

Even though I have seen/read complaints about the XDA battery life, I have had no real problems... :roll:
I do put it on the cradle at least every other day and if I notice it down to half, I will hook up the car charger while driving to/from work - and that works for me.

[ricktakagi]

I have to agree with the others. I bet I get about 8 hours from a Palm T3.

I recently bought a new Ipaq 4350 to see if I might wanna switch to that but I found the palm to be excellent at setting up a BT connection with almost nothing to do on the part of the user...it just worked. I had a terrible time getting BT and wifi to work on the 4350 and ended up returning it. There is something to be said for simplicity I guess.


Rick T.

[arnage2]

my 4155 is great, but if palmos 6 winds up being as good as they say it is, then ill have an ipaq 1xxx with wm2004 and a palm tungsten x with palm os 6.

[David Prahl]

Once again, the world forgets about the Dell Axim. :cry: And what is the Sharp Zaurus doing in there?

[jonathanchoo]

I have to agree with the others. I bet I get about 8 hours from a Palm T3.

I recently bought a new Ipaq 4350 to see if I might wanna switch to that but I found the palm to be excellent at setting up a BT connection with almost nothing to do on the part of the user...it just worked. I had a terrible time getting BT and wifi to work on the 4350 and ended up returning it. There is something to be said for simplicity I guess.


Rick T.

My friend just bout a h2210 and returned it because it was difficult to setup Bluetooth. I showed him how to setup Bluetooth on my T3 in under 1 minute. In less than 3 minutes he was up and running downloading e-mails on VersaMail. I had to pry my T3 from him. Is it no wonder that this site (which is dedicated to PPC) is the one of the few sites proclaiming Bluetooth is dead when it is so easy to setup on Palm. I hope Microsoft improves Bluetooth implementation on both PPC and Windows PC.

[Vincent M Ferrari]

Is it no wonder that this site (which is dedicated to PPC) is the one of the few sites proclaiming Bluetooth is dead when it is so easy to setup on Palm.

Who said that? If anything people (like me) love and use Bluetooth on a very regular basis. There are needs for improvement with the technology and wider support would be nice, but I can't remember a time when Bluetooth was ever proclaimed dead on PPC Thoughts. You can criticize something without pronouncing it dead.

And Dave, I think you and I are two of a very small breed of Axim preachers left on here since everyone who used to own one moved on to some form of the Ipaq :lol:

As for Battery life, well, it's no contest. The Tungsten T3 was nowhere near the battery life of my DELL AXIM X5 with a CF WiFi card in and browsing the internet for a couple of hours at a time.

I think these people who say the batteries in Palms are better are pining away for the monochrome-two-triple-a-batteries-will-last-you-forever days of yore.

They're gone, and depending on the PPC you pick, you may even see better life on the darkside :twisted:

[acollet]

I have a T|3 and a 2215. By far, the 2215 outperforms the T|3 on battery life. I've yet to rundown the battery on the 2215. I'm still kind of torn between which systemI like better. When I'm in Windows, I like the 2215 better, however with Linux as my primary desktop, the Palm takes over. I have gotten the PocketPC to sync with Linux and Evolution PIM, but there is still something about Palm that keeps me hanging on.

[Duncan]

Is it no wonder that this site (which is dedicated to PPC) is the one of the few sites proclaiming Bluetooth is dead when it is so easy to setup on Palm.

Who said that? If anything people (like me) love and use Bluetooth on a very regular basis. There are needs for improvement with the technology and wider support would be nice, but I can't remember a time when Bluetooth was ever proclaimed dead on PPC Thoughts. You can criticize something without pronouncing it dead.

Umm... Ed Hansberry said it - in one of the hottest threads of recent months: http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=19436&highlight=bluetooth (and yes - I'm aware the actual 'Bluetooth is dead' statement came from someone else - but Ed quoted it and seconded it).

[crimsonsky]

Acollet, how did you get the PPC to sync with Evolution? Man, if I could do that, I'd not need to run Windows at all.

I am a Toshiba e755 and Palm Tungsten T3 owner and I use the T3 95% of the time these days. The screen on the T3 is absolutely awesome - the e755 can't begin to compare. And the ability to switch from landscape to portrait without resetting is amazing.

Synchronising the T3 to Evolution is a cake walk. Have no idea how to synch the PPC to Linux.

I actually find battery life on the two devices roughly equivalent. I can get about 4-5 hours on either device. Using the Toshi extended battery, I can get 12-14 hours. I have the Palm Power to Go sled, but haven't really used it much yet. Reports are such that I believe that using the PTG sled would give me about the same battery life as I get with the Toshi and extended battery.

The T3 lacks two main things to make it completely replace my e755: 1) TextMaker (I use WordSmith and DTG, but neither are a fraction as powerful as TextMaker) and 2) WiFi. SoftMaker is working on a version of TextMaker for the Palm (no ETA even on a beta yet). For WiFi, I may hold out for SanDisk, but will probably just go ahead and ge tthe Enfora Portfolio.

Oh yes, Fitaly. They hopefully will have a full product for the T3 out before the end of the year. Been using it on my e755 and other PPCs before it and I consider it indispensible!

[Vincent M Ferrari]

Umm... Ed Hansberry said it - in one of the hottest threads of recent months: http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=19436&highlight=bluetooth (and yes - I'm aware the actual 'Bluetooth is dead' statement came from someone else - but Ed quoted it and seconded it).

Maybe, but considering that 26 pages of comments on that thread exist, I would hardly say this site is proclaiming its death in united voice...

I stand corrected, but the impression the author of that comment gave was that this site as a whole proclaimed the death of Bluetooth, when in reality there are plenty of us who consider it far from dead...

[egads]

From what I've seen the battery life is about the same on new PALM and PPC devices. What I still notice about the PALM that's still much better than the PPC is how much faster it is when displaying long contact lists and how much faster programs seem to load. The newer PALM OS's have lost some speed, but are still much faster than the PPC.

Anyways, I still love me Dell X5, just wish the PPC OS was faster...

[Deslock]

Maybe, but considering that 26 pages of comments on that thread exist, I would hardly say this site is proclaiming its death in united voice...

I stand corrected, but the impression the author of that comment gave was that this site as a whole proclaimed the death of Bluetooth, when in reality there are plenty of us who consider it far from dead...
There have been many bluetooth stories here and all of them have been negative. Is it because PPC's bluetooth interface is clunkier? I dunno, but calling ppcthoughts anti-bluetooth seems reasonable to me.

Edit: I take that back... Janak has pointed PPCthoughts has posted some stories about bluetooth that don't involve predictions of its demise. I stand corrected!

As far as the article goes, it's out of date... the Tungsten E, T3, HP4000, Clie UXs, etc aren't even on the list. I agree with the consensus here that it's misleading to say that Palm is more battery friendly since that's only true in that Palm OS does allow for more efficient devices than PPC if your willing to go with a grey-scale screen and/or less RAM (since all PPC devices are now color and need 64+ MB to run reasonably).

[Timothy Rapson]

I'd give the guy a "F" for this book report. Nothing but one page of fluffy generalizations.

I had a mono Ipaq that could play MP3s out loud through the speaker for 20 hours on a charge. My 66MZ OS 4 Clie can probably drain in the battery in 2 hours of heavy use. That is enough for me. I can turn the screen down and the IR off and get through a weekend easily. The PPC 2002 Zayo I had for one week last Summer could drain the batteries in an hour if boosted to 400MZ and not set down at all for the whole hour. But, even at 400MZ the problem was that I waited and waited and waited. Resets were not as bad as the older Ipaq, and I was installing software and pushing the device the whole week.

As to the "Pay your money and take your pick" conclussion.....well like I said, this piece was worthless. I just want the crisp response and smooth screen of my hi-res+ Clie. I love the value that is available in the sub-$200 PPCs vs, the sub-@200 Palm OS models, but I am not interested in either. A $300 VGA PPC model might attract me if it had an 800MZ processor so TextMaker would open as fast as Docs-to-Go does on an old 66MZ OS4 Clie.

The basic thing this article really blew it on was the software. If you want to do real desktop word processing, picture processing, or standard DIVX video viewing then, you just aren't going to get that done on a Palm OS right now. Personally, the stability (only a slight edge to Palm OS now), the HiRes+, the snappy opening programs, and the fact that I have now got some real money tied up in Palm OS software and hardware are going to keep me waiting for those higher end programs. If I were a completely new user and had not gotten spoiled by the snappiness of the Palm OS, I might be perfectly happy with a QVGA PPC.

[Janak Parekh]

There have been many bluetooth stories here and all of them have been negative. Is it because PPC's bluetooth interface is clunkier? I dunno, but calling ppcthoughts anti-bluetooth seems reasonable to me.
No, it's not. We've posted many (http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=20352) - positive (http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=17616) - Bluetooth (http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=18692) - stories (http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=17955) as well. We tend to give very equal coverage to many, many topics. Ed just happened to hit a nerve with his article. :lol:

I've had very few problems with my Bluetooth setups overall, and I'm very surprised that jonathanchoo's friend had so many issues.

--janak

[Vincent M Ferrari]

I've had very few problems with my Bluetooth setups overall, and I'm very surprised that jonathanchoo's friend had so many issues.

You know, Janak, I was thinking about those comments regarding the "difficulty" of bluetooth on the PPC. I actually didn't have a completely smooth ride with bluetooth when I first tried, but I had an Ambicom BT CF card. It was cool, but getting it working was an exercise in trial, error, and at times futility.

Fast forward to when I got my Dell BT CF card. Set up was a breeze and I had it paired with my desktop and my 3650/t68i/T610 in about two minutes.

Maybe his experiences were more the drivers than the actual hardware or Bluetooth itself?

Just a thought.

But the thing people keep repeating about the negativity on Bluetooth, well, I just don't get it. Coverage here has been at least even handed, if not pro-Bluetooth.

[Deslock]

There have been many bluetooth stories here and all of them have been negative. Is it because PPC's bluetooth interface is clunkier? I dunno, but calling ppcthoughts anti-bluetooth seems reasonable to me.
No, it's not. We've posted many (http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=20352) - positive (http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=17616) - Bluetooth (http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=18692) - stories (http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=17955) as well. We tend to give very equal coverage to many, many topics. Ed just happened to hit a nerve with his article. :lol:

Silly me! After clicking your links, I remembered reading those stories too. I stand corrected... not all the ppcthoughts editors are anti-bluetooth!

[dMores]

i believe the problem with bluetooth is that people think it's supposed to be really simple ... but the devices you attach are not.

sure, you plug in a usb mouse and it works. but when you plug in a usb modem or something like that, you have to fiddle with the connection settings as well.
so people get a bluetooth enabled pda, and try to go online instantly with their bluetooth enabled cellphone. and obviously, just like a modem, you have to tweak the settings. this is what makes things difficult.

i had no problems with my loox and t68i. or with the t68i and the bluetooth headset. but my boss came over and wanted to go online with his tungsten t (the first one). didn't work. so he's like "bluetooth sucks" and dismissed it as a technology that doesn't work.
i tried to tell him to play with it and actually take the time to find out what's going on, but he refused.

then again, i wasn't able to sync my cellphone or my loox with my desktop, but according to the large number of posts on firstloox.org, bluetooth and activesync are currently not really best of friends.
wm2003 should fix this.

bluetooth is not dead. it's all around us.
only when people compare it to wifi (which is like comparing apples to oranges) does it look bad.

as to palm vs. ppc, i think that the two platforms are getting pretty close. i still won't go with palm because i don't like the operating system. it's strange, but i like the feeling of having a little computer in my hand, not just a souped up organizer.
i think that the fact that the entry-level into the world of PDAs is relatively low with palm, a lot of people buy one of those sub-$100 palms, and basically stick with it when they feel the need for more multimedia, color etc.

[SJ]

My friend just bout a h2210 and returned it because it was difficult to setup Bluetooth. I showed him how to setup Bluetooth on my T3 in under 1 minute. In less than 3 minutes he was up and running downloading e-mails on VersaMail.

Seriously, what's the difference between 'setting up the Bluetooth connection' in T3 compared to the h2210?

I'm wondering since such setting is so easy and obvious in the iPAQ. There is even a Bluetooth Connection Wizard build in :wink:

[Magellan]

I have a Tungsten T3, an iPAQ 4350, and now a Tapwave Zodiac. The Zodiac has the best battery life, then the Tungsten, then the iPAQ. They are much closer than the early days though. I was suprised the Zodiac won with having more overall horsepower than the other 2 even with 128 megs RAM and a 512 meg SD Card. I believe more memory burns more battery power in general. Maybe splitting the graphics load to a seperate ATI 4 meg chip helps, although I would think that would be more drain.

[Magellan]

I haven't had any problems using a bluetooth GPS on all three of my devices. Setup time was about the same. WM 2003 makes it easier than PPC 2002 did.

[Magellan]

Sorry for all of the posts. Turning off Stereo sound and rumble effects on games made the battery life about 1 hr longer on the Zodiac. With effects on playing hi-res fullscreen games with rumble and stereo effects all on, the T2 had better life.