Registered: Sep 1999
Location: Seattle, WA, USA
Posts: 37

Can someone be honest about the good, bad and uglies of Palm vs. WinCE? I'm considering cancelling my order of the VD and purchasing a HP Jornada 430se(16RAM, 8ROM, 65,000 color) instead...

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I'm a name not a #! Oh, wait a sec,... I guess I'm both...

Registered: Sep 1999
Location: Los Angeles
Posts: 69

I purchased a Casio E10 as soon as they became available. It's been sitting in my bookshelf for months. My biggest problems with it were:

1. Battery life is dismal.
2. Severe lack of software (somewhat better now, but still well behind PalmOS).
3. The Outlook style PIM just didn't fit right.

From what I've seen here and elsewhere, if you love eye candy and are willing to tolerate short battery life, go with something like the Casio E-100. If you want ridiculously long battery life and connectivity to most all PC/Mac PIM software, get a PalmOS gadget.

Nuf Sed.

Registered: Sep 1999
Location: Nashville, Tennessee
Posts: 32

My view on the palm-size market is comparible to Macs and IBM Comp's now...

The Palm software is easy to use and more simple, they are also somewhat cheaper...
(mac)

WinCE Palm's are in color, more customizable, have more speed/memory, and accessories built in....you pay for this also....
(WIN9x PC)

The difference in this market compared to the desktop/PC market is that the Palm (mac) is on top....Mostly for the reason that palm size computers are used to organize...unless you are wanting to play sounds, make presentations, edit MS OFFICE files, and view movies and pics on your portable palm-size PC, there is no reason to pay for the extras....Most people just want to keep dates, names/numbers, info ETC...

It really comes down to what you will use your palm-size PC for and how much you are willing to pay....

Even though i too want a Jornada, i do not feel that i would use it to it's full capacity....ALSO...When i want to look up a phone number, i want the simple Palm software...Not the START menu system....

For it's price the Visor is a incredible deal with great potential technology through springboards....That's why i am awaiting my blue VD...

Then again if a Jornada was $250 (i mean the 430se) i would get it over the Visor right this second....

-charley


[This message has been edited by chashine (edited 09-30-1999).]

Registered: Sep 1999
Location: Seattle, WA, USA
Posts: 37

there is some cool voice recognition stuff on the new Jornada that makes it easy to find (and dial for you) a name in your PPC... I think I'm gonna cancel my order. I can always take the jornada back and re-order ... Besides, as far as the "pretty" case goes, I'm gonna have a friend build me a couple of custom ones. One using titanium, one polished aluminum, and one of Kevlar/carbon composite...

Try to talk me out of cancelling if you can...

Registered: Sep 1999
Location: Spokane, WA, USA
Posts: 114

You're going to settle for eye-candy and very crappy battery life to get voice recognition on a bulky WinCE OS that will probably be more trouble than it's worth?

One thing I think people overlook is that just because the machine has more memory doesn't mean it can do more. From what I understand, the WinCE OS is bulging... The machine has 8MB ROM because that's how much space it takes up to get the same basic functionality of a Palm.

I use my Palm IIIx for the Datebook, Address Book and Notepad... And with the address book, everything is alphabetized and categorized. I don't think I'd take the time to hold a PDA up to a phone so it can dial for me (I can dial really fast).

The Palm OS is a very tightly-coded, nicely optimized system designed to give the user exactly what the person needs: information. A few hard keys, an adequate screen, monochrome (saves battery life, simplifies displays), and an easy writing system. They require less memory because the CPU and the programs can do the same thing WinCE machines can do without the nasty "Hey look, we cut down Win95 a bit and threw it on a little-bitty PDA" overhead.

If I were you, I'd figure out if you want a real, functional tool or a toy. Who knows, maybe a voice recognition Springboard will be designed for people like you who want to show off the machine to your coworkers and say, "Hey look - it can dial a phone for me." I'm not saying that's bad... I just find it superfluous.

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Chazzz Fishburn
[email protected]


[This message has been edited by Chazzz (edited 09-30-1999).]

Registered: Sep 1999
Location: Dayton, TN, USA
Posts: 66

I must say, Chazzz, I agree.

Registered: Sep 1999
Location: Hoboken, NJ, 07030
Posts: 105

A friend was just telling me the other night that after using a Nino for eight months he's finally concluded that it's just too big. Next step? A Palm, maybe the Vx, may a Visor.
He used a lot the fancy features (Voice Recording, playing wave files etc.) but the device was just flat out too big.

Registered: Sep 1999
Location: Durham, NC, USA
Posts: 47

I'm thinking that if voice recognition is as wishy-washy on full-blown PC's as it is right now, how good could it possibly be on a PDA? I'll be the first to admit I haven't used voice recognition in quite some time, but I have family who has, and it seems like even on a PC it takes quite a bit of tuning to get it to do what you want it to. I'd hate to have to do that with my Palm

Registered: Sep 1999
Location: Atlanta
Posts: 27

I have to agree with android, I have a Nino 301 and have steadily grown to not using it as much as i used my Palm Personal. The CE machines are so much trouble. It's like having windows 95 in your palm device and consequently you can really do damage by deleting files or having corrupted files. I have had to "reformat" my Nino at least 3 times because either I delete a file by mistake or system files became corrupt. Also, the sync-ing on the CE machines is absolutely horrible. Until activesync 3 came out, I couldn't sync my nino and have a dial-up connection to my ISP.

The size of the Nino was primarily why I stopped using it daily. It came with a slip case that was the tackiest case you could imagine and increased the size by several inches on all sides. Also, the fact that it had buttons on the side made my choices of aftermarket cases very slim.

It also came with voice recognition but honestly it was a toy. I would have to yell into it to have it recognize my voice and it wasn't accurate very often. Voice recognition on a palm-size device seems like such a neat but stupid idea (are you going to yell into it at a meeting?).

I can't wait to get my graphite visor deluxe.

Also, just to add, comparing the processor speed on CE machines and palm machines is not an accurate comparison. My 75 mhz Nino was slower than my original Palm (which i think was lower than or equal to 8 mhz).

[This message has been edited by richp (edited 09-30-1999).]

Registered: Sep 1999
Location: Los Angeles
Posts: 69

Chazzz has a good point.

I noticed a HUGE difference in application sizes btw CE and PalmOS. The overhead for coding for the CE is really cumbersome. If you look around at PalmOS filesites, you'll see that the apps for it are super small... "10's of K" instead of "100's".

Take a look at this article on Gadgeteer about the reviewers move from Palm to E100... and back to Palm.
http://www.the-gadgeteer.com/palmv2e100.html

Registered: Sep 1999
Location: Seattle, WA, USA
Posts: 37

Regarding size, there is only .2 inches thickness difference. And that's just not a HUGE deal...

Registered: Sep 1999
Location: Endicott, NY USA
Posts: 60

To be honest, I own an older Windows CE handheld (the Cassiopeia A11) and used to own a Palm III (until it was stolen) and I have to say I prefer the Palm. This isn't meant as a jab at the WinCE machine... I liked that handheld quite a bit too, but when I use a PDA I don't want to end up comparing it to my desktop computer... instead, I should be comparing it to the paper organizer I used to carry around. That after all, is the key reason why you would have a PDA: quick access to your dates, to-dos, numbers, and other important data. Anything else (e-mail, games, etc.) is icing on the cake. With the WinCE handheld, I had to deal with short battery life (even in the black & white WinCE devices, battery life was a factor) which essentially meant that I DIDN'T always have access to my critical data. Likewise, waiting for WinCE to go through its initial turn-on sequence, and then having to navigate through the Win 95 interface was a minute or so too time consuming when I JUST needed a phone number. When it comes right down to it, a WinCE device is a laptop on a budget... not a bad thing at all, but not a PDA by any stretch of the imagination.