Net browsing in VGA

[donkey33]

Before I ask my other question in another thread, I just want to get an opinion on this.

How much better is the surfing experience on a VGA PPC compared to a QVGA?

Is it worth the upgrade as I'd be doing a lot of surfing if I get one?

Thanks

[Menneisyys]

Before I ask my other question in another thread, I just want to get an opinion on this.

How much better is the surfing experience on a VGA PPC compared to a QVGA?

Is it worth the upgrade as I'd be doing a lot of surfing if I get one?

Thanks

Definitely worth the upgrading - the text is so much clearer in SE mode / so much more info can be put on the screen in the native VGA mode. And, if you don't have a WM2003SE device, the native orientation changing mode is also a big plus.

Furthermore, due to the restrictions and flaky design in/of PIE, there will always be certain kinds of web pages / offline (e.g., CHM) documents that can only be viewed in VGA mode without major horizontal scrolling problems. (Assuming you don't use an alternative browser [e.g., NetFront 3.1] / non-PIE-dependant book reader [e.g., uBook 0.9b]). PIE hasn't ever (not even in its latest version) been able to render wide HTML pages shrinked to the available screen width well.

If you indeed want to browse the net a lot, a VGA PPC is a must IMHO.

[yanathin]

To tell you the honest truth, I personally did not like surfing the net in VGA. I have reasons to back this up, too.

First of all, Pocket IE works worse on its regular settings in VGA than it did in QVGA mode on other models. Pictures are enlarged and look horrible compared to everything else, and it's much slower. If you want to actually make use of the VGA screen and download those SE_VGA or ozVGA programs, it'll make viewing MUCH nicer... But that's just about it. You see four times as much, but loading the pages seemed four times as slow. I often found myself switching out of the "true VGA" mode to view web pages just so I could load it in a decent amount of time. So in the end, it's a lose-lose situation in my opinion.

I came from an Axim X50v and now I have an imate JAM. BitStream ThunderHawk 2.0 is the way to go for QVGA devices. It somehow converts web pages to be viewed full screen as if they were at 640x480 on a QVGA screen, and is BLAZING fast, even on slow connections. Sure, things looked really crisp and clear on the VGA screen, but QVGA is where the speed is at. Overall, QVGA just seems much faster and much more stable, and ThunderHawk 2.0 still looks better than Pocket IE does in "true VGA" mode.

Either that, or I got a crappy X50v.

[Menneisyys]

BitStream ThunderHawk 2.0 is the way to go for QVGA devices. It somehow converts web pages to be viewed full screen as if they were at 640x480 on a QVGA screen, and is BLAZING fast, even on slow connections. Sure, things looked really crisp and clear on the VGA screen, but QVGA is where the speed is at. Overall, QVGA just seems much faster and much more stable, and ThunderHawk 2.0 still looks better than Pocket IE does in "true VGA" mode.

Either that, or I got a crappy X50v.

PIE is indeed slow in native VGA, especially if you enable images and there're a lot of them. The solution is using an alternative Web browser (in VGA): Netfront works just great and can be, according to my latest benchmarks, an order of magnitude faster than PIE with pages that indeed contain tons of images.

[donkey33]

Thanks.

What about just in general anyway. I hear it drains battery life and isn't as good as everyone thinks or says.

This would probably be my PPC for the next few years so would that change any recommendations?

Thanks

[Menneisyys]

What about just in general anyway. I hear it drains battery life and isn't as good as everyone thinks or says.

Some VGA PPC's indeed drain battery quite fast. The Toshiba e830, the Pocket Loox 720 and the hx4700 have, however, decent battery life. It's nowhere as good as the battery life of a lot of QVGA PPC's (iPAQ 2210, rx3715 etc), however.

The biggest problem with VGA devices (especially the ones with 3.6"-3.7" screens; 4" devices are a bit better in this respect) is that you won't be able / want to use their full capabilities, namely, you won't want to use it in native VGA mode, because of the small characters. In "standard" SE mode, mostly, it's "only" at the crispness, clarity of the characters/images that they excel in, not in the amount of information that can be displayed at once.

Still, it's true that you inevitably will run into cases when, due to its inability to cruch web pages horizontally into one page, you would want to switch to VGA while browsing Web pages with PIE. (WM2003SE's PIE's One column display mode is only usable with simple, forum-based tables). And yes, Thunderhawk works indeed good with QVGA machines. It's just that a lot of people don't like it because of its scrolling mode and that it's not free.

I still think if you have the money and can live with the average battery life of, say, the hx4700 or the Pocket Loox 720, get a VGA device. You won't regret it.

[buzzard]

Just an update...Thunderhawk 2.0 has excellent scrolling, unlike earlier versions

[Kati Compton]

Yeah - I'm looking at getting a replacement browser, but Thunderhawk is just too expensive given the amount I use the browser. What other browsers have speed advantages over PIE (and display images properly instead of pixel-doubling?)

[Menneisyys]

Yeah - I'm looking at getting a replacement browser, but Thunderhawk is just too expensive given the amount I use the browser. What other browsers have speed advantages over PIE (and display images properly instead of pixel-doubling?)

NetFront 3.1 is way better than PIE as far as image rendering speed is concerned (see, for example, http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=36376 for some benchmarks)- so, it'll render pages that contain many images much faster than PIE (with no-image pages, the rendering speed is the same). Also, it supports hi-res in forced VGA mode (this is how PIE should work in SE), and its "Fit to page" algorithm works better than those of PIE.

[surur]

Thanks.

What about just in general anyway. I hear it drains battery life and isn't as good as everyone thinks or says.

This would probably be my PPC for the next few years so would that change any recommendations?

Thanks

If you are buying for the next few years, you definitely need VGA. More and more software will offer features best implemented in VGA (such as the mini-text mode in PocketInformant), and I assume most of the future pocketpc's (and certainly in 2007) will be VGA.

If you are REALLY buying for the next 3 years, you need to get the best you can now. Which is a best is a question for your priorities.

If its ram size the Loox 720 is the best. If its processor speed the HP 4700 is the best. The toshiba's battery is a bit too small, as is the battery of the Dell x50v, especially as you are concerned about this already.

On the other hand the Dell has a graphics accelerator, a feature which will almost certainly become standard (and likely necessary) in the future.

As you can see, choosing now is not simple. Maybe the best thing would be to wait six months and see how things shake out with the new OS, especially as you wish to keep your device for the next few years.

Surur

[Kati Compton]

NetFront 3.1 is way better than PIE as far as image rendering speed is concerned (see, for example, http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=36376 for some benchmarks)- so, it'll render pages that contain many images much faster than PIE (with no-image pages, the rendering speed is the same). Also, it supports hi-res in forced VGA mode (this is how PIE should work in SE), and its "Fit to page" algorithm works better than those of PIE.

I'll use the Tweaks2k2 VGA hack, but I don't plan to run SE_VGA or those other VGA hacks that require a soft-reset and aren't on a per-program basis. Do you know if I still get the non-pixel-doubled images?

[surur]

I'll use the Tweaks2k2 VGA hack, but I don't plan to run SE_VGA or those other VGA hacks that require a soft-reset and aren't on a per-program basis.

Dont knock it until you try it. A soft-reset is a small price to pay for the much added functionality.

Surur

[Kati Compton]

I'll use the Tweaks2k2 VGA hack, but I don't plan to run SE_VGA or those other VGA hacks that require a soft-reset and aren't on a per-program basis.

Dont knock it until you try it. A soft-reset is a small price to pay for the much added functionality.
Yeah, but I'm frequently jumping around between programs, and that could cause me trouble.

[Menneisyys]

NetFront 3.1 is way better than PIE as far as image rendering speed is concerned (see, for example, http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=36376 for some benchmarks)- so, it'll render pages that contain many images much faster than PIE (with no-image pages, the rendering speed is the same). Also, it supports hi-res in forced VGA mode (this is how PIE should work in SE), and its "Fit to page" algorithm works better than those of PIE.

I'll use the Tweaks2k2 VGA hack, but I don't plan to run SE_VGA or those other VGA hacks that require a soft-reset and aren't on a per-program basis. Do you know if I still get the non-pixel-doubled images?

yes, pics are hi-res even in forced vga.

[Kati Compton]

Anybody know the pluses and minuses of MultiIE vs. NetFront? Or vs. PIEPlus for that matter? Speed would be a big one for me, as well as quality of display (how well it's reformatted).

[Menneisyys]

Anybody know the pluses and minuses of MultiIE vs. NetFront? Or vs. PIEPlus for that matter? Speed would be a big one for me, as well as quality of display (how well it's reformatted).

IMHO both PIEPlus and MultiIE are bloatware. Each tab in MultiIE occupies 1 Mbyte of memory; therefore, the speed of the tab (context) switch is not very fast.

PIEPlus has a some even more annoying problems, for example, the tab height can't be set and it has issues with scrolling in SE.

Therefore, as far as PIE is concerned, I'd go with the Spb Pocket Plus PIE plug-in. It too has a problem (doesn't change the window name according to the current title of the document), but occopies far less memory and the context switch, thefefore, is almost instanteous, unlike with that of MultiIE. It doesn't occupy any screen estate at all either, unlike the other two solutions.

NF 3.1 is a completely diferent beast. It has both advantages (speed of rendering gfx; hi-res images even in SE) and disadvantages (problems with some forms and it doesn't even know conditional HTTP requests - its local cache is only meant for offline browsing). It has a far better screen shrinking algorith than PIE when it comes to rendering wide tables, however.

IMHO, in general, it can't really be stated which one is better because of the minor annoyances with NF. In general, however, I prefer NF over PIE.

[Kati Compton]

Cool - thanks!