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- Visor & Deluxe (http://discussion.visorcentral.com/vcforum/forumdisplay.php?forumid=1)
-- Visor vs. Pocket PC (http://discussion.visorcentral.com/vcforum/showthread.php?threadid=1222)

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Have you seen all of the announcements about incorporating Adobe PDF and Yahoo wireless into future revs of the PalmOS?

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And believe me, I'm not saying that Palm couldn't move faster in inmproving the OS - I was rather disappointed that the IIIc didn't use color more effectively in the Datebook and Phonebook applications.

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I would just like to add that at the company I work for there are many people switching to Palms (sorry no visors yet) to replace their day planners and phonebooks. Based on the people I talked to, about 95% of them have only the Palm stock software on their Palms. The fact is for many people Palm or Visor does everything they need right out of the box! PocketPC is a lot of flash but doesn't do much more than PalmOS. It has color, but color is not necessary.

If PocketPCs were competitive in price to Palms and Visors I would considered them.
My dream would be to have full versions of Word, Excel, Powerpoint on a PocketPC device. I would buy it in a second. Most of my computing at work involves those programs. I have a laptop now but the ability to carry around a HPC instead of a laptop would be great.

My 2 cents

argent -- The PDF format seems to have taken hold in the printing industry to compliment the use of Postscript technology. I could see some use in having PDF format supported on the Palm, not necessarily for viewing documents but printing documents. Ie -- be at a customers site, whip out the Visor, plug in some numbers for a quote and IR print a beautifully formatted quote/info form for them (or beam a PDF of the quote into their computer system).

I think they should also throw in HTML. However, given the form factor, screen size, etc maybe something like pdaHTML (subset of HTML for PDAs) would be in order..

Integration of HTML to the Windows desktop -- a wee bit off topic, but what is nice about this is having a standard markup lanugage to utilize -- however, I really haven't seen many people make use of this function..

Regarding the Datebook/Phonebook .. Maybe they should just give that to a dedicated applications development team. Building that inhouse does have the benefit of being able to (theoretically) more tightly integrate the OS and application base together. However, I do think they need to start and get serious about making the OS capable of supporting larger/more complex applications.

Joe

Joe

One of the items mentioned in this post is price. The visor is cheap and as several people have already mentioned,it dosent come with all that 'other' stuff. The analogy of the calculators still holds true. feature does not equal value.
The unique idea of a palm reinforced by springboard expansion slots is that they can be bought a little at a time. It is the psychology of the thing. The initial cost of the PDA didn't scare the daylights out of me so I was rewarded. The next time I buy something for it, not as much as the pda and I still procted the invenstment in the pda, I am again rewarded with a low price.
I may indeed spend more on the final amount of items but I only bought the ones i liked and i bought them on a payment plan.
WinCE vs Palm is in many ways comparing apples to oranges. The Plam is a replcement for the personal organizer which is why the Palm is a personal data assistant. If you want a pocket PC then get a WinCE product or, for a little larger profile and about $200 more get a laptop. If you want to manage your datebook, remember your schedule and keep a list of things to do (all the functions of a day planner) get a pda.

A more serious critisim of features for the PDA would be to mention that it lacks a sketch pad as a normal part of the device. If the PDA is supposed to be a replcement for my day planner then it follows that I should be able to sketch a graph or something very similar.

PDAs prevent pondering the Hereafter
When I'm at the store with my Visor I never have to ponder what i'm here after.

Socrates:

Get DinkyPad. It's not as sophisticated as the Newton's sketchpad (no shape recognition) but it's only five bucks (shareware, but not crippleware), easy to learn, and you can use it to write in your regular handwriting for those times when Graffiti's too slow (as when taking down driving directions). You might want to get AppHack at the same time so you can access DinkyPad quickly with the press of two buttons. You can get them from Daggerware or Palm Gear HQ.

Socrates,

Actually the Pocket PC and all current WinCE Palm-size PCs do in fact handle sketches and drawings directly on the screen, within the NOTES application. You can even specify color. You can write words or freehand drawings.

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argent -- The PDF format seems to have taken hold in the printing industry to compliment the use of Postscript technology.

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Ie -- be at a customers site, whip out the Visor, plug in some numbers for a quote and IR print a beautifully formatted quote/info form for them (or beam a PDF of the quote into their computer system).

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Regarding the Datebook/Phonebook .. Building that inhouse does have the benefit of being able to (theoretically) more tightly integrate the OS and application base together.

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Let's see if I can successfuly post this this time...

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The Pocket PC has many features that Palm users have begged for over the past 4-5 years. Including: audio capabilities,

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more advanced built-in apps,

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color screens (with higher resolution),

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eVisors' have the illusion that they are cheaper than the Pocket PC, but that's not entirely true. Add up the cost of all the Springboard modules that add to its capabilities.

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Plus the Pocket PC has an "industry standard" expansion slot, not a proprietary Springboard slot. How many consumer electronic devices have a Springboard slot? How many have Compact Flash?

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Microsoft may have found a niche with three critical features...Color...MP3...and ebooks.

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In the end it comes down to innovation through competition.

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re: ebooks & PocketPC

ClearType is at its core a font rendering technology (according to Microsoft's press release), and at first I thought it might be cool to better reproduce a book's type on a pda. However, on reflection, I think that this is a bogus feature! Why should I care that my pda can render Hiroshige, when most laser printers lack the resolution to capture its feel?!? To translate, an ebook using ClearType is not going to be easier to read - - it will probably be harder to read than an ebook that uses a well crafted screen font (to use Windows terminology). You are trying to get a low resolution device to reproduce type faces designed for high resolution printing.

Given the screen size of a pda, I'd suggest that for ClearType to produce results that would truely be easier to read you would need very high resolutions - - probably more than 300 dpi. I doubt if you can buy a screen with that resolution at this point.

Don't believe me? Look at the screen shots for yourself . . . http://www.wiredguy.com/reviews/sr/...s/000000014.htm

Now consider the situation on the Visor. The Palm OS's screen fonts are already optimized for screen size and resolution. This is, in part, why you don't get to choose from a 1001 typefaces on your Visor. Yes. I know there are replacement fonts, and I know that some applications support multiple fonts, but we digress . . . The point is that I've always judged the appearance of text on the Visor as more than good enough . . . and I do alot of reading on my Visor! Sure. Someday it would be nice to read an ebook set in Caslon, but until screen technologies are up to the task I'll pass.

Let me close with this thought. The application of ClearType might actually be a a technique to fix the problems with the white gaps that appear between the black pixels on color displays. I know that this bothered me when I looked at the older color CE devices (and especially the Palm IIIc). It made me glad that I wasn't seduced by the glowing reports of how wonderful the IIIc was.

[This message has been edited by yucca (edited 04-03-2000).]

Yucca,

The Palm IIIc is a hideous device! The screen is horribly pixelated, and certain colors appear unusually reflected. After using one for less than one day I was suffering from eyestrain! This is mainly due to the low resolution of tht Palm OS. Pocket PCs run at a much higher 320x240 res that makes it much more readable. By the way, I've seen the HP Pocket PC and ClearType does make a huge difference in readability. I found it very hard to go back to reading ebooks on my Visor. Say what you will, but the Palm platform is not a good choice as an ebook or eText reader until it overcomes it's limitations.

The screenshots of Microsoft Reader actually do look much better than any ebooks on the Visor or text on the IIIc (I've only seen Memo Pad output on the IIIc, not an ebook). Another concern, however is battery life. Since ebooks require much longer intervals of power than most apps, I'll stick to the PalmOS for reading. My only beef with the Visor is the backlight which, even when inverted, is nowhere near as good as the Palm III. A color screen would eliminate most of the need for a backlight in indoor settings. Otherwise I don't have a problem reading on the Visor (since switching from Doc readers to iSilo).

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Say what you will, but the Palm platform is not a good choice as an ebook or eText reader until it overcomes it's limitations.

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Yucca,
What you were looking at in those screenshots were the default settings. You can configure the Font size, margins, page settings and so forth use less "whitespace." Just as you can with a Doc reader on a Palm.

foo - Can you turn justification off?

BTW. PeanutReader only supports 3 fonts sizes, page orientation, auto scroll, and invert screen (is the feature set differnet on CE?). For commercial ebooks on PDAs, this is the reader that you've got to use. Understand that this may well change for the Pocket PC crowd (what with the deal with B&N).

[This message has been edited by yucca (edited 04-05-2000).]

Yucca,
I can't remeber seeing a justification setting. I only looked through the settings screen briefly. I will e-mail wiredguy.com (Richard Kettner has all the screenshots) and see if he can post a screenshot of the Microsoft Reader settings screen.

Also, has anyone heard anything more about the color Visor?

This is also in the Off-Topic Forum, but I think it also fits up here in Visorland, so if you have read it down under, this is just the same.

The Cassiopeia E-115 is for sale at Egghead.com, HardwareBuyline.com, and handheldCanada.com. The cheapest is at HardwareBuyline where they have it listed at $520.95. I have already placed my pre-order so that I can get to the top of the line as well as take advantage of the low price. They are selling it for cheaper than they are selling the Cassiopeia E-105!! Go Figure! (Link below)
http://www.hardwarebuyline.com/prod...HBL&c=00.00

On the issue of battery life, the biggest difference between Palm and WinCe devices is the marketing strategies. Palm advertises their products as having four week battery life, so everyone assumes that the life is so much better, but what people don't realize is that this is based on "normal daily usage". When you actually work out the "four week" battery life, it comes down to about 12-14 hours, not that much better than current WinCE devices. Remember, the new devices are rumored to have much better battery lives as well, so battery is not as much of an issue as I used to think.

I used to be a Visor addict until I found out about the new Pocket PCs. I still think the Visor is incredible and the best Palm device out there, the new Pocket PC's blow the Visor out of the water in terms of functionality out of the box. I personally want to be able to work on my device while listening to music. The Pocket PC's come with Excel and Word, the two programs that are the most useful to me. I would have to pay nearly $100 extra to get fully functional versions of these on my Visor, and they still wouldn't be as powerful or have the same integration that the Pocket versions do. The Pocket versions can read straight from Word 2000 and Excel 2000, so there is no compatibility issue or an issue where you have to change formats everytime you hotsync.

I also need something to listen to music on, and the Pocket PC does that out of the box with the Windows Media Player. It costs $100 for the Innogear MiniJam, and that comes with no memory. I also realize that I will need to buy extra memory so that I can have a decent amount of songs with me at all times. Compact Flash cards are not the "industry standard", but they do have the most prevalent market share. The cards are currently much cheaper than the smaller Multimedia cards that the MiniJam uses, so I will save more money on memory in the long run. I can also use the compact flash cards with my digital camera, saving me money as well.

COLOR SCREENS!! The Pocket PC screens are much better than the Palm devices and have a much better resolution. While the Visor's screen is sufficient for what it does, color adds a whole new layer of opportunity. Things such as productivity apps, as well as anti-productivity apps (namely games), benefit greatly from the addition of color.

Another thing that converted me from the Visor to the Pocket PC is the availability of a fully featured graphing calculator. There are some calculators out there for the Visor, but they have severely limited capabilities. Having a graphing calculator on my new Cassiopeia will allow me to leave my TI-85 at home.

The new Pocket PCs are also supposed to have greatly enhanced handwriting recognition. Microsoft either bought the rights to Paragraph's Calligrapher software or actually bought the company, but either way, the program is likely to be incorporated. I have read that it will be called "Microsoft Transcriber". I have tried the Calligrapher software and it is incredible. Full handwriting recognition will make my PDA so much easier to use. I currently own a Palm V, and I know that I cannot write long documents or memos because the data entry is so time consuming and inefficient. Calligrapher recognizes almost any kind of handwriting, be it print or cursive, and you can write anywhere on the screen. On the Visor, a large portion on the bottom of the screen is taken up by the Graffiti pad, taking up valuable real estate. The fact that the Pocket PCs can do full handwriting recognition will save me from having to buy a keyboard to lug around with me. If I ever wanted one however, Think Outside is making a version of the Stowaway (a great keyboard), for WinCE devices, so that option is still there for those who want it. You can try the Calligrapher software online via a Javascript program. (link below)
http://www.paragraph.com/javapad/JavPad.html

The old WinCE devices are not that much bigger than the Visor anyway. The Cassiopeia 105 is .08" thicker, .26" wider, and .31" taller. This doesn't add a whole lot of space. The only significant difference in form factor is the weight. The Cassiopeia weighs 3.6 oz more than the Visor, about 2/3 more. This doesn't bother me too much because of the extended functionality I am getting.

Well, to make a long story long (sorry about the length of the post), price/functionality increase I get for the Pocket PC switched me.

Visor = 250 + 100 + 100 = $450
(MP3) (Word & Excel)
Cassiopeia 115 = $520

The Visor is $70 cheaper only using the two things I mentioned, but the color screen, handwriting recognition, graphing calculator and the cheaper flash memory is well worth it. I switched because the new Pocket PCs do everything I need (I am also a technophile), but if all you are looking for is a PDA to keep track of your appointments, the Visor is for you.