Flame WARNING!! WHERE are the PPC Hard Drives

[PhatCohiba]

:snipersmile: :soapbox: I'm not happy. :multi: :multi:

Let me get this straight, ok, almost anyone can make a hard drive based Music Player with a 20GB hard drive and sell it for under $250. Near as I can calculate the HD must only add $80-150 of the manufacturer's costs.

Now Microsoft is supporting Creative's Video Player as detailed in the following review: http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1558,1641882,00.asp?kc=ETRSS02129TX1K0000532

which retail for around $600 and have hardware that is virtually indistinguishable from a ppc:
CPU: Intel XScale
Speed: 400MHz
Storage: 20GB
Memory: 64MB RAM; 2MB ROM
Screen Resolution: 320x240
Weight*: 14.9 ounces
Dimensions*: 144mm x 80.7mm x 27mm


With one exepction. Near as I can tell someone should be able to make a sub 1000 ppc based device with a Hard Drivein it. There should be ppcs that have HDs as an option.
When wifi was new, it was a premium feature that commanded extra $$. Why am I spending $100 for 1gb of storage when for under $200 I could have 20gb????? What would developers of PPC software do if there was 20gb of storage????


so my point is WHERE IS THE PPC With a BUILT IN HARD DRIVE?
:multi: :soapbox: :multi: :soapbox: :multi: :soapbox:


Put me out of my misery.......

[Darius Wey]

Manufacturers typically produce devices with a market in mind. If there is a market of a substantial size, they will aim to provide for its customers. The idea of a Pocket PC is one that is...well...pocket-able. That Creative Zen Portable Media Center is certainly a little too big to lug around in your pocket, and would look a little ugly as a Pocket PC IMHO.

Sure...the concept is there and it can certainly be produced, but I'm not sure how many people would purchase it with true lightweight portability in mind. Trust me...I'd like a 20GB PPC too, but I don't think lightweight/portable form factor will allow for that. If you really want to see a 20GB device, there's always an OQO.

[Kevin C. Tofel]

Also keep in mind what the larger power drain of a HD (with moving parts) is over on-board RAM and ROM.....

Theoretically, you can fit a HD in a PPC today.....are you willing to sacrifice a large amount of power \ time in order to gain storage space?

KCT

[Wiggster]

If you can calculate, so can I.

Let's look at size. We'll take the somewhat large upcoming hx4705: 3" x 1.9" x 1.8" in. That's 10.26 cubic inches. Now the Zen is 5.67" x 3.18" x 1.06". That's 19.1 cubic inches. To compare weight, that's 6.6 oz vs. 12 oz, respectively.

Where's all the weight? Not the hard drive: the 20gb iPOD weighs only 5.6 ounces total. What about the size? It's nearly double the size of the iPAQ, and that's WITH the iPAQ having a 4" screen instead of the smaller 3.8" screen on the Zen. I think the answer should be obvious: batteries

Hard drives suck mega juice out PDA's tiny batteries. Try plugging an ultra-low power-consuming MicroDrive into a normal PDA and see what it does to battery life. Then never take the microdrive out of the PDA. Chances are people would be upset with much smaller battery life than they have now.

Further, hard drives DO need more space. Not much more, but space is an increasingly rare commodity on PDAs. People want their PDAs smaller and smaller with more and more built-in. There has to be a line in the sand somewhere for when to stop adding stuff in, especially if it cripples battery life to less than 60 minutes.

Also, portable hard drives can corrupt rather easily. A bit here or there won't effect songs, or even movies, so portable media centers have no problem with a reasonable amount of hard-drive-produced errors. But let's say that bit goes missing from the middle of your expense report on a PDA: corrupt file, unusable, waste of space on the corrupt hard drive. Let's face it: hard drives don't like being shaken while writing data. Until we can get better shock-proof hard drives, they will be highly unreliable in mobile devices. Why do they work in MP3 players, you might ask? How often do you put songs on them when you're on the go, compared to how often you put it down on your desk to load it up with new content.

So, the main reason is battery life. You need more battery power for hard drives. But we need an innovation in battery technology before this can happen on the same form factor as, say, an iPAQ 1900 series. There are dozens of other hurdles and impractabilities, but I think I've hit on the main points.

[Darius Wey]

Also keep in mind what the larger power drain of a HD (with moving parts) is over on-board RAM and ROM.....

Theoretically, you can fit a HD in a PPC today.....are you willing to sacrifice a large amount of power \ time in order to gain storage space?

KCT

I agree. While compact HDDs exist, power drain is a significant factor. Based on flash ROMs/RAMs that we have today, on a typical device with a typical battery, you can pull a few hours of continuous use. Whack a hard disk in there, and you have an issue of power drain. The power required to spin up the hard disk, and keep it spinning while accessing files, is an issue that must be thought of.

It'd be fine on AC, but for mobility, it wouldn't work too well at the moment until we get the next-generation batteries incorporated into PPC devices.

[Steven Cedrone]

I'll tell you what would make me happy: if they could just jam some more RAM in these devices. If you can fit GB+ in a form factor the size of a CF card, why can't we make the Pocket PC a little bigger, and just jam in a ton of RAM. I'd prefer that over a spinning disk anytime!

Just my .02

Steve

[stevekc]

Actually there should be a PDA with 40GB HDD by the end of the year:

Archos AV500

http://www.ehomeupgrade.com/archives/000289.php

Its not Pocket PC - but runs Qtopia Linux - like the Zaurus SL6000

[Janak Parekh]

I'll tell you what would make me happy: if they could just jam some more RAM in these devices. If you can fit GB+ in a form factor the size of a CF card, why can't we make the Pocket PC a little bigger, and just jam in a ton of RAM. I'd prefer that over a spinning disk anytime!
Because flash is not SDRAM -- it's much slower. The latter is more expensive and bigger. Or are you asking why they don't put a couple flash chips on the PCB? That won't increase the Program Memory WM has access to...

--janak

[Steven Cedrone]

Because flash is not SDRAM -- it's much slower. The latter is more expensive and bigger. Or are you asking why they don't put a couple flash chips on the PCB? That won't increase the Program Memory WM has access to...

I'm just talking storage here, the amount of Program Memory WM has access to seems adequate. If the SDRAM was only used for PM, it should be more than fine for the forseeable future (64-128MB SDRAM for nothing but PM + 1-5GB Flash for storage)...

That would keep me happy for a little while! :wink:

Steve

[Zero101]

Well... I agree to an extent. If my iPod can have a 20gb hdd, why hasn't a PPC manufacturer ported that technology to the PDA?

Like stated above... I don't think there is a lot of market for it. Except for a small niche of power users (like many on this board), most people buy a PDA for pim functions, ebook reading, and maybe some light game playing. None of which really requires a HDD.

But all is not lost, you do have options. You can always get a CF microdrive. Or, if you have a device capable of using a PCMCIA card, they make HDD's in that form factor also (see my sig). Finally (and I think the coolest option...), if your device can act as a USB host, you can use that 20gb mp3 player as your Pocket PC HDD. I plan on buying the new e830 from Toshiba when it's available in the states, and you better believe I'll be storing movies on my iPod for plane trips. Best of all, since the mp3 player has it's own battery, the drain on your PDA isn't as significant as if it were built into the PDA itself.

Someday we might get a PPC with an internal HDD... but take solace in the fact that we do at least have alternatives in the meantime.

[frankenbike]

I agree with the whole idea that it's ridiculous that a tiny iPod can have at least 5gb or storage, and the bigger ones 40gb, and PPCs come with a 1995 era storage of 64mb on average and require everything else to be done with Flash.

As for power, there's lots of avenues of power management available. built-in flash storage can be used as a huge cache to keep from spinning the disk all the time.

As for market, it's stupid that the PPC market is assumed to be business users. The market is anyone who would want a flexible device that can do anything, including using it as an MP3 player and movie player. For a device just a hair larger than an iPod, you could have an iPod, movie player, PIM, and full communications device capable of nearly "anywhere" Internet access. The way some of us use our PPCs now.

It would increase the market potential of PPCs immensely, so it would swallow up part of the iPod market. Especially with PPC phones.

[Kati Compton]

Because flash is not SDRAM -- it's much slower. The latter is more expensive and bigger. Or are you asking why they don't put a couple flash chips on the PCB? That won't increase the Program Memory WM has access to...

I'm just talking storage here, the amount of Program Memory WM has access to seems adequate. If the SDRAM was only used for PM, it should be more than fine for the forseeable future (64-128MB SDRAM for nothing but PM + 1-5GB Flash for storage)...
Yeah - I'm more comfortable with the hard drive/ram model of PCs, where you'd have flash storage where the programs are installed to, and memory for them to run in.

I'm sure there's many reasons why this isn't ideal, particularly on devices with less memory, but I think devices are now at the point where it might make sense. Frankly, I haven't needed more program memory than my X5 has. It's storage that's the problem. Now that I've reinstalled most stuff to an SD card, I don't have "out of memory" problems with RAM.

Programs that need a faster "startuptime" could even keep part of their code in RAM, but the bulk in ROM to be retrieved when necessary.

[Sven Johannsen]

Because flash is not SDRAM -- it's much slower. The latter is more expensive and bigger. Or are you asking why they don't put a couple flash chips on the PCB? That won't increase the Program Memory WM has access to...

--janak

Neither would the hard drive. It boils down to the tradeoffs that are driven by the expected use of the device. The iPod doesn't have a 3.5" color touch screen using up battery power, and no-one cares that the iPod needs to 'boot up' to use it. Battery life and user interface and instant on are crucial to a PDA. The iPod is expected to be turned on and stay on for a while. The PDA is expected to be tuned on, used for a short period and put away. Maybe that's not how you use yours, but I figure the OEMs have that sort of usage in mind.

I figure the only reason most of you want big storage for music and video, i.e. multimedia. I don't expect it is for your contacts list, appointments or tech manual pdfs. While many of you use your PDAs for multimedia, that's really not what they were concieved for, so the design decisions weren't optimized for that usage scenario. If you really want one device that does both well, I suggest you get a little hinge and glue a PPC to a PMC. ;)

[surur]

Should OEM's make devices that fit the requests of the market, or what they believe the usage model should be.

If we demand a device with large storage capabilities at low prices (that means a hard drive these days) then that is what they should be researching and finding ways to mitigate the disadvantages.

The simplest way I can see them doing this is having a built-in CF sized drive as extra storage, and placing the storage directory (program files/windows/my documents) in NON_VOLATILE RAM, not the hard drive.

The hard drive would be reserved for media files mainly, and therefore fault-tolerant.

This way we wont have to worry about our batteries running out, as the effect would be similar to a soft-reset (only program ram being cleared) and we would still have instant on devices. The impact on battery life would be reserved for times when we are accessing multimedia content, when we are expecting battery usage to be higher in any case. And if its 4MB songs we are accessing, we can cache these in memory as easily as the Ipods can and still keep the HD spun down. And if its video, if we can get 3 hours on a full charge, thats about as much as the achos and creative can do too.

The only reason we dont have this simple device yet is because OEM's want to keep their markets separate, and microsoft hasn't innovated enough to copy what some-one else has done already.

Surur

[PhatCohiba]

:frusty: Damn all of you for being so rational and making wel thought through points, now I'm feeling bad for letting this get me all worked up. :frusty:


In response:

I understand how the battery / useage time trade off would be a big problem for a PDA operating system, but newer devices are arriving that appear to be improving on this. I wonder how much a streaming cache could help improve battery performance. BTW, anyone else wonder why when I watch a movie in my laptops DVD on battery, it doesn't cach 200-300mb worth at once?

Why doesn't the PMP run Windows Mobile? It looks like its 90% of the way there. I'd prefer to have that the WM on that if all I'm doing is contacts & Portable music and movies.

In the early days of WiFi on a Pocket PC, it was rare and priced at a premium. There are other features (like USB Host) that we hobbiests prefer. I still think there would be a market for a Portable Viewer that had a Windows Mobile OS, or a Pocket PC with a hard drive.

[Sven Johannsen]

Should OEM's make devices that fit the requests of the market, or what they believe the usage model should be.

If we demand a device with large storage capabilities at low prices (that means a hard drive these days) then that is what they should be researching and finding ways to mitigate the disadvantages.

Sure, but the half dozen of us that want to turn our PPCs into PMCs or Sony PSPs or iPODs may not be the market as they see it. As an fictitious example, lets say you added a 20G drive to a 4155. It would get bigger, more expense, and reduce the battery life, uless you increased the battery, which would make it bigger still. Would the sales you gain because of the additional capability make up for the sales you loose because of the size/battery trade-offs? I'm sure they are researchng just those things. Think about how many PPCs there were the size of a 4155 two years ago. Then think about how many had BT and WiFi built in? They are moving along, and doing what people want; smaller, better battery life and connectivity. Maybe storage is next. I vote for better battery life with no size increase myself, but that's just me.

[Janak Parekh]

I agree with the whole idea that it's ridiculous that a tiny iPod can have at least 5gb or storage, and the bigger ones 40gb, and PPCs come with a 1995 era storage of 64mb on average and require everything else to be done with Flash.
No, it isn't all that ridiculous. The iPod has very limited computing power and a tiny screen. If you replace those with a more powerful processor, a bigger screen, and of course a larger battery, the size advantage goes out the window. Even a 4GB CF Microdrive has a significant effect on the battery. Clever caching policies might help, admittedly, but a big problem with the Microdrive is latency. I had a 1GB in my iPAQ 3650, and it was fairly annoying to have to wait for it to spin up all the time. Some interesting R&D would have to be done to make it effective. The iPod, with its simple UI and limited functionality, isn't affected as much.

As for market, it's stupid that the PPC market is assumed to be business users. The market is anyone who would want a flexible device that can do anything, including using it as an MP3 player and movie player.
For whatever reason, be it market research or otherwise, Microsoft has targeted businesses first and foremost with Windows Mobile.

--janak

[frankenbike]

First off we aren't talking about PDAs. That would be Palm OS devices :twisted:

No, we're talking about Pocket PCs, as in the name of this site. That means PCs we can fit in oversized pockets, that can be used as PDAs or anything else someone uses a computer for. These days, computers are multimedia devices, and if you're just using a PPC as a PDA, it's really overkill for you.

The duties of a manufacturer who wants to stay in business is to find a market, make a product that serves that market, expand that market and steal market share from all competing products. That's been the way consumer and business manufacturing have operated since Thomas Edison. PDA/PPC sales have been flat the last couple of years, and the killer app is making PDAs competitive with other multimedia devices like iPods to cannibalize their market share.

As far as other concerns I've seen that voice various practical failings of hard drives in PDA use, I say a hearty "bullocks!" Hard drives can transfer data at a far higher rate than the PDA can use for large documents. I've got all of my 3rd party software installed not in RAM (as is the default, and what a waste it is), but on my "built in storage" (built in flash memory). The programs don't take any longer to start from there than ram, and using a task manager, I can have all the ones I need running and switch between them as instantly as if the programs were located in RAM. As a side benefit, if a hard reset ever becomes necessary, all the programs and .ini and .dat and miscellaneous setting software isn't lost if I have to do a hard reset because I screwed up the registry playing around with it. I also back my registry up there, rather than the default location in RAM.

Hard disks buffer in RAM for all sorts of devices, and it shouldn't be a problem. The idea that PPCs are instant on is absurd if you know how they work. They're "always on". You can't turn them off in reality. Hard disks don't run all the time, even on regular PCs. Only when you access them. They run only long enough to retrieve the essential data. Hard disks will certainly use more power when they are running than flash or RAM, but they don't have to run very long when they use the flash or RAM as a cache.

There are also all sorts of optional ways of extending available power. As well as lots of options for charging. From 9v and AA battery extenders to car chargers and AC adaptors.

None of this is impractical. And increasing available storage would also increase utility in ways at least I haven't thought of, just as increasing the storage in my PC means I have days of music stored on my PC without infringing on the massive storage needs I have for doing animation work.

The multimedia needs of business aren't inconsiderable either. VGA and higher screens mean someone can walk in with a presentation on a PPC, plug it in, and show their work. Greater storage and more flexible IO can mean that someone doesn't even need a desktop PC.

[Janak Parekh]

First off we aren't talking about PDAs. That would be Palm OS devices :twisted: No, we're talking about Pocket PCs, as in the name of this site. That means PCs we can fit in oversized pockets, that can be used as PDAs or anything else someone uses a computer for. These days, computers are multimedia devices, and if you're just using a PPC as a PDA, it's really overkill for you.
That's your opinion. I think some of the low-end Pocket PCs make for a great PDA. And, besides, Palm OS devices can do more than just PIM functions as well.

The duties of a manufacturer who wants to stay in business is to find a market, make a product that serves that market, expand that market and steal market share from all competing products.
Without question. And I can tell you Microsoft does market research. Unfortunately, I'm not able to talk about it as I'm under an MVP NDA. Obviously, though, looking at the productization, hard drives and large memory devices have not been at the top of the list.

the killer app is making PDAs competitive with other multimedia devices like iPods to cannibalize their market share.
If you look at Microsoft's product line, they are deliberately separating out multimedia devices for consumers -- witness the Portable Media Center and 3rd-party WMA players. Draw whatever conclusions you want. ;)

Hard drives can transfer data at a far higher rate than the PDA can use for large documents.
As of this moment, apart from some niche items, the transfer rate isn't the major problem -- bus and processor speed is.

I've got all of my 3rd party software installed not in RAM (as is the default, and what a waste it is), but on my "built in storage" (built in flash memory). The programs don't take any longer to start from there than ram
I do notice a difference, and even more so when using SD media. That said, built-in flash storage ain't hard drives. ;)

The idea that PPCs are instant on is absurd if you know how they work. They're "always on".
Sort of. The processor goes into a very low-power mode. The RAM is non-volatile, and yes, it is the primary power drain while the unit is off, but the power draw when the unit is off is much less. It really depends on how you define always-on.

Hard disks don't run all the time, even on regular PCs. Only when you access them.
This is not true at all. Hard drives on desktops spin all the time. Power management on desktops is rare, and even then they don't spin down disks until an hour of idle use, typically. Notebooks are a bit different, but even there you have hard drives spinning for 30-60 seconds before being powered down. Microdrives, on the other hand, spin down after about 2 seconds of idle behavior. I know -- I own one. Now, I am aware that idle spinning vs. active access have different power requirements, but they are both huge compared to flash media or a "spun down" state.

Hard disks will certainly use more power when they are running than flash or RAM, but they don't have to run very long when they use the flash or RAM as a cache.
The problem as it stands today is starting a program, like Microsoft Reader, File Explorer, Pocket Word, or etc. that wants to access the directory contents of the HD -- it spins up and reads the memory. That's certainly one of the areas that optimization could be done.

There are also all sorts of optional ways of extending available power. As well as lots of options for charging. From 9v and AA battery extenders to car chargers and AC adaptors.
But the average user wants a compact device that fits in their pocket.

Look -- I'm not necessarily against the idea per se -- I'm a power user and a geek too -- in fact, I bought a 1GB Microdrive and used it with WMP in my iPAQ 3650 before many of you had Pocket PCs in the first place. :P I'm just saying that it's not "ridiculous" that Pocket PCs don't have hard drives like iPods. There's size and battery life constraints that need to be met. And the market research of Microsoft and OEMs suggest this isn't a priority. You must remember that most of us here are power users, not end-users.

--janak

[surur]

Can I just say that I agree with frankenbike completely. Im just going to quote his comment, and high-light the main points I feel are important.

First off we aren't talking about PDAs. That would be Palm OS devices :twisted:

No, we're talking about Pocket PCs, as in the name of this site. That means PCs we can fit in oversized pockets, that can be used as PDAs or anything else someone uses a computer for. These days, computers are multimedia devices, and if you're just using a PPC as a PDA, it's really overkill for you.

The duties of a manufacturer who wants to stay in business is to find a market, make a product that serves that market, expand that market and steal market share from all competing products. That's been the way consumer and business manufacturing have operated since Thomas Edison. PDA/PPC sales have been flat the last couple of years, and the killer app is making PDAs competitive with other multimedia devices like iPods to cannibalize their market share.

As far as other concerns I've seen that voice various practical failings of hard drives in PDA use, I say a hearty "bullocks!" Hard drives can transfer data at a far higher rate than the PDA can use for large documents. I've got all of my 3rd party software installed not in RAM (as is the default, and what a waste it is), but on my "built in storage" (built in flash memory). The programs don't take any longer to start from there than ram, and using a task manager, I can have all the ones I need running and switch between them as instantly as if the programs were located in RAM. As a side benefit, if a hard reset ever becomes necessary, all the programs and .ini and .dat and miscellaneous setting software isn't lost if I have to do a hard reset because I screwed up the registry playing around with it. I also back my registry up there, rather than the default location in RAM.

Hard disks buffer in RAM for all sorts of devices, and it shouldn't be a problem. The idea that PPCs are instant on is absurd if you know how they work. They're "always on". You can't turn them off in reality. Hard disks don't run all the time, even on regular PCs. Only when you access them. They run only long enough to retrieve the essential data. Hard disks will certainly use more power when they are running than flash or RAM, but they don't have to run very long when they use the flash or RAM as a cache.

There are also all sorts of optional ways of extending available power. As well as lots of options for charging. From 9v and AA battery extenders to car chargers and AC adaptors.

None of this is impractical. And increasing available storage would also increase utility in ways at least I haven't thought of, just as increasing the storage in my PC means I have days of music stored on my PC without infringing on the massive storage needs I have for doing animation work.

The multimedia needs of business aren't inconsiderable either. VGA and higher screens mean someone can walk in with a presentation on a PPC, plug it in, and show their work. Greater storage and more flexible IO can mean that someone doesn't even need a desktop PC.

In short, sales of pocketpc's have been flat, and it has been because they do not address the desires for the market currently. As I see it, there are 3 things CONSUMERS want.

1) communication by phone, IM and e-mail.
2) internet access
3) Multimedia entertainment, mainly music

Pocketpc's do all three of these, but does it poorly. Its a very basic phone, with very poor features (even pure software features, such as profiles, proper bluetooth voice dialling, etc) It does the internet, but its obviously not the focus, and it has not been optimised to do this. It can play multimedia, but lacks in storage.

The biggest growing fields currently are mobile phones and media players. If MS wanted to develop the pocketpc market they would address these issues. If they want it to die, they can just continue doing what they are doing now.

Surur

[PhatCohiba]

In short, sales of pocketpc's have been flat, and it has been because they do not address the desires for the market currently. As I see it, there are 3 things CONSUMERS want.

1) communication by phone, IM and e-mail.
2) internet access
3) Multimedia entertainment, mainly music

....

The biggest growing fields currently are mobile phones and media players. If MS wanted to develop the pocketpc market they would address these issues. If they want it to die, they can just continue doing what they are doing now.

Surur


Genius, pure genius... Maybe this is where my emotion is coming from... I'm thinking that i'll have to replace my ipaq with a email and brower-enabled phone(which may or may not be a SmartPhone) and a Portable Media Player, when a more capable PocketPC should do these things. Desktop PCs always are pushing into the markets of the dedicated devices (like the early days of TIVO) and I'd like to see the same canablization from the PocketPC.

[Zero101]

How topical this Slashdot post (http://ask.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/09/02/0123242&tid=100&tid=184&tid=126&tid=4) this is.

I notice a lof of people want keyboards... or built-in cellphone capabilities... bigger displays.. whatever. Not many of them looking for hard drives. Sure, I saw it mentioned once or twice, but the vast majority of them have no interest in it. And these are the tech-minded people that read slashdot... not the average joe salesguy or company VP or soccer mom that makes up the majority of the PDA market.

Oh, and the arguement that putting in a hdd will sudenly make the PDA an iPod killer is ridiculous. I love my PPC, but I wouldn't want to take it to the gym with me... and that's where I use my iPod the most. People want to take their music with them biking... or jogging... or at the gym... etc etc.

Do I have a couple of mp3's on my PDA? Sure, of course. I listen to music on it sometimes... but it's not the lack of disk space that keeps it from replacing my iPod. It's the size of the unit itself. It's too big... and it would only be bigger with a hard drive inside of it. Oh yeah, and the controls suck. Who wants to pull out a stylus everytime you want to change the song or increase the volume?

These are the kinds of things that drive consumers. Not tech geeks like us, who are willing to put up with some clunkyness for the "w?bic" factor.

I have a hdd in my PDA, so it might seem a little odd that I am taking this stance.... but I know that I am among the few that actually have a use for such a thing. My wife would never use it, she barely uses her memory card as it is. None of the sales guys at my office would use it... I doubt they would even know how. The president of my company wouldn't use it, and he basically sleeps with his PDA. So if the majority of the market has no use for it... why would companies waste the time and money on producing it?

The high-end PDA market has a slim profit margin already. I don't think making the devices bulkier and more powerful is the answer to a slumping industry. If anything, the market wants cheaper and smaller devices.

Just my 2¢

[jkendrick]

The standard iPod has a battery life of what, 10 - 12 hours? That's with a tiny low power screen and very intelligent cacheing. Add a full PDA with big color screen, memory, etc. and that life would drop down to probably an hour, maybe two. I don't think anyone would put up with it. Not to mention having to back up your internal HDD via ActiveSync.

To me adding CF drives or large SD/CF memory cards make more sense and provide greater flexibility for the user.

[spinedoc]

Got to completely disagree here, but for differing reasons. Personally I think Pocket PC's NEED to have hard drives in them, but I understand about the power issues and realize we are just not there yet. My trade off is I just ordered a 4gb microdrive and just hope by the next generation they can get a HDD put in.

And if you do not agree that a HDD should be part of a PPC, at least in the future when power issues are solved, you should agree that it is utterly ridiculous to be excited over 128 of RAM, that is crazy in this day and age. After test driving the Sony U70 with 20gb hard drive I was extremely spoiled by having all my programs and information at my fingertips, ack and now to go back to 128 RAM, joy.

And in regards to using the PPC in the gym, I use my PPC in the gym as a MP3 player every single day. My activities range from weight lifting, to sprinting, to hitting the heavy bag/speed bag. I have a nice case for it that stays on my waist and is extremely comfortable. What is the nicest part is that I can open pocket Excel and keep track of my workouts (ie: reps/sets, progression, sprint speed, comments, etc) on the fly, noting progress and such. I can also stream internet radio thru it and my Sprint card, or browse the internet if I am just doing a slow walk on the treadmill. With the right program the PPC can certainly be an Ipod killer, and much more easily so a portable media center killer. Why the market needs to be fragmented into mp3 players, PMC's and PPC's I have no idea, but other than the power issues there should be no reason for this.

There are many reasons why Pocket PC's dont sell well in this country, and one of the main ones, in my opinion, is the lack of storage. It looks like portable video and music is the big thing now, and the one machine, the PPC, that is the best for portable media, is crippled by its lack of storage.

How topical this Slashdot post (http://ask.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/09/02/0123242&tid=100&tid=184&tid=126&tid=4) this is.

I notice a lof of people want keyboards... or built-in cellphone capabilities... bigger displays.. whatever. Not many of them looking for hard drives. Sure, I saw it mentioned once or twice, but the vast majority of them have no interest in it. And these are the tech-minded people that read slashdot... not the average joe salesguy or company VP or soccer mom that makes up the majority of the PDA market.

Oh, and the arguement that putting in a hdd will sudenly make the PDA an iPod killer is ridiculous. I love my PPC, but I wouldn't want to take it to the gym with me... and that's where I use my iPod the most. People want to take their music with them biking... or jogging... or at the gym... etc etc.

Do I have a couple of mp3's on my PDA? Sure, of course. I listen to music on it sometimes... but it's not the lack of disk space that keeps it from replacing my iPod. It's the size of the unit itself. It's too big... and it would only be bigger with a hard drive inside of it. Oh yeah, and the controls suck. Who wants to pull out a stylus everytime you want to change the song or increase the volume?

These are the kinds of things that drive consumers. Not tech geeks like us, who are willing to put up with some clunkyness for the "w?bic" factor.

I have a hdd in my PDA, so it might seem a little odd that I am taking this stance.... but I know that I am among the few that actually have a use for such a thing. My wife would never use it, she barely uses her memory card as it is. None of the sales guys at my office would use it... I doubt they would even know how. The president of my company wouldn't use it, and he basically sleeps with his PDA. So if the majority of the market has no use for it... why would companies waste the time and money on producing it?

The high-end PDA market has a slim profit margin already. I don't think making the devices bulkier and more powerful is the answer to a slumping industry. If anything, the market wants cheaper and smaller devices.

Just my 2¢

[spinedoc]

By the way if you think it is cumbersome to change your volume, tracks, etc etc on a PPC, especially as compared to an ipod, you should look at more recent music software such as the fabulous Pocket Music. You can map any function to the hard buttons, and it is amazing looking at a screen and seeing all your tracks, playlists, programs, etc etc. The ipod cannot compare in even the smallest sense, it is quite prehistoric in comparision. Hell if you want to step backwards to the ipod interface you can still find the PPod, an ipod interface on the PPC! The absolute only plus to having an ipod is that it has a hard drive, which of course is the point of contention.

[surur]

Oh yeah, and the controls suck. Who wants to pull out a stylus everytime you want to change the song or increase the volume?

These are the kinds of things that drive consumers. Not tech geeks like us, who are willing to put up with some clunkyness for the "w?bic" factor.

This is completely a software issue, and far from fundamental. If a OEM makes a PPC - media edition (and the HP version makes me laugh) they would be expected to include sync software like the Ipod, and a proper special user interface. If you are going to add in a HD for media use, why not a few extra buttons for play and stop?

The high-end PDA market has a slim profit margin already. I don't think making the devices bulkier and more powerful is the answer to a slumping industry. If anything, the market wants cheaper and smaller devices.

Which is why Apple is making billions from the Ipod? Because people want the cheapest device possible? Or is it because they want the most functional device possible.

I see it as a complete lack of imagination, that no OEM has tried to satisfy this market.


The standard iPod has a battery life of what, 10 - 12 hours? That's with a tiny low power screen and very intelligent caching. Add a full PDA with big color screen, memory, etc. and that life would drop down to probably an hour, maybe two. I don't think anyone would put up with it. Not to mention having to back up your internal HDD via ActiveSync.


Regarding battery life, many pocketpc's can reach 8-10 hours playing music with the screen off. Im sure if they cache 32 Mb of music and throttle the processor, they could easily do 6 hours with the screen off. I think people would put up with this for the extra functionality, and if running the battery to 0% is the same as a soft-reset, most people would not even be bothered by this.

To me adding CF drives or large SD/CF memory cards make more sense and provide greater flexibility for the user.

The problem with this approach is that you will not get any optimisation of the pocketpc (e.g.) extra buttons, bigger battery, and the software bundle you get with your pocketpc will not be optimised for that usage e.g. good media player start-up screen and software to copy and sync your media. One of the reasons the Ipod is so well received is that its all an integrated bundle that "JUST WORKS"tm. In the end that is just software however, and there is no reason why the same cant be done for a pocketpc.

Im sure in 2 years, when this same kind of device comes out, most people will be singing its praises, and forget about all the arguments, praise the advantages and forgive the disadvantages to having a HDD in a pocketpc.

Its the same as colour screens in the end. Lots of moaning about the battery drain, lack of significant value add and the other disadvantages. Just look at the destruction it caused to Palm's battery life reputation. But it satisfied the market demand, and people who used to change batteries twice a year are now charging every night. People adapt and accept, if they see a significant benefit.

Surur

[frankenbike]

The standard iPod has a battery life of what, 10 - 12 hours? That's with a tiny low power screen and very intelligent cacheing. Add a full PDA with big color screen, memory, etc. and that life would drop down to probably an hour, maybe two. I don't think anyone would put up with it. Not to mention having to back up your internal HDD via ActiveSync.

To me adding CF drives or large SD/CF memory cards make more sense and provide greater flexibility for the user.

What? While you're just listening to songs you need the screen on? Even on my dedicated MP3 player I have the screen light off when I'm listening. You just use the hardware buttons to change songs on the playlist and adjust the volume. I think the screen power as an issue is a red herring.

There's also this tendency in the discussion to assume that with inclusion of an HDD, that the rest of the technology will stay the same. HDD support would mean an end to the current USB 1.1 Active Sync as we know it. And good riddance to bad rubbish. There's no excuse for Active Sync even today, except for sloth in the design and engineering departments.

I recently played 8 hours of MP3s on my Axim without draining the batteries down all the way. I could have gone a few hours longer. The screen was dimmed all the way, and I changed songs and adjusted volume with the hardware buttons.

If HDDs became a standard, you'd expect intelligent caching to be a primary operating system feature, as well as a transfer system (Firewire?) that could handle the appropriate amount of bandwidth. MS would have a reference design and OS support, and if it didn't, it couldn't possibly work as a standard.

But technically speaking, there's absolutely no reason why the concerns you express would exist in such a device. Current standards do not bind future technology.

[frankenbike]

Look -- I'm not necessarily against the idea per se -- I'm a power user and a geek too -- in fact, I bought a 1GB Microdrive and used it with WMP in my iPAQ 3650 before many of you had Pocket PCs in the first place. :P I'm just saying that it's not "ridiculous" that Pocket PCs don't have hard drives like iPods. There's size and battery life constraints that need to be met. And the market research of Microsoft and OEMs suggest this isn't a priority. You must remember that most of us here are power users, not end-users.

--janak

I'm a power user only because I'm using the device in a different way than the manufacturer intended. But when I bought mine, I intended to use it as a PMC from the get go. It was a major selling point.

But I also wanted it for storing maps and Internet access while travelling.

Last on the list was PIM functions. But I do use them.

I'd say the market research of MS and the OEMs is flawed. Like all research in which the wrong assumption is the starting point, they're going to get the results they expect.

Let's start with the fact that PMC development is separate from PIM development. In the corporate world, that means you have separate divisions with separate management who may be forbidden to step on each others toes by corporate policy. Dell has a digital jukebox, for example. How would management of the DJ team react to the PIM team invading their turf?

Let's add to the fact that the market research team for the PPC would be asking current users of PPCs what they want. That's SOP for market research.

Suppose they narrowed the research down to people who have both a PIM and an MP3 player, but excluded iPod owners? Why exclude the iPod owners? Because they're fanatics. Instead of asking business PPC users, "Would you be interested in an HDD on your Pocket PC?" suppose the question was, "Would you be interested in a single device that fits in your pocket, lets you store and watch 20 movies, play 1000 hours of music, carry maps of the entire United States (or Europe for European customers, or other regions where the survey is taking place), manage your finances, provide Internet access wherever you go, and maintain your schedules, appointments, contacts and other business affairs all for a price between $250 and $500? Or would you rather pay $300 for a device that only plays 1000 hours of music". Phrase the question like that, and only a fool would opt for the the music only player. Only size, which is dictated by useful screen size, would be the primary sticking point, since iPods are capable of being much smaller than PPCs. But for some reason, it doesn't stop people from buying iPods when they could get devices with less storage but form factors the size of a pack of gum or smaller.

The way MS and the OEMs currently see PPCs, they see businesses as their target customers, buying the machines for their employees. But their market potential is far beyond that.

And as I've mentioned before, the battery life and additional weight of a hard drive is an engineering problem that isn't that hard to solve, by modern engineering standards. There's plenty of prior art to suggest ways to deal with it.

The suggestion that the HDD would slow startup down uses the HDD as boot device model, rather than the current PIM model. It only gets used when it's in use, and wouldn't need to be in use for PIM features any more than Flash cards are used now. Most people I've talked to don't even use their built in Flash storage, and don't even know how to because the SOP for PPCs seems to ignore its existence.

I'm not an engineer. But I do have a sufficient understanding of current devices to see how things could be done. The MP3 player could look ahead on the playlist or random play mode, cache the music in BIS, as the use of the cached music progresses toward the end of the list, replace the cache of already listened to music. If increased bus speeds are necessary, make that a design specification. But I don't think they are.

We all know that if design for a PPC with an HDD started today, it wouldn't be based on designs that are out in the market right now. It would be based on newer designs, with newer technology that isn't on the market yet, but that manufacturers have first access to. The 12gb CF HDD that's coming to market for $12K won't cost $12K in two years. OEM cost outside the CF form factor would be far cheaper, especially in quantity. It weighs practically nothing. There's probably a PCMCIA sized drive that's bigger and cheaper, but not by much, that probably also has negligible weight and power usage. The catalog of design solutions available right now is huge.

MS use to talk about device convergence. That they would let flawed market research steer them away from what is obviously the killer power toy of the future is unbelievable.

[jkendrick]

I have a PPC and an iPod. Why do I have an iPod? Because I'm a fanatic? No. Because I mirror my laptop hard drive for recovery purposes. It serves a dual purpose for me and does what I want very well. Do I use my PPC for listening to music? Sure, sometimes.

What I'm hearing in this thread makes it no surprise that PPC marketing is not targeting the proper market because everyone wants something different. Nothing wrong with that but it shows what a difficult task the OEMs and MS have to pitch the PPC. That's if they pitched it at all which is a big pet peeve of mine.

[spinedoc]

Someone made another good point on needing a hard drive: maps. I have a bluetooth GPS and its such a major pain in the butt to load a new map on there, instead of having every map loaded up. Hell my Pioneer navigation in my car has more map memory than my PPC.

It's not that MS/hardware manuf are targeting the wrong market, although they are, its that they are fragmenting the market with MP3 players and personal media centers. It actually makes good business sense if you assume that every consumer will purchase all 3 devices and make them 3 times as much money. Time will tell if that kind of thinking will pan out.

I don't see why the idea of a hard drive has so many that resist it, you durn old teethless guys!! =) How much less power would laptops use if they didnt have hard drives? Will a CF sized hard drive really take up that much room? How can a PMC with a qvga or better screen with a 20gb harddrive and custom software cost $200-$300 less than a Pocket PC with 64mb of RAM?

But seriously we expect Pocket PC's to behave like, well Pocket PC's. But without a hard drive we will never have a true Pocket PC. I don't think it is a matter of what users want, but a natural progression of technology that NEEDS to be implemented sooner or later, and it will be.

In regards to the ipod, I HATE that friggin thing, LOL. I hate all Apple products as a matter of principal, LOL, but that is another thread. But I will put up the interface found in Pocket Music next to the ipods anyday of the week. As a MP3 player the PPC runs circles big time around the ipod, other than the fatal flaw of a hard drive, or lack thereof. Everyone talks about how revolutionary the ipod is, but I just dont see it. Now a PPC with even a 10gb hard drive that is cached for power/speed, now that is revolutionary as a true PPC. I highly doubt a PPC mp3 player would get less than 5-6 hours of play, and probably closer to 8-10 hours, Im sure as a PIM it would get a good amount of hours with a hard drive, and if used as a PMC it would get as many hours as a dedicated PMC, which seems enough to see one full length movie.

Bottom line is that sure different users want different things, but a hard drive is just one of those things that is a natural progression of technology and in a way supersedes what users want, almost like the chicken and the egg, consumers dont know they want it until they get it and see how much better and more useful it makes their experience.

[Janak Parekh]

What I'm hearing in this thread makes it no surprise that PPC marketing is not targeting the proper market because everyone wants something different. Nothing wrong with that but it shows what a difficult task the OEMs and MS have to pitch the PPC. That's if they pitched it at all which is a big pet peeve of mine.
You hit the nail on the head. There are a lot of areas of potential improvement, and as far as I can tell HDs are not at the top of the list for the OEMs right now.

In regards to the ipod, I HATE that friggin thing, LOL. I hate all Apple products as a matter of principal, LOL, but that is another thread. But I will put up the interface found in Pocket Music next to the ipods anyday of the week. As a MP3 player the PPC runs circles big time around the ipod, other than the fatal flaw of a hard drive, or lack thereof. Everyone talks about how revolutionary the ipod is, but I just dont see it.
I own an iPod, and I can see its value proposition. The simple fact is that the iPod does not have a touch screen, and therefore can be carried around compactly and with a bit less care than a Pocket PC. I used to use my Pocket PC extensively for music, but it was far less convenient -- the lack of an inline remote, the need to manipulate a touch screen (OK, so the basic functions can be mapped to hardware, but try selecting music from the library using the d-pad!), and just the general awkwardness of a Pocket PC while using it one-handed are scores on the iPod's side. The Pocket PC's biggest advantage is better audio/equalizer support and support for more formats.

And in any case, this doesn't have to do with Apple. Substitute a Rio Karma or even the new Creative Zen Touch in its place. All of these dedicated players are very simple to use, easy to one-hand, and as such have captured the market's imagination. The Pocket PC is not bad as a player, but some UI research needs to be done to mesh its interface with the advantages of a dedicated music player. I'd love to have the ultimate convergence device, but we're not quite there yet... and the jury is still out on what the public-at-large would prefer. One thing we haven't talked about, incidentally, is cost. Would a Pocket PC with a hard drive sell if you added $200 to the base price of a high-end Pocket PC?

--janak

[Janak Parekh]

In short, sales of pocketpc's have been flat, and it has been because they do not address the desires for the market currently. As I see it, there are 3 things CONSUMERS want.

1) communication by phone, IM and e-mail.
2) internet access
3) Multimedia entertainment, mainly music
I think you'll see the first two attended to before the third -- Microsoft and the OEMs are putting a huge effort into connected devices, first and foremost. The MPx might be the first compelling handheld communication device that's been developed in a long time. I don't think anyone doubts that the disconnected Pocket PC as it stands today has a limited lifetime.

--janak

[surur]

In short, sales of pocketpc's have been flat, and it has been because they do not address the desires for the market currently. As I see it, there are 3 things CONSUMERS want.

1) communication by phone, IM and e-mail.
2) internet access
3) Multimedia entertainment, mainly music
I think you'll see the first two attended to before the third -- Microsoft and the OEMs are putting a huge effort into connected devices, first and foremost. The MPx might be the first compelling handheld communication device that's been developed in a long time. I don't think anyone doubts that the disconnected Pocket PC as it stands today has a limited lifetime.

--janak

But of course they are, but why not address the 3rd properly. And they always make a half-*ssed effort, instead of doing it properly. They are still obsessed with PDA functions of the pocketpc, when they know, from actual market application, that it does not appeal to enough people, and that in the bigger scheme of things it is a niche market.

They should be making devices with keys to access internet explorer and WMP, instead of tasklist and calender. They should anticipate the NEW uses people may want to use their devices for, and grow the market.

Instead of expanding the role of pocketpc, they confine it to the PDA role, and create a whole new category Portable Media Centre, which runs on the same OS, but has a very slick interface for media playback. There was no need to fragment the market in this way. Now I have to choose between getting a media player or a PDA, when I could have paid say $200 more than a regular PDA and gotten the functionality of both.

The problem with adding a hard drive by CF card is that nothing else changes, and then you get a small advantage with piles of disadvantages. If they built it in from the start, they would optimise the interface in many many ways, and make it work properly.

As Ive said earlier, it is a failure of imagination to think our pocketpc's could never work with large hard drives.

Surur

[spinedoc]

Janak you make some great points. I do disagree with the ease of use of an ipod versus a PPC regarding music, but I think that is a personal preference thing. Programs like Pocket Music make the keys on the touchscreen very large where you can just use your fingers very easily, and the hardware buttons. Networked music, whether local or internet, is always awesome. And as I mentioned before you can actually still download a program that mimics the ipod completely, including the touch wheel and interface.

But you are 100% correct when you say that HD's are very low on the list of to do's for software and hardware makers. Personally I think thats a mistake and will slow down the natural progression of technology. What would we have done 20 years ago if no one put hard drives in PC's?

I dont see why adding a hard drive would add $200 to a PPC price when almost exact same hardware that the PMC's have is already hundreds cheaper. At worst case scenario we already know a 4gb microdrive has a tremendous markup and some speculate that OEM's can get a 4gb microdrive for about $50, mark that up even double and at worst you are paying $100 for 4gb of memory, that is a great start I think.

Storage is a serious limitation on the Pocket PC, although it wont be addressed soon, it really should be.

[Janak Parekh]

But of course they are, but why not address the 3rd properly.
Because flash memory is a viable alternative, perhaps? And it's smaller... as of this moment, I think the only hard drive formfactor that can be practically integrated into a Pocket PC while maintaining its current formfactor are the 1", 2-5GB hard drives. 1.8" drives, like the iPod's, will noticeably increase the thickness at least (the iPod's PCB and screen are much smaller than a Pocket PC, and can thus compensate). In fact, there are only two electronic devices period that are that compact: the iPod and Sony's Network Walkman. Even the rest of the MP3 players are a bit bulkier.

So, given 1" hard drives, and the fact that flash is already available for those sizes, what's the benefit? The benefit is that the cost per MB is lower. But it's still nontrivial. If PPC manufacturers start building $800 Pocket PCs, do you think they'll sell well? The iPod sells for $299 for 20GB, and that's with the 1.8" hard drive.

Compare that to cellular and WiFi chipsets, which have already been miniaturized and can be readily integrated into the Pocket PC's form factor and at an aggressive cost, and it's not surprising OEMs have decided that's the way to go first. Things might change as miniaturization continues, but at the same time flash memory isn't that far behind, so it'll be interesting to see what happens.

They are still obsessed with PDA functions of the pocketpc, when they know, from actual market application, that it does not appeal to enough people, and that in the bigger scheme of things it is a niche market.
I'd love to see the market research that shows that people want a touchscreen-enabled PDA + media player. ;) Touch-screen devices in the global market are a small niche as it is. Even non-touch-screen smartphones are dominating the mobile non-hard-drive market.

Instead of expanding the role of pocketpc, they confine it to the PDA role, and create a whole new category Portable Media Centre, which runs on the same OS, but has a very slick interface for media playback.
And no touch screen, which would make for a lousy PIM.

Janak you make some great points. I do disagree with the ease of use of an ipod versus a PPC regarding music, but I think that is a personal preference thing. Programs like Pocket Music make the keys on the touchscreen very large where you can just use your fingers very easily, and the hardware buttons.
I've used about three or four different media players on the Pocket PC, and I still maintain that selecting one artist from a list of, say, 500 is very, very difficult to do with one hand on a Pocket PC while walking down a street. It is utterly trivial to do with an iPod. The pPod is a bit better, but quite frankly, I'm not a huge fan of mashing my hands on a delicate touch screen. Add the case to the equation and one-handing the Pocket PC really isn't trivial. Try using an iPod for some time and it's touch wheel -- it's fantastically engineered.

I dont see why adding a hard drive would add $200 to a PPC price when almost exact same hardware that the PMC's have is already hundreds cheaper.
The Portable Media Center isn't that cheap. Amazon is listing the first two units for about $500. That's without a touch screen, wireless, expansion slots, etc. Add those and you're easily talking $100 or $200 or even more on top of that price.

Storage is a serious limitation on the Pocket PC, although it wont be addressed soon, it really should be.
Again, I'd love to see some numbers about what the average users think about this. Since I carry an iPod around, I'm not even remotely pressed for space on my i700 with its 512MB SD card. If I have energy and remember, maybe I'll do up a poll... but of course PPCT are the hardcore enthusiasts, and they'll always want more space. ;)

--janak

[surur]

I think the only hard drive formfactor that can be practically integrated into a Pocket PC while maintaining its current formfactor are the 1", 2-5GB hard drives. 1.8" drives, like the iPod's, will noticeably increase the thickness

I find this a poor argument, as the microdrive fits into a CF slot. A Media Player PocketPC will be as thick as a PPC with a CF slot, while only having SD. PPCPhones (at least the XDA 2) is noticeably thicker than other SD only PPC's, but this is acceptable due to the increased functionality.

I'd love to see the market research that shows that people want a touchscreen-enabled PDA + media player

Well, this is very rough, but from the pages of pocketgear,
PocketTV classic 760,263 downloads
PocketTv enterprise 30 000 downloads
DVD to Pocket PC 1.2.3 34,678 downloads
PocketMusic MP3, OGG, WMA Player Bundle 3.0 51,061 downloads

These are people trying their best to make their pocketpc's into media players. I dont see why the OEMs dont make it a little easier for them. I agree that a touchscreen isn't ideal to control a device, but buttons are cheap, why not add a few extra ones (even multi-function?) I count 8 buttons on the average PPC, and one d-pad. The creative media player has less buttons. Just because it has a touch screen does not mean you have to use it for that purpose. Whats to stop the Portable Media Centre interface from running on a pocketpc?

And no touch screen, which would make for a lousy PIM.

This site is selling the xda digitizer for $35 (which means it must cost <$20 in bulk) Are you telling me for $50 more my Portable Media Centre could have been a PDA too?

http://www.gethightech.com/Merchant2/merchant.mv?Session_ID=413A30F50009D667000007B100000000&Screen=PROD&Product_Code=XX1331&Category_Code=CS

I've used about three or four different media players on the Pocket PC, and I still maintain that selecting one artist from a list of, say, 500 is very, very difficult to do with one hand on a Pocket PC while walking down a street. It is utterly trivial to do with an iPod. The pPod is a bit better, but quite frankly, I'm not a huge fan of mashing my hands on a delicate touch screen. Add the case to the equation and one-handing the Pocket PC really isn't trivial.

Ive got a fantastically complicated solution to this problem: A transparent flip cover which leaves most buttons exposed, and how about a scroll wheel like the iRiver. It does not HAVE to be an Ipod clone, and I suspect that would not be possible in any case. I would not be as good a music player as an Ipod, but then the Ipod cant show video either.

Regarding cost

The Portable Media Center isn't that cheap. Amazon is listing the first two units for about $500. That's without a touch screen, wireless, expansion slots, etc. Add those and you're easily talking $100 or $200 or even more on top of that price.

Why do you insist in adding the cost of the HDD to the most expensive PPC's, and then get $700-800. How about adding it to the cheapest Zires, which has all the same components for about $200, or if you insist on wifi, the toshiba e740 for about $300. Add the HDD, and it will still be around $500, the same price for much more functionality. I have already seen the Creative Zen for $469 on froogle.

Since I carry an iPod around, I'm not even remotely pressed for space on my i700 with its 512MB SD card.
Maybe this is because your large media files are on your 20Gb Ipod? If you did not have an ipod Im sure you would have wished your could fit your whole collection on your 512Mb. The increased space creates new uses, which is why, each year when I buy a new HDD, wondering at the amazing amount of space, I then fill it up in a few months.

and lastly, who needs more that 640k.

[szamot]

Actually there should be a PDA with 40GB HDD by the end of the year:

Archos AV500

http://www.ehomeupgrade.com/archives/000289.php

Its not Pocket PC - but runs Qtopia Linux - like the Zaurus SL6000

well in that case it is only a matter of time before someone hacks this and we will have a "new" PPC. Interesting, isn't it?

[jkendrick]

The smallest HDD currently available to OEMs is the 1.8" drive. These drives are thicker than the CF micro drives when you factor in the controller and power connections which are handled in the CF connection. The biggest current capacity in the thinnest form is 20gb, with a 30gb drive to come out later this year by Toshiba. The drives bigger than this capacity are thicker and thus require a bigger space in a device.

The drive in the Sony U.70 is the 20gb drive and some owners looking to increase the capacity have discovered that the bigger drives won't fit as there's just not enough room. This problem would be compounded in PPCs as there's even less room to work in. Large HDDs would no doubt require bigger devices and that always is unpopular.

Plus, does anyone want to depend on Activesync to back up gigabytes of data? Or send the whole unit in when the HDD fails? Not me.

[Janak Parekh]

I find this a poor argument, as the microdrive fits into a CF slot.
Well, you didn't read my post carefully then. My point was that the 1.8" disks that the iPod, PMC, and other devices use are too large. You cite the Microdrive, but that's a 1" unit that currently tops out at 5GB, and that's within the reach of flash memory. A 1.8" unit would be quite a bit bigger than a Pocket PC with a CF slot.

Well, this is very rough, but from the pages of pocketgear,
Unfortunately, those are small numbers for OEMs.

These are people trying their best to make their pocketpc's into media players. I dont see why the OEMs dont make it a little easier for them.
As jkendrick pointed out, the OEMs could go in many different directions. They've prioritized their list and connected devices currently have the appeal, so that's what they're going after. It costs money to make many different variants, and as I cited before the Pocket PC OS currently isn't optimized for hard drive storage, so you're talking a fairly substantial R&D investment.

Just because it has a touch screen does not mean you have to use it for that purpose. Whats to stop the Portable Media Centre interface from running on a pocketpc?
In that case, I suspect the PMC will be a lousy one-handed device. In fact, if you look at the form factor, it's designed to be a two-handed device. Which is fine, mind you, but I was responding to the Pocket Player-versus-iPod argument, which is slightly different. MP3s and video have different workflows in terms of screen size, UI, etc.

This site is selling the xda digitizer for $35 (which means it must cost <$20 in bulk) Are you telling me for $50 more my Portable Media Centre could have been a PDA too?
The digitizer is only one part of a touch-screen interface, you know. Don't forget the electronics and software needed to make it happen.

Why do you insist in adding the cost of the HDD to the most expensive PPC's, and then get $700-800. How about adding it to the cheapest Zires
Doesn't that eliminate the whole point then? Are you looking for a very basic PIM with video? I thought the point was to make the ultimate all-in-one device.

if you insist on wifi, the toshiba e740 for about $300. Add the HDD, and it will still be around $500, the same price for much more functionality. I have already seen the Creative Zen for $469 on froogle.
And about 10 minutes, based on my experience on the e740's battery life, nevermind the slow memory bus and the lousy screen.

and lastly, who needs more that 640k.
Again, it seems you didn't read my post. :? As I said, "but of course PPCT are the hardcore enthusiasts, and they'll always want more space." Again, as I mentioned before, I wouldn't mind having the ultimate unit. If I had the capability for more space, sure, I'd use it. But if I, a power user, can be somewhat satisfied with a i700 and an iPod, I can only imagine how the average end-user feels.

--janak

[Janak Parekh]

The smallest HDD currently available to OEMs is the 1.8" drive. These drives are thicker than the CF micro drives when you factor in the controller and power connections which are handled in the CF connection.
Not quite so. If I understand correctly, Cornice's products are intended for handheld devices, and the Microdrives are licensed to Creative, Rio, and Apple, and they're all 1". And .85" disks are coming out, too, which is pretty cool.

Plus, does anyone want to depend on Activesync to back up gigabytes of data? Or send the whole unit in when the HDD fails? Not me.
That's an interesting problem, too -- or how would you sync the content in the first place? My veritable IBM Microdrive failed about 18-24 months after I bought it (bad sectors started forming at the end of the table). Fortunately, it was CF, so I just popped it out, and it's on my table next to me gathering dust. If you were to use the current Pocket PC OS, the solution would be to back up through WiFi, but the power drain would be huge.

Again, we'd need to see the Pocket PC OS evolve a little bit to better support hard drive players. If they do that and the price of micro-sized HDs continue to drop, there could certainly be a compelling combination. And, obviously, hard drives are on Microsoft's radar as they're pursuing CE-based solutions like the PMC with hard drives. I just don't see it happening to Pocket PCs in the short-term. Maybe it'll happen in the medium-to-long term once the connected device space has reached some level of saturation.

--janak

[Janak Parekh]

Actually there should be a PDA with 40GB HDD by the end of the year:
Archos AV500
well in that case it is only a matter of time before someone hacks this and we will have a "new" PPC. Interesting, isn't it?
Hmm. It'll be interesting to see how it will sell. First off, Linux is vastly different from Windows CE, and perhaps Archos had the ability to easily write custom code to improve caching (or managed to grab existing open-source work). Second, this unit will likely be quite a bit larger than existing Pocket PCs. The AV400 (its predecessor) weighs 9.88oz for the 20GB model and is .8" thick (and weighs 11.3oz for the higher-capacity models). In other words, they've integrated a 1.8" or larger disk. If it's a touchscreen, you'll need some sort of screen protection too. The result will be a device that isn't readily pocketable. Third, are there any cost estimates on the AV500, incidentally? A quick Froogle search suggests $450-550 for the AV420 right now. Are they planning to release it for the same price? And fourth, battery life will be an interesting question.

But it is good to see someone push the envelope. :) If anyone ends up getting one in their hands, feel free to post on it on PPCT, and if it's a good overview motivating the formfactor, I'll be happy to frontpage the discussion. I'd also be happy if an OEM proves me wrong and manages to squeeze it all into a pocketable formfactor. I could use more space in my pockets, too. ;)

--janak

[jkendrick]

The 1.8" drives I cited are the smallest drives greater than 5gb as you correctly stated.To me it would not make any sense to permanently install a drive that can already be used in a removable form. Can you imagine the outcry if OEMs put a 5gb drive in permanently? How many people complain now over non-removable batteries? :D

[Janak Parekh]

The 1.8" drives I cited are the smallest drives greater than 5gb as you correctly stated.To me it would not make any sense to permanently install a drive that can already be used in a removable form. Can you imagine the outcry if OEMs put a 5gb drive in permanently? How many people complain now over non-removable batteries? :D
Sorry... I'm a little spaced out, and this conversation is taking several different directions. :lol:

But you're right. If I'm to make my Pocket PC my multimedia handheld, it's gotta be at least 20GB of space. I have about 22GB of music on my iPod already, and being able to carry all my music is incredibly liberating. Plus, video eats up a lot of disk as well. I wonder how far away 1" 10GB disks are -- that might be a sweet spot for a lot of people.

--janak

[jkendrick]

The 1.8" drives I cited are the smallest drives greater than 5gb as you correctly stated.To me it would not make any sense to permanently install a drive that can already be used in a removable form. Can you imagine the outcry if OEMs put a 5gb drive in permanently? How many people complain now over non-removable batteries? :D
Sorry... I'm a little spaced out, and this conversation is taking several different directions. :lol:

But you're right. If I'm to make my Pocket PC my multimedia handheld, it's gotta be at least 20GB of space. I have about 22GB of music on my iPod already, and being able to carry all my music is incredibly liberating. Plus, video eats up a lot of disk as well. I wonder how far away 1" 10GB disks are -- that might be a sweet spot for a lot of people.

--janak

I've got 22gb of music on my iPod too and two drive images for my Sony U70 on it. And I've still got 7gb free. Critics don't get it but I do enjoy my iPod tremendously, and I own every media player for the PPC there is. The things just work and work well. When is the last time you had a problem with your iPod or syncing? To me a true mobile tool success is a device you don't have to think about because it just does what you need. Every time. :)

[frankenbike]

First off, I think 5gb would be a good start.

"Why settle for 5gb in a non-removeable format?"

Because we use those slots for more than just memory, that's why. And rather than put it toward the outside, it can be placed wherever it's convenient. The CF form factor takes up plenty of space that's unnecessary. A lot of devices like my Axim only have an SD slot, and it would be nice to have a lot of memory and be able to add SDIO devices.

The assumption that people are constantly making is that such a device should be made with available technology. That's ridiculous. Let's say the engineering and design for the device started today would come to market in two years. That's probably exactly what the timeframe window of concept to market is. Manufacturers are now specing models for 2006, and the ones for 2005 are already written in stone. By 2006, that drive that fits within the CF packaging and pin structure should be 20+ gb and cheap at that. A 12GB CF card has already been announced, although it's horrendously pricey.

But even 5gb is nearly two orders of magnitude more than the ridiculously inadequate average memory a PPC comes with today: 64mb. And to expand it, we're expected to use one (or in some cases the only) IO port available to compensate for that penchant inadequacy.

Sure, you're business customer might not have much of a use for something like that, unless there's a way to hook the PPC up to a bigger monitor (like with an adaptor that fits in one of the slots, perhaps?)

A PPC could be used for anything a notebook computer could be used for, theoretically. Just with a smaller screen to carry around.

And space is a precious commodity for travelers like me. If I could have nearly the full function of a desktop PC (which is what the name "Pocket PC" implies, after all), with a smaller screen, that would be ideal. Especially if it had the E-911 GPS chip and could use it for travel navigation (you don't need that much precision for travel navigation), and maybe some wider area net access like WiMax available, again without using valuable expansion slots.

It really isn't that hard a stretch of the imagination to figure this is all possible in the current-design-phase near future. The target market would overlap with notebook computer customers (which might mean internal turf battles) that includes just about everyone from my wife to me, to students to businessmen, to families like my friend's, who use his PPC while on long drives watch movies. The kids could each be handed a PPC and watch their favorite shows or movies and stay quiet in passenger autos where the available, purpose built DVDs are impractical.

The market for a fully capable multimedia PPC is vastly larger than the current business model and power user base. The way power users use PPCs should be a strong message of the PPCs potential market in less technically savvy hands. Anyone remember back far enough to who the first users of PCs were? Anyone remember how radical the Amiga was in its time, with its animation, color and object oriented OS? The only reason that didn't take off was that Commodore couldn't help but constantly step on its own dick and didn't keep up with the progress in technology of other manufacturers, leaving it up to its users to add in capabilities through expansion that was available standard in its PC and Mac counterparts. That's what's happening in the PPC today.

[Janak Parekh]

I think most of your points are interesting and you should probably make a pitch to the OEMs, but one point merits some discussion.

The assumption that people are constantly making is that such a device should be made with available technology. That's ridiculous. Let's say the engineering and design for the device started today would come to market in two years. That's probably exactly what the timeframe window of concept to market is. Manufacturers are now specing models for 2006, and the ones for 2005 are already written in stone. By 2006, that drive that fits within the CF packaging and pin structure should be 20+ gb and cheap at that. A 12GB CF card has already been announced, although it's horrendously pricey.

Generally, desktops, laptops and Pocket PCs today don't look that far forward technologywise. Of course one must design two years ahead in the pipeline, but they're generally designing with what's available now and what will be available in, perhaps, the next 6 months. Witness all of the new Pocket PCs coming out today -- the technology for them have already been available for some time.

I'm also not convinced we'll see 20GB 1" hard disks available in mass quantities by 2006. It's certainly possible, but we've got some time to go here and, ironically, flash has overtaken the Microdrive field when it comes to capacity (although not cost).

Also, as I've mentioned before, the current challenges are to build technologies in that would give a sustainable battery life and response time. Even the new PMCs today have "up to 7" hours, AFAIK, and they're considerably bigger than Pocket PCs and explicitly designed for aggressive caching, etc. For this to work, OEMs would have to work with Microsoft to develop the next Pocket PC OS to support more advanced caching and then they'd have to build devices to support it. Battery technology, as well, evolves very slowly. :|

--janak

[spinedoc]

I actually do own an ipod that was a gift from my brother. It collects dust in a closet, I think I may have gotten a month of use out of it. I highly disagree that the ipod is easier to use one handed than a Pocket PC with a good media player like Pocket music, even if I am picking out from 500 songs, etc. Once again that is personal preference, but I have found no need for my ipod whatsoever, and my gym workouts are very grueling, the PPC not only survives but excels greatly in documenting my progress. An ipod creates more hardware to carry as opposed to just having a hard drive in a PPC.

Everyone has different storage needs. Some users get by with a small SD memory card, how I have no idea, but I guess that's what personal PIMs are for. Pocket PC's are meant to be, well "Pocket Personal Computers", ya know? Not rocket science. I think Janek mentioned that the size of current removeable drives are within the grasp of flash memory, I think not. The day we have 4-5gb of flash memory are far away, LOL I think I would be happy with a measly 512mb of flash memory, hell you can get that in a $100 mp3 player.

If we all thought like some of you we would still be back in the dark ages using computers with no hard drives. I'm sure there was an argument somewhere in an IT coffeehouse where it was argued for and against hard drives in a PC. Thank god someone saw reason and began to manufacture PC's with hard drives. It is the future, whether MS/hardware manuf. like it or not, it just depends on whether they want their market share to continue to deplete, or if they want to try something that will increase sales.

[Janak Parekh]

I actually do own an ipod that was a gift from my brother. It collects dust in a closet, I think I may have gotten a month of use out of it.
If you really don't like it, you should eBay it -- they have good resale value. That is, if the battery isn't dead already from a deep discharge.

I highly disagree that the ipod is easier to use one handed than a Pocket PC with a good media player like Pocket music, even if I am picking out from 500 songs, etc.
I said 500 artists. I currently have 302 artists spanning a total of 344 albums resulting in a total of 3,834 songs on my iPod.

An ipod creates more hardware to carry as opposed to just having a hard drive in a PPC.
No debate there. That said, do you carry a cell phone along with your Pocket PC, do you use a Pocket PC Phone, or do you not carry a cell phone around? ;)

I think Janek mentioned that the size of current removeable drives are within the grasp of flash memory, I think not. The day we have 4-5gb of flash memory are far away, LOL
Oh, really? (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B000243DOE/qid=1094359388/sr=8-6/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i6_xgl23/103-2811326-9746242?v=glance&s=electronics&n=507846) And 12GB has already been developed, it's just not commercially available yet.

I think I would be happy with a measly 512mb of flash memory, hell you can get that in a $100 mp3 player.
I used to think the same thing with my 512MB SD card in my XDA Pocket PC Phone. Not anymore. I really like carrying all my music, and any such device must carry all of it. Having the ability to select without having to plan ahead of time is truly the way to go, IMHO.

If we all thought like some of you we would still be back in the dark ages using computers with no hard drives. I'm sure there was an argument somewhere in an IT coffeehouse where it was argued for and against hard drives in a PC. Thank god someone saw reason and began to manufacture PC's with hard drives.
First off, PCs are hardly handheld devices. I am not convinced that spinning magnetic media is the long-term future for portable devices. It's certainly a compelling price-performance ratio right now, but I still hold out great promise for flash memory in the future. Having used a Microdrive in my Pocket PC, I can see the benefits of having nonmechanical media as well.

Second, did you not notice the several times I said that I wouldn't mind having an all-in-one unit? :? I'm just trying to be realistic here and look at both sides of the picture.

--janak

[nuka_t]

Actually there should be a PDA with 40GB HDD by the end of the year:

Archos AV500

http://www.ehomeupgrade.com/archives/000289.php

Its not Pocket PC - but runs Qtopia Linux - like the Zaurus SL6000

EVEN BETTER!

but what i dont understand is how ms can have that 20gigger portable media thingy and only have an hours worth of battery life. there already is a solution, just not a problem.

they dont care about the enthusiasts, but there is a large market for a pmc, that dosent have windows mobile. there are so many people in the world that arent smart enough to use a ppc, so having a "click the button with the movie reel, then the neame of your movie" approach to things widens up their market a WHOOOLE lot. you can tell, that from the 2 mb of rom, they dont plan on giving these things some compicated OS updates or anything of that sort.

[surur]

I would settle for 5GB, and upgrade that to 10GB the year after when I buy my next PPC.

From Seagate (http://www.seagate.com/cda/newsinfo/newsroom/coverage/article/1,1113,2320,00.html)
According to Seagate's predictions, in just two years from now, we'll be able to get a terabyte of storage at home devoted to photos, music and HDTV quality video for under $200, 200GB in a laptop for multimedia computing on the move at less than $150 and another 10GB in a removable storage system for personal devices like phones, camcorders and personal video players for under $100.

Also
Seagate has its eye on a number of emerging applications that could provide new demand for hard drives. In particular, with moving video on mobile phones, demand for memory will soon outstrip the ability of flash to provide the right combination of capacity and price, said Rob Pait, Seagate's director of global consumer electronics marketing. "We're watching that market moving forward."

Hard drives could provide the ideal medium for data like maps for on-board navigation systems. "That's initially going to drive it," said Pait, although he couldn't predict when they might reach the market. "We're looking at the architecture now. It's driven out of the common platform," he commented.


Also, as we keep repeating, a media player PPC will not be a standard PPC. The two can co-exist in the market (like different kind of cars). You would have your svelte little numbers and your SUV sized ones. The fact is with time, even the big ones will become smaller.

That's an interesting problem, too -- or how would you sync the content in the first place?

If Apple have solved the reliability problem, why not HP or Dell? And do you spend a lot of time backing up your Ipod. I would guess not, as media are usually copies of whats stored on your desktop.

First off, Linux is vastly different from Windows CE, and perhaps Archos had the ability to easily write custom code to improve caching (or managed to grab existing open-source work).

Win CE is very open to the OEM's who can modify it quite freely, I understand. It would certainly not need that much modification however.

And again, is Apple the only one who can create a good one-handed interface. I understand the iRiver interface is not that bad at all.

To address the supposed objections point by point:

Size
Yes, a media ppc will be thicker than a regular pocketpc, but not by a lot. It would be like a CF PPC from a year ago, still pocketable. It will be even more pocketable if it did not need a case, using a transparent screen protector.

Battery life
It would use an extended battery (1800 mA), giving it about 2-3 hours battery life, enough for a movie, and 12-15 hours + just playing music with the screen off.

Interface
Like the HP rx3715 it would be designed with media from the start as the USP. That means the keys would be placed appropriately to be play, next tract and stop etc, and it would have a large side-mounted scroll wheel. It would have a touch screen, but the interface for the player would be designed to be used only with the buttons and scroll wheel from the start, with the stylus only used for very special needs, such as renaming a song. The screen would have a transparent plastic flip cover (3 in the box) for protection, which you would flip up when watching or using the touch screen (or could remove completely if so desired). Like the PMC, you would have START button which would always take you back to the media interface start page, so newbies would never get lost, and a TODAY button which will take them to the today screen other stuff. Media would be transferred via USB 2 using a sync program, which would also manipulate a database (ala Ipod), so searching the folders for music would not be necessary.

OS
Yes, the OS would need to be modified SLIGHTLY to make this work. For one, the search all Folders option will need to be removed in the default apps. This only gets confusing when you have many files in any case, and slows down the responsiveness of the unit. All directories accept My Documents would be in flash, and the My Documents folder will be backed up automatically to the HDD when it comes to 5% power, and then shut off (Sprite Backup can do this already, as Im sure you are aware). When you come back a week later and power it up, it will start up right where you left off. They may need help from MS, or certainly their cooperation.

Hardware
QVGA touch screen, 64Mb ram, 128MB rom, SDIO expansion, 312 Mhz processor, which can throttle down to <100Mhz. WIFI built-in. 1800 mA battery, 5-10GB HDD, plastic flip-up screen cover. USB 2 of course, and it would mount as removable storage. Nothing revolutionary and which is not available now, or will not soon be.

I dont see any magic here, or any insurmountable challenges. This is however not something you can do by just adding a microdrive to a standard PPC. It needs an PPC OEM who want a piece of the HDD media player market, but want to grow it from their existing PPC user base, plus rope in some newbies who were thinking of getting a pocketpc, but were also wanting to get a media player. $600 would seem to be a fair price to start with, and it would probably go down to $450 eventually.

Anyways, this is how it should be done if they want to do it RIGHT.

Surur

[frankenbike]

I'm also not convinced we'll see 20GB 1" hard disks available in mass quantities by 2006. It's certainly possible, but we've got some time to go here and, ironically, flash has overtaken the Microdrive field when it comes to capacity (although not cost).

Also, as I've mentioned before, the current challenges are to build technologies in that would give a sustainable battery life and response time. Even the new PMCs today have "up to 7" hours, AFAIK, and they're considerably bigger than Pocket PCs and explicitly designed for aggressive caching, etc. For this to work, OEMs would have to work with Microsoft to develop the next Pocket PC OS to support more advanced caching and then they'd have to build devices to support it. Battery technology, as well, evolves very slowly. :|

--janak

Bingo. But it's the opposite. Microsoft would have to take the lead, and convince the OEMs to follow. And HDDs aren't really the question, they're just a means to an end. Inexpensive storage is the game, and HDDs just happen to be the only player. Certainly Flash could eventually be competitive or even exceed the GB/$ value of HDDs, though that's probably a few years off.

If you're watching movies, sure you're not going to get a lot of battery life because you're lighting up the screen. Playing MP3s doesn't use up a lot of power though, especially if you've got a good caching scheme.

But there are a lot of reasons why battery technology needs to be refined, and most are more compelling than needing longer lasting batteries for PDAs. But of course, they'll benefit. Butane fuel cells would be a good start. But then again, you can recharge the batteries on the fly with a 4 AA battery extender too.

And if, as you say, flash is overtaking HDDs, then battery life is a little easier to solve. Screen power would be the main energy sink. That's obviously going to get more refined, because it's being refined now.

Maybe the whole thing is waiting for a convergence of available technolgies, or it's already in the works. In the meantime, it wouldn't be beyond the current technology to sell 1gb units for $100 more than current prices. It could be tested in Japan, where people spend gobs of money on stuff I can't believe. In Tokyo, there's a whole "Fake Food District" that makes really appetizing looking plastic food. Restaurants you can understand needing that sort of thing. But regular people buy the stuff and put it on the dinner table to kind of dress up the meal they're serving (if I hadn't seen it myself, and actually been faked out by it, I wouldn't believe it). Damn, the shrimp and noodles looked so good too.

Anyway, the concept could be tested today with built in 1-2gb flash, and an appropriate array of included software to test and refine the right way to market such devices. But just as 2gb would open the door, people would find ways to use 20+ gb in ways not yet known. Hell, I have a 120gb HD without a lot of multimedia on my PC, and it's full! And it's almost all work related too. It seems like only yesterday that a 20mb hard drive was a prized possession.

[surur]

I'm probably spending way too much time on this, but this is an area I feel has really been neglected. Here is my mockup of what a PPC/PMC should look like (based on the Zodiac formfactor):

http://surur.sytes.net/ZociacPPCPMC.jpg

Notice the ability to access the scroll wheel and media control keys with one hand, and the screen cover, which means no case is needed to make it bigger. As a bonus it would also make a good gaming platform :)

http://surur.sytes.net/withcover.jpg

Notice the home and start key. If would prevent new users getting lost. Press the home key for media, and the start key for PPC. It would be about as thick and as large as an Axim.

http://surur.sytes.net/compareaxim.jpg



Surur

[spinedoc]

By the way the Loox 720 that I will have next week does have a jog/scroll wheel, for you ipod lovers!! Regardless if you have 3000 artists and 10,000 albums, IMO the PPC interface is still easier.

I think much in this thread is personal opinion though, isnt it always. But I know the hard drive issue transcends personal opinion and is just something that NEEDS to be implemented in the natural progression of technology. Integrate a 4gb CF card then, at least it is not a riduculous 128mb!

By the way I am not sure I understand the point of me carrying a cell phone and a pocket pc? Are you trying to say an ipod is anywhere nearly as important as a cell phone? At any rate I do have a CF Sprint card that allows me to leave the cell phone at home.

[frankenbike]

By the way I am not sure I understand the point of me carrying a cell phone and a pocket pc? Are you trying to say an ipod is anywhere nearly as important as a cell phone? At any rate I do have a CF Sprint card that allows me to leave the cell phone at home.

I've given far too much though to this, butt...

In deciding not to go with a PPC phone I made that choice for four reasons:

1. I don't always carry the PPC.

2. Most phones are a lot smaller.

3. Phones are a lot cheaper if you lose them.

4. Cell phones are more durable and stay charged up a lot longer.

It would be nice if there was an aircard that fit in the SD slot (I only have an SD slot), but then I lose all my storage if I do that. One of the reasons I'm a big proponent of massive amounts of built-in-storage instead of using cards in the only available IO port on many devices.

It would also be nice if there were a way to get a plan that could recognize either the aircard or the phone, but not both at once, using the same minutes, so I wouldn't have to pay for two plans, should an SD aircard ever come out. A compromise would be a phone that an aircard fits in. The phone would actually have no air access without the aircard. Of course, an SD sized device would have to be pretty ingenious to be small enough to make that practical.

[Janak Parekh]

I would settle for 5GB, and upgrade that to 10GB the year after when I buy my next PPC.
Then, there certainly is have the hardware available today, although as you (and I previously) imply, some R&D is needed.

If Apple have solved the reliability problem, why not HP or Dell? And do you spend a lot of time backing up your Ipod.
I think the reference was to how ActiveSync stands today. ;) Unfortunately, I can't comment on the future of ActiveSync (NDA, etc.). As for backing up the iPod, I don't have to. It syncs to a PC, so I have one mirror image of all the files. I think Microsoft has realized the attractiveness of that, so they've built similar sync functionality in WMP10. Now we just need ActiveSync to not be agonizingly slow and we've got some potential.

And again, is Apple the only one who can create a good one-handed interface. I understand the iRiver interface is not that bad at all.
I never said Apple was the only one, but the design of the unit lends itself to it. I'm not sure how one would integrate it with a big touchscreen, but more power to the OEM that can. As for iRiver, my officemate has it and loves it. I'm personally not impressed with its UI on the device itself, although it has a seriously awesome remote control with integrated LCD.

It would use an extended battery (1800 mA), giving it about 2-3 hours battery life, enough for a movie, and 12-15 hours + just playing music with the screen off.
OK - as long as there's demand for a larger unit - then the hardware issues start going away.

I dont see any magic here, or any insurmountable challenges. This is however not something you can do by just adding a microdrive to a standard PPC.
Bingo! That's all I was really trying to say. :P I'm probably too verbose for my own good.

Great thoughts -- now it's time for you to make a pitch to the big guys. ;)

--janak

[Janak Parekh]

Bingo. But it's the opposite. Microsoft would have to take the lead, and convince the OEMs to follow. And HDDs aren't really the question, they're just a means to an end. Inexpensive storage is the game, and HDDs just happen to be the only player. Certainly Flash could eventually be competitive or even exceed the GB/$ value of HDDs, though that's probably a few years off.
Good points. Unfortunately, if Microsoft were to decide to take the lead, I wouldn't be able to say anything (grumble... MVP NDAs...) -- so all I can do is to speculate about stuff that's in the public.

And if, as you say, flash is overtaking HDDs, then battery life is a little easier to solve. Screen power would be the main energy sink. That's obviously going to get more refined, because it's being refined now.
Yes. If high-capacity flash gets cheap, I'll be very excited about the possibilities.

Maybe the whole thing is waiting for a convergence of available technolgies, or it's already in the works.
Well, as the Archos AV500 demonstrates, someone is certainly working on it. The question is how well it'll be received.

--janak

[frankenbike]

Yes. If high-capacity flash gets cheap, I'll be very excited about the possibilities.
Well, I bought a 1gb SD card for around $150 at the beginning of August. Now you can get a 1 gb SD card for under $100. Where will prices for cards like that be in a year or two? And without the card form factor, you'd expect board versions to be cheaper. A year ago, I bought a 256mb CF card for $50. Now it's $20. I think the price drops will accelerate as damand supports far higher production figures.

Even on dedicated Flash MP3 players, there has been a serious lag in keeping up with the memory/price issue. Only the HDD players reflect increased capacity for the same money, which is the only reason why HDD players seem to be keeping up with market price/performance ratios. I don't really understand why Flash devices are so far behind. All of them.
Well, as the Archos AV500 demonstrates, someone is certainly working on it. The question is how well it'll be received.
I think the Archos device is too big and wastes precious space on rounded form factor. I think the device that would succeed would be nearly all screen and waste little space on excess plastic and controls for maximum portability. Slightly thicker would be better than overall large size, especially if you're carrying it in carry on luggage, a backpack or a brief case. Or the way I carry devices, on a belt loop.

I think the reference was to how ActiveSync stands today. ;)
As AS stands today, it's pretty much the way it stood in 1999. Hardly something that is state of the art. It's a dinosaur that should be an embarrassment to Microsoft and the entire industry.

And again, is Apple the only one who can create a good one-handed interface. I understand the iRiver interface is not that bad at all.
I never said Apple was the only one, but the design of the unit lends itself to it. I'm not sure how one would integrate it with a big touchscreen, but more power to the OEM that can.
I don't think a hardware button interface is essential. I've got a couple of one handed touchscreen interfaces, and the only problem is that I don't really know where they are when the screen is turned low. Two personal solutions I've come up with so far: screen overlays with button stickers, and screen overlays with tactile buttons glued to them. I have the mp3 buttons set up for using the scroll wheel for volume.

This however kind of defeats using the movie player aspect ;)

I have the stock buttons set up for one handed operation too, but it works best when I'm holding the device upside down.

It would use an extended battery (1800 mA), giving it about 2-3 hours battery life, enough for a movie, and 12-15 hours + just playing music with the screen off.
OK - as long as there's demand for a larger unit - then the hardware issues start going away.
I wonder if that's a problem with the newer PPCs. The screens seem to use less power now.

And the power issue for PPCs isn't trivial even now. Use Bluetooth or WiFi a lot and you can see that there's an overall need for compact batteries with a lot more power than currently exists. As the evolution of the PPC and batteries together progresses, the fallout makes MMPCs a lot more practical.

But that's an issue under the "no external power available" conditions only. It's rare that I'm completely away from a power source where I'd be sitting around for longer than a couple of hours. Even now there are options to deal with that, especially battery extenders that take common batteries you can find at any corner store.

I dont see any magic here, or any insurmountable challenges. This is however not something you can do by just adding a microdrive to a standard PPC.
Bingo! That's all I was really trying to say. :P I'm probably too verbose for my own good.
Just because you can't solve all the problems at once doesn't mean that solving one major shortcoming of the PPC form factor isn't a worthwhile first step. So you might have to snap a 4AA or AAA battery extender on the bottom of your device in the first generation to extend its usable life if you're away from power for lengthy times? It might be worth it to be able to watch movies for a six hour or longer flight. For MP3s it's a non-issue, because they don't use that much power even now. Ergonomics is a minor point issue as well, that can be addressed by allowing an upside down screen orientation or tactile screen overlays.

The fact is that lack of an HDD and sync mechanism with appropriate bandwidth is holding the PPC back from its full potential on the market. The biggest obstacle to the PPC as a movie viewing device isn't the technology. It's the movie lobby, which won't stand for people copying their DVDs to PPCs and will fight anything that makes it easy without them getting their cut.


Great thoughts -- now it's time for you to make a pitch to the big guys. ;)

--janak

Sounds like you're in a better position to do that than most of us ;)

[Janak Parekh]

Sounds like you're in a better position to do that than most of us ;)
I can't say much about what goes on behind the scenes, but, admittedly, most of my energies are devoted towards getting the little things fixed first. I'm also not much of a video person, so I'll leave it up to the other folks who are more excited about the idea of digital media (like Jason).

--janak

[frankenbike]

Sounds like you're in a better position to do that than most of us ;)
I can't say much about what goes on behind the scenes, but, admittedly, most of my energies are devoted towards getting the little things fixed first. I'm also not much of a video person, so I'll leave it up to the other folks who are more excited about the idea of digital media (like Jason).
--janak

Just print out the thread and find the appropriate person to send it to. They'll know where to find us.

The company phone book is a powerful tool ;)

You can bet that in the company, there are people who are advocates for this sort of thing who only need some evidence to push their agenda forward.

Admittedly, I wouldn't be in the early adaptor market (I'd wait for the price to drop to the $300 range). But hell, there are people who are paying $700+US for a Pocket Loox 720 which isn't all that much better than what you can get for $350.

[surur]

From The Register (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/09/06/samsung_hdd_handset/)

Samsung shows 'world's first' hard drive phone
By Tony Smith
Published Monday 6th September 2004 11:42 GMT
Samsung has shown what it claims is the world's first mobile phone that incorporates a hard drive.

The SPH-V5400, unveiled today in Japan, includes 1.5GB of hard disk storage. That's barely more than you can get from a SD or CompactFlash card, but it's a start, presaging the day when handsets are as much iPods as phones.

The Apple product is not only more capacious than the Samsung handset, but cheaper too. When the SPH-V5400 goes on sale in South Korea later this month, it will retail for around $800, IDG reports.

The idea of adding a hard drive to a handset isn't new, but so far disk sizes and reliability issues have weighed against their incorporation into mobiles. The arrival of 1in drives makes equipping a handset with hard disk storage a possibility, but production isn't easy or cheap - one of the chief reasons why Apple's iPod Mini is proving too hard to get hold of.

The Samsung handset also features an FM radio, 64-voice polyphonic ringtone support, a 240 x 320 display and TV output - again, preparing the way for the day when mobiles incorporate Microsoft Portable Media Center-style functionality.

Ditto the phone's radio, which like the Neuros II 'digital audio computer' and the Griffin iTrip can broadcast audio content to nearby FM receivers. ®


This is why I'm glad PPC's are moving towards smartphones. At least there is some innovation going on, and people are wlling to take risks (look at the Mpx). If a phone can have a HDD, why not a PPC?

Surur

[Zero101]

That phone has a hard drive... great. But does it have memory expansion also? If not, then they are basically doing what you didn't want the PPC to do: stick a hdd in where you would have otherwise had space for flash media. And let's face it, 1.5gb is nothing to shout about..... especially at $800.

So the question is: would you buy a PPC with a 1.5gb drive built in for $800? Because apparently that's the going rate for the technology. :roll:

This is why a hard drive in a PDA makes no sense still. People act like we'll immediately get a device with 20gb's for $400 that will still fit in our pocket and the battery life won't suffer either.

The reality is, if someone were to ship a HDD-equipped PPC, it would be bulky, have crappy battery life and probably cost $800... and would still only have something like 5gb onboard.

No thanks.

[spinedoc]

This is why a hard drive in a PDA makes no sense still. People act like we'll immediately get a device with 20gb's for $400 that will still fit in our pocket and the battery life won't suffer either.
The reality is, if someone were to ship a HDD-equipped PPC, it would be bulky, have crappy battery life and probably cost $800... and would still only have something like 5gb onboard.
No thanks.

Nah, that's not the case, a hard drive in a PDA makes plenty of sense. It's not having a hard drive that makes no sense, especially in the increasing music and video world. I dont think people are acting like we will "immediately get a device with 20gb's for $400 that will still fit in our pocket and the battery life won't suffer either"... I believe most of use know that the early adopters will have to pay a premium for this and we will also either have to get an extended battery, or suffer battery problems.

You know, the more I read responses on here, especially Janak's who you have to respect with his MVP status and inside info, the more I am leaning towards just having larger CF drives. This way you can have the choice of what to do. I just bought a 4gb microdrive and a 1gb SD for my Loox 720, so at least I have 5gb. I think ideally in 2 years when the next pocket PC's are out they should have 1gb of flash memory, and hopefully 15-20gb microdrives will be reasonably priced at $300-$400. This way it is the consumers choice.

The only issue now is that there are many programs that need to be installed in the main memory or they dont function right, although this is probably a software issue more than a hardware issue. Activesync is also a problem, but nothing a USB card reader cannot solve.

So I still believe Pocket PC's need to have hard drives in them, but we are just not there yet. In the meantime we can hope that microdrives and/or CF memory reduce in price and increases in size to the point that we can add 20gb to our machines. But by then we will have 100gb ipods!! LOL.

[surur]

Here's some pics of the device

http://image.cetizen.com/bbs/gallery_500/200409/10944471281.jpg

and

http://image.cetizen.com/bbs/gallery_500/200409/10944471282.jpg

To Zero 101, Maybe it has Transflash :twisted:

Maybe you dont know it, Zero, but newer phones are as technically sophisticated as pocketpc's. If an equivalent PPC would cost $800 ( and people have paid $1500 for pre-production Mpx's) then why cant a phone with similar capabilities cost the same price. When is it a phone and when is it a computer than can phone?

Sure this generation has only 1.5G, but 5GB is the same size, so the next generation will almost certainly have that much, and probably be cheaper. I would remind you that an XDA 2 used to cost $800, and did not have 1.5GB on board.

If you look at picture 2, it seems to have the USB symbol, so Im sure there is no difficulty getting your media onto the hard drive at all.

To all the nay sayers, hard drives are inevitable, and are happening all over. Just not to pocketpc's.

To Spinedoc, adding storage to a pocketpc will never be as good as an integrated solution, as the surrounding infra-structure (bigger battery, better sync software, better interface with the right kind of buttons) would not be included.

This is something Apple always knew: If you do the whole package, you get to do proper design, and make everything "JUST WORK"tm.

Surur

[Zero101]

Maybe you dont know it, Zero, but newer phones are as technically sophisticated as pocketpc's. If an equivalent PPC would cost $800 ( and people have paid $1500 for pre-production Mpx's) then why cant a phone with similar capabilities cost the same price. When is it a phone and when is it a computer than can phone?

Maybe you don't know it... but $800 for a pocket pc with 1.5gb of storage is WAY overpriced. I don't doubt that the phone might be as "sophisticated" as a ppc (although, I doubt that phone has a 400mhz cpu or wifi or a 3.7" screen, but whatever)... but it's still too expensive for such a small amount of space.

For example, I can buy a very nice PDA (http://www.shopping.hp.com/cgi-bin/hpdirect/shopping/scripts/product_detail/product_detail_view.jsp?BV_SessionID=@@@@1379154257.1094494830@@@@&BV_EngineID=cceladcmhhjghigcfngcfkmdflldfgf.0&landing=null&category=handhelds&subcat1=classic_performance&product_code=FA159A%238ZP&catLevel=3) with a 2gb CF card (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B00009KH0E/qid=1094494309) for under $800 already.

I know you are hooked on this "It Just Works" concept... but you know how Apple products pull that off? By focusing on one goal or one application. The iPod "just works" because they focused on a simple music-friendly interface. They did not worry about video or photos. Even though the iPod is probably capable of doing it, they realize it would screw up the simplicity of the product.

Same goes for the pocket pc... it isn't meant to be a media player, it's primarily a PIM. Sure, it is capable of doing more, and thanfully so... but the more functionality you add, the more complicated the device and it's interface will become. Obviously OEM's realize this, which is why they are selling PMC devices seperately from Pocket PC's (even though it could probably be the same machine).

The beauty of the Pocket PC is that it is so expandable and open-ended. It can be a PIM, if that's all you want, or it can be expanded into a media player, or game machine, or voice recorder.. all with minimal effort and cost.

[surur]

Zero101, I'm arguing for optimising in another direction than PDA, as it appears to be a stagnant market with little growth potential.

You can expand your PDA software wise, but you can not do much about the physical interface (e.g. USB 1.1 or 2, location and type of buttons, screen cover or not, scroll wheel or not, etc).

I find it amazing that HP can do a media ppc without play, pause and next track buttons. Who exactly does this appeal to? I also find it amazing that they do not include adequate storage. Their solution of wifi and streaming from the desktop is poor at best, and I'm sure sucks battery much faster that a HDD would. Also your media goes away if your more than 100 feet from your desktop. What were they thinking!

I'm not obsessed with hard drives per se, but its clear that the hard drive curve is much faster and cheaper than solid state memory, and that the market has developed an expectation for large storage for media (> 4GB for example).

I more argue that the large storage should be integrated, with the focus on media playback (the only thing you really need large storage for these days) and that this should be reflected in the physical interface.

Your HP2215 +CF does not address my main objection. If some-one sold a Media player pocketpc with CF slot it may be a hit, as long as its cheap enough, but people are willing to pay a lot more for an all-in-one solution. It does not have to appeal to everybody, but the trend is certainly in this direction currently.

Surur

[Zero101]

I more argue that the large storage should be integrated, with the focus on media playback (the only thing you really need large storage for these days) and that this should be reflected in the physical interface.

Well, lucky for you, they have already made such a device:

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B0002J6GLG.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg


I mean, that is what you are asking for, right? A device focused on media playback with a large internal hard drive. Ta da!

Cool media player... but it would make a horrible PDA. Too big, no touch screen, no expandable media slot, no wifi, no bluetooth.. etc etc. Adding those things would inevitably bring the cost (and the size, and the weight) up even higher than it already is.

Yes it would be cool if there was a small device that did all of the things above... but it's just not practical yet. Too expensive, too big, and it's one device trying to do too many things.

People act like the uber device could be easily created... that the technology is there and the OEMs are holding it back out of spite or ignorance. The reality is that the technology doesn't exist, and if it does, it's way too expensive for consumer products.



Will PDA's have internal hdd's in them at some point? I don't doubt it. But it won't be anytime soon... probably not even in the next 5 years.

[surur]

I more argue that the large storage should be integrated, with the focus on media playback (the only thing you really need large storage for these days) and that this should be reflected in the physical interface.

Well, lucky for you, they have already made such a device:

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B0002J6GLG.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg


I mean, that is what you are asking for, right? A device focused on media playback with a large internal hard drive. Ta da!



There is a difference between focus and dedicated. Thats just another portable DVD player, or might as well be, despite having 90% of the hardware of an average PPC.


Cool media player... but it would make a horrible PDA. Too big, no touch screen, no expandable media slot, no wifi, no bluetooth.. etc etc. Adding those things would inevitably bring the cost (and the size, and the weight) up even higher than it already is.

Yes it would be cool if there was a small device that did all of the things above... but it's just not practical yet. Too expensive, too big, and it's one device trying to do too many things.


If you consider that device as cool, I've got of few Ford Mondeo's to sell you. Cool is a combination of aesthetics and functionality. Whats wrong with my version, that does both?

http://surur.sytes.net\zociacppcpmc.jpg

Do you realise that cellphone from earlier has the same resolution screen as a pocketpc. If your HDD is 5GB, it obviously does not add that much to the size (look again at that cellphone).

The Creative unit could have been a good pocketpc, if they added a touch screen for $35 and 64Mb memory for $20. Just because microsoft made the choices they made does not mean they could not have decided differently.


People act like the uber device could be easily created... that the technology is there and the OEMs are holding it back out of spite or ignorance.

I am actually convinced that microsoft decided on the single purpose unit to reduce the hackability of the unit, so they could preserve their media relations and offer more content.

The reality is that the technology doesn't exist, and if it does, it's way too expensive for consumer products.


How expensive is too expensive. Is $800 too much for the ultimate pocketpc? Because Im sure there are many people wiling to pay that. Again, many people paid that for the XDA 2.

Will PDA's have internal hdd's in them at some point? I don't doubt it. But it won't be anytime soon... probably not even in the next 5 years.

http://www.pdagold.com/img/hardware/main_large/0000000118.jpg

Like the Toshiba GENIO e550/MD with 1 GB microdrive built-in from 2002. You may not have heard of it, released only in Japan. It was before its time, but it certainly was not a brick, and looked the same as any other Genio, in other words very slick.

I bet you HD's will be in at least 2 PPC's in a year, but if they dont customise the hardware and interface they wont catch on properly. It will just be the dying gasp of a class of devices the market has passed by.

Surur

[Janak Parekh]

This is why I'm glad PPC's are moving towards smartphones. At least there is some innovation going on, and people are wlling to take risks (look at the Mpx). If a phone can have a HDD, why not a PPC?
Great catch. :)

So, three points.

1. I'm curious how battery life on this unit plays out. The Samsungs I've had tend to be mediocre battery-life-wise as it is. And, for Pocket PCs, you've got a larger screen, etc. to cram in.

2. The price is insane. I know, it's a first step, but this is not going to sell at its price point. Most consumers will be happier to have two separate units costing much less. For $800 I can get a top-of-the-line Pocket PC and a 1GB SD card. In fact, why didn't they just integrate an SD card's electronics? Wouldn't it make it lighter?

3. (A bit OT) No Bluetooth, I'm sure, it's Samsung and they hate Bluetooth. :|

Anyway... I'm wrong in the sense that a smartphone OEM has actually gone ahead and created it. I still think the technology has to evolve some before the mass market adopts it. I'll post on it on the frontpage, nevertheless -- it's certainly newsworthy.

--janak

[Zero101]

Ugh.. these arguements are just going in circles. This will be my last post in the thread because so much of this is based on opinion, and chances are it will never come to any conclusion.

My final thoughts:

1. Just because that cellphone has the same resolution as a ppc, doesn't mean I want to watch a movie on it. I would rather watch it on the PPC's screen. Plus, why do you care about the phone so much? Not only does it NOT have the "just works" media functionality of your media-focused device... it's even less media focused than a ppc. (does it have a play button? can it play divx or windows media?) This seems like a backwards step more than anything.

2. The eGenio w/ built-in MD is simply a normal pocket pc with a MD permanently fixed in the CF slot. Big whoop... I don't think this is what anyone in the thread is looking for.

3. The pricing people quote is complete BS. Unless you work for an OEM, how can you know what the actual cost for that technology is? There is a reason why the flipstart and OQO will cost so much, and HDD-based mp3 players cost so much without all the stuff that makes a pocket pc what it is.

4. All this arguing is over nothing. I have a 2 year old PDA that has a hard drive. There are a bunch of different ways you can get a HDD for your PDA right now. Don't like those options? Don't know what to tell you... but it makes me plenty happy.

And with that, I am out of this thread.

[jkendrick]

The major points of interest about the Samsung phone (at least for me) are:

TV out
FM Tuner
FM broadcast to any FM receiver within range (ala the Griffin iTrip for the iPod)

That's a very interesting choice of features that Samsung has put into a phone and far more interesting than the HDD.

Just my two cents.

[surur]

Just to resurrect an old thread:

Some people have complained about size and battery life implications of a built-in hard drive.

To refute them, I present this device (http://www.engadget.com/entry/6213210442242855/#c29988):

http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/media/users/4259/archos.jpg
http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/media/users/4259/archos2.jpg


Observe the size, slightly smaller than a treo. It has a 20G hard drive, which plays music for 10 hours with the screen of, and plays 3-5 hours video. It is actually thinner than the treo AND has a compact flash slot. It also plays games.

Im not saying this is the ideal product, but it obviously has most of the hardware of a pocketpc. There is NO reason why a pocketpc with the same functionality cant sell for $600 (this device is $350 btw)

Surur

[PhatCohiba]

Thanks everyone for contributing to this thread.

My Final Views:

I understand that HD are not typical of what one expects in a ppc and the space and battery implications BUT there is certainly room and battery life for a 1-2gb flash memory in many ppcs. I believe that this sort of HD or HD emulating flash storage is critical for the continued development of the PPC. Who among us is not buying large flash memory cards almost as fast as they are released. And then one flash card is usually a permenant resident in your ppc.

Anyway thanks for the spirited debate....

[jagnon]

I was complaining about the lack of hard drives in pocket pc's a year ago.. even tried emailing toshiba to spur them to put a toshiba hard drive into one of their pocket pc's... Best solution right now would be larger capacity microdrives..

http://www.ldlc.fr/fiche/PB00016715.html?origine=670014

This is a link someone sent me for the Textorm Pocket PC with 30gig hard drive.. for 599 euros

Système d'exploitation Microsoft Pocket PC 2002
Ecran 240 x 320 pixels, TFT, 256 000 couleurs couleurs
Processeur Intel Xscale 500 MHz PXA 250
Mémoire, stockage Disque Dur 30 Go
Mémoire extensible oui
Ports d'extensions 1 port AV-out, 1 port S-video, 1 port line-in, 1 port audio-out
Dimensions 13,3 x 8,0 x 2,6 cm
Poids 580g
Type de batterie Lithium Ion polymère
Station d'accueil oui
Interface avec le PC USB 1.1

[surur]

This is EXACTLY what I've been talking about!! I would have preferred the keys placed a bit differently (less of the same old same old placement) and a larger scroll wheel. Also I wonder if it comes with any additional software to manage the media you would load on the hard drive.

Why is this not distributed more widely? It needs a bit of updating, but the price is reasonable. I hope I see this in UK some time.

http://images.ldlc.fr/photos/00/00/29/09/ME0000290984_2.jpg

Surur

Edit: It has 256Mb ram!! Bluetooth and wifi built-in!! 7 hours battery life playing video!!

This thing rocks!!

[jkendrick]

Please post a link where you found this. The features indicates it's more of a media center than a PPC. There is no way it plays video for 7 hours in a normal PPC form factor.

[Dolphin]

Please post a link where you found this. The features indicates it's more of a media center than a PPC. There is no way it plays video for 7 hours in a normal PPC form factor.


http://www.ldlc.fr/fiche/PB00016715.html?origine=670014

This is a link someone sent me for the Textorm Pocket PC with 30gig hard drive.. for 599 euros



BTW... no where close to ppc form factor... 580g is over 1 pound!

Système d'exploitation Microsoft Pocket PC 2002
Ecran 240 x 320 pixels, TFT, 256 000 couleurs couleurs
Processeur Intel Xscale 500 MHz PXA 250
Mémoire, stockage Disque Dur 30 Go
Mémoire extensible oui
Ports d'extensions 1 port AV-out, 1 port S-video, 1 port line-in, 1 port audio-out
Dimensions 13,3 x 8,0 x 2,6 cm
Poids 580g
Type de batterie Lithium Ion polymère
Station d'accueil oui
Interface avec le PC USB 1.1

[jkendrick]

Pocket PC 2002!

[Dolphin]

James...

If you've been using them since they weighed 30lbs, this one shouldn't be too bad for you... it's only a pound and a quarter! :wink:

BTW... nice website! www.jkontherun.com

[surur]

Sure its heavy, but if you were in the market for a pocketpc AND a media centre, this unit would save you money and weight, as both combined would cost more AND be more bulky.

This is obviously an older device, but it does illustrate whats possible. Its bulky, but have you seen how thick the Mpx (with mandatory extended battery) and the XDA IIs (III) is?

If they could update this device with the following, I would be all over it:

Consumer infra-red
VGA screen
WM2003 SE

Otherwise the specs are perfect! Just imagine the battery life you would get out of this if you only use it for PIM stuff. It would last a week or two without charging!

Anyways, maybe someday a major OEM (it could have been toshiba, but they are exiting, arnt they?) will pick up and run with this idea. Its obviously possible AND achievable.

Surur

[Thinkingmandavid]

As I read all of these posts, it is obvious that a lot of it is about opinion. Janak has good knowledge, others have ideas, others thinking futuristic, others stating what they want as consumers. We need all of these for products to come to market. The technicals are to create and invent, the consumers should be the ones listing their demands and receiving what they want. It does not always work this way. Where will we be on this issue one year from now?
I would love to have a gig of memory on ppc but I do not think I will see it soon. I had to settle for a low model because of a warranty exhange, but I still dream of a higher end model.
I do know I want to carry my ppc and have it as an all in one device and not worry when it is knocked against something.
The things we worry about today may not be the things we worry about tomorrow. So when a year from now becomes our present what will be our new worries with the ppc?

[jkendrick]

James...

If you've been using them since they weighed 30lbs, this one shouldn't be too bad for you... it's only a pound and a quarter! :wink:

BTW... nice website! www.jkontherun.com

Thanks!

[Dolphin]

Sure its heavy, but if you were in the market for a pocketpc AND a media centre, this unit would save you money and weight, as both combined would cost more AND be more bulky.
This is obviously an older device, but it does illustrate whats possible. Its bulky, but have you seen how thick the Mpx (with mandatory extended battery) and the XDA IIs (III) is?
If they could update this device with the following, I would be all over it:
Consumer infra-red
VGA screen
WM2003 SE
Otherwise the specs are perfect! Just imagine the battery life you would get out of this if you only use it for PIM stuff. It would last a week or two without charging!
Anyways, maybe someday a major OEM (it could have been toshiba, but they are exiting, arnt they?) will pick up and run with this idea. Its obviously possible AND achievable.
Surur

I must agree... these are good points!