Maintenance Release?

[Mark Johnson]

Does anyone have a concise list of the major changes from PPC2003 to PPC2003SE? The major thing I've been waiting for (for years) is VGA support, but I can't think of a single other benefit I'm expecting to get with SE. Yes, I'm sure there will be any number of other tweaks, fixes and overall smoothing, but it seems strange that the most *major* change I can think of (screen resolution) would only qualify as an updated driver on the desktop.

Can you imagine if Microsoft had announced in 2001 something like that WindowsXP was coming out and that it was basically the same thing as Windows 2000 but 2000 only supported 1024x768 resolution, but now we'll have 1280x1024 as well!? Oh boy!

I only noticed today that my iPaq 1910 is PPC2002 and I can't think of anything I'm missing in PPC2003. It's kinda wierd. I've gone from being a serious addict, couldn't wait to get the next generation. ALWAYS bought the latest model on the day of release, and often called stores to see if I could find one that had gotten their shipment but didn't know or care they weren't supposed to sell them before the official release date. (I bought at least two or three of my units "before release" that way.)

I'm kinda bummed that right now I'm waiting another month or so to get a VGA unit, but I'm not even all that excited. I've been waiting 18 months for something to make me want to move and all I can think of that I'm going to get is more pixels and the mandatory/moore's law clock cycles and RAM quantity increases...

[jimski]

Yup. I have never owned a PDA (10 so far) as long as my current PPC. My 5450 is 17 months old and yes, I pre-ordered it. I am still running PPC2002, because I did not want to bother with the hard reset for what seemed like an incremental improvement in WM2003. I also figured new devices were just around the corner and I would let whomever bought my old device deal with an upgrade.

The 22XX was almost it, but no WiFi was a real turn off. The 5555 was too much like my 5450 to even bother with a change. Then the 4XXX series was released and although they had gotten the wireless side right, by that time my device memory was running on "E" and I decided to hold out for 128MB.

I am now patiently awaiting the next batch and will probably wind up with some sort of VGA device, but it has been a long time coming. It is really going to be difficult giving up my stable friend for some new unproven model, but I am ready (have been for a bout a year) to take the plunge.

[Stephen Beesley]

Well I have had my Jornada for about two years now and although I have been tempted at times - I just have not seen enough new in either device or OS terms to make me part with the hard earned cash just yet. But I think that is soon about to change.

Although I agree that a lot of the changes in WM2003 SE seem to more maintence fixs than anything, I think the combination of VGA support (and the existing or upcoming VGA devices) and finally being able to switch screen orientation on the fly is a pretty big incentive to finally upgrade my device. Yeh I wish they had taken the opportunity to upgrade the GUI which IMHO is looking a bit tired now, but apart from that I am pretty happy.

Now it is just a case of scrapping together some cash and waiting for the device that takes my eye....

[Janak Parekh]

The major thing I've been waiting for (for years) is VGA support, but I can't think of a single other benefit I'm expecting to get with SE. Yes, I'm sure there will be any number of other tweaks, fixes and overall smoothing, but it seems strange that the most *major* change I can think of (screen resolution) would only qualify as an updated driver on the desktop.
Actually, it's a much bigger thing for handheld devices -- not only do drivers have to be changed, but font/icon support, etc. On a desktop, if you run at a higher resolution, you typically use a sharper and/or larger monitor. Not so on PDAs. As such, it's a huge improvement over what earlier Pocket PCs offered.

Second, SE not only supports VGA, but it also supports landscape and square-screen units. This enables a whole new slew of exciting hardware devices to be produced. I think you'll want to upgrade to SE not in-and-of-itself, but rather for the kinds of hardware it enables. The MPx is a fantastic example of this.

--janak