MobileTechReview Gives Us Hands-On Experience With WM 5

[Jon Westfall]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.mobiletechreview.com/editorials/windows-mobile-5.htm' target='_blank'>http://www.mobiletechreview.com/edi...ws-mobile-5.htm</a><br /><br /></div><i>"Windows Mobile 5 sports many new features and enhancements making it a very worthwhile upgrade. Perhaps the most important feature that everyone will love- from PDA novices to hardcore PDA devotees, is persistent memory. Your data won't be lost if the battery runs completely dry-- a new concept for Pocket PCs, and an old one for MS Smartphones and some Palm brand PDAs such as the LifeDrive and Treo 650. This memory architecture more closely resembles PCs: RAM is used for running programs and not for storage. Your data and all OS files are stored in Flash ROM which doesn't require power to preserve its contents."</i><br /><br />MobileTechReview gives a nice overview for those of you who aren't familiar with the new features of WM 5. For those of you who are familiar with them, some nice screen-shots and practical information are provided as well.

[Menneisyys]

"Speaking of power, since the device need not power large amounts of RAM, battery life has improved about 10%."

I'm not sure this is right - AFAIK, WM5 itself doesn't result in any kind of less battery usage if you don't completely switch off the device. When, in suspended mode, you refresh the RAM content, you do this with the entire RAM, not with only those cells that indeed hold something. That is, it doesn't count, power consumption-wise, if the RAM is 10% or, say, 70% full.

[Jonathan1]

"Speaking of power, since the device need not power large amounts of RAM, battery life has improved about 10%."

I'm not sure this is right - AFAIK, WM5 itself doesn't result in any kind of less battery usage if you don't completely switch off the device. When, in suspended mode, you refresh the RAM content, you do this with the entire RAM, not with only those cells that indeed hold something. That is, it doesn't count, power consumption-wise, if the RAM is 10% or, say, 70% full.

I think they are talking about future devices. Specificly ones that don't need 128MB of RAM and 64MB of ROM but have 32MB or 64MB of RAM and 256, 512, 1GB or ROM.

[snayar]

Please remember that WM5.0 uses Persistant Storage, it uses RAM only to execute programs, not to store anythyng (thats why some say 64 RAM is more than enough on these devices).

And since ROM does not need the battery to keep the data it has 10% (or even more) improvement in battery life. :D

Best regards,
Rayan

[yankeejeep]

I am a little confused. If the device is suspended rather than turned off completely, power will still be trickled through the RAM to maintain whatever (if anything) is loaded, which is pretty much the way these same devices function now apart from the storage aspect. The persistent storage may not require trickle to maintain itself but that shouldn't change the fact that the RAM will be maintained under most circumstances with WM5 since the default power handling will be to simply suspend the device rather than turn power off completely. Or does the OS stop powering the RAM once an image of it is flashed at power-off?

My understanding is that the effective battery life is greater because, with persistent storage, the battery reserve imposed by the OS to protect the RAM for 72 hours is no longer there. So the device will actually let the user run the battery to zero instead of shutting down when the safety line is reached.

[gibson042]

I am a little confused. If the device is suspended rather than turned off completely, power will still be trickled through the RAM to maintain whatever (if anything) is loaded, which is pretty much the way these same devices function now apart from the storage aspect. The persistent storage may not require trickle to maintain itself but that shouldn't change the fact that the RAM will be maintained under most circumstances with WM5 since the default power handling will be to simply suspend the device rather than turn power off completely. Or does the OS stop powering the RAM once an image of it is flashed at power-off?
No, suspend still works exactly the same. I asked the same question.

My understanding is that the effective battery life is greater because, with persistent storage, the battery reserve imposed by the OS to protect the RAM for 72 hours is no longer there. So the device will actually let the user run the battery to zero instead of shutting down when the safety line is reached.
Absolutely correct. The battery gain referred to is from the removal of the 72 hour backup requirement. There is also an indirect gain from persistent storage: building less RAM into the devices in the first place, and thus having less to refresh.

[Phillip Dyson]

Does anyone know if WM5/ActiveSync4 has true category filtering.

I'm desperate to get rid of Intellisync. :(