Ken

I for one don’t mind strong opinions. PalmOS fans can sing praises to Hawkins and company all they want. What bugs me is when the loyalty shifts away from the *product* itself and is instead placed on the *brand*. As someone who has yet to purchase a PDA, I find such loyalty worthless. It’s like people who buy Tommy Hilfiger (sp?) just because it says “Tommy Hilfiger.”

Getting back to the PocketPC – can anyone tell me what the release dates are for the iPaq and the Casio? Also … Foo – can you tell me why you went with the Jornada over the other two (iPaq & Casio)? Thanks.

foo fighter

Ken,

I chose the Jornada, mainly, for it's design and styling. It's practically the same size as my Visor. Also, it's currently the only Pocket PC available. The Casio E-115 is also currently available, but in my opinion it barely qualifies as a PPC since it's nothing more then "yesterdays" model with the new OS thrown in, and it has no USB!

You may want to wait for the Compaq Ipaq. It looks very promising and also has a color display that can be viewed outdoors. Currently no color PDA on the market can do this very well. I can still read the display of my Jornada outside using the flip-up lid as a shade, but even still appears very washed out and dark.

I looked at the Compaq on ZDTV's Fresh Gear the other day, and it looked great outdoors!

Hope this help.

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Foo

foo fighter

Ken,

I don't want to push you, but someone who ordered their Jornada 545 from HP using the $100 promotional coupon just emailed me saying HP just put her unit on backorder. They told her that they have now sold out of all of the pre-release shipments of Pocket PCs. This means the units that are currently in stores are all that's left!

If you decide to go Compaq, you'll be more than happy. But if it's the Jornada you want....then get'em while their hot!

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Foo

samabari

Foo..
Forgive my ignorance but could you explain the difference between type I and type II CF cards. I am thinking about buying the HP but alot of people seem critical of HP's choice to go with the type I CF card. Is something lost by going with the type I card, or more importantly, is something to be gained by waiting for the Compaq or one of the other new releases from Casio. I am not sure what additional add-ons I might have a use for. How is the expansion capability of the HP affected? Also, how large of a CF card would be required to hold an hour's worth of music? Thanks.

dequardo

A bit lengthy, but....
I was most excited about the Jornada. So much so that I bought one right away last week. Let me explain first that I've had a bit of experience in 'gadgetry'. In the past 3 years I've owned (not in order) a Pilot Pro, Velo 1, Velo 500, LG Phenom, LG Phenom Express, Jornada 420, Casio E100, Casio E15, Aero 1530, Visor Dlx and the Jornada 545. I was intriqued by the new Pocket PC's and the Jornada in particular due to the form factor.

Suffice to say that after just 2 days the 545 is going back from whence it came and I'm back to to the Visor for daily work. Why?

1) Mainly the OS. From all accounts the reviews say Microsoft finally got it right. Bzzzzt. Wrong. I find the new OS even WORSE than before. It's just as goofy and even more counterintuitive IMHO. You will either have to take my word or try it yourself.

2) Speed. To me this is the main issue. I held great promise for this being near equal to the Palm OS. I have 3,000+ contacts (entire company phone DB). On the Palm OS these come instantaneously. The Jornada still struggled mightly and painted the screen VERY slowly. Most disappointing.

3) Cover and Stylus. Cover OK, stylus horrible. Who approves this crap??

4) Add on Apps. A real mishmash of stuff on ROM and CD. Advertised as having Avantgo in ROM but this was not true. Peacemaker is a great idea but horrible 1.0 beta IMHO. Slow as could be.

There are niceties of course w/the CF slot, voice recording, etc. Form factor is just OK. Quite heavy still though it is stylish.

I'm also quite concerned over th future of PPC devices. One only has to look at how companies support (NOT!) their current customers. With the exception of Compaq, who at least makes a ROM upgrade, albeit for their 70MHZ processor devices, the others should be ashamed. HP offers NO upgrade or trade-in at all for the 420 or 430 series. Most references to those models is removed from the HP web site. Casio announces a weak trade-in program.

MICROSOFT removes ITS CE web pages entirely. Must make those who bought 2.11 devices very proud indeed. I had seen enough.

The entire PDA word will look radically different in a year anyway with convergence with phones and wireless functions sure to be there soon. I'll save my $400-$500 for that.

Mike

foo fighter

dequardo,

Just read about your experience with the Jornada. Sorry things didn't work out for you.

I have a few things to interject to your complaints though. First, I've found the speed of the OS to very good, the only time there seems to be a "slow down" is when there are REALLY large amounts of data to chew on, but by and large performance is good.

I've used Peacemaker, and I can't see at all why you think it's too slow. I exchanged business cards with my Visor, and the transaction was instant! How much faster do you want it?

And, AvantGo IS built into ROM, in fact, it's part of Pocket Explorer.

..."form factor is just OK"? Are you crazy! It's awesome. It looks better than any Palm device (with the exception of the Palm V) on the market! I'll take a metal case over cheap plastic any day!

We both agree on the stylus though....it's terrible. The design team should be drug out into the parking lot and shot for coming up with this thing!

As for Smartphones and WAP devices taking over, we'll see. Although, I have been saying continually that everyone here is making a huge mistake by assuming this will be a war between Palm and Microsoft. Microsoft isn't Palm's enemy....it's Symbian we have to look out for. And judging from the latest news, it looks like my fears are justified!

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Foo

dequardo

I agree with you on a few things-and some updates:

1) I do think the speed factor (bad) on contacts is due to the large number I have (nearly 4,000). The fact remains though that my Visor finds them instantly. Even the categories I have with a hundred contacts show the screen painted in piecemeal fashion on the Jornada.

2) I had to read more about Peacemaker and I agree it does seem to work fine-though the interface could be a bit cleaner.

3) Found my problem w/AvantGo. Was a strange 'autodetect network' issue that I had to uncheck a box for (and that my boss's did NOT have to on his ??)

4) Pocket IE and PS 3.0 are still one of the best things about color CE devices.

5) *** is up w/Pocket Access?? Shows in AS3.1 but nothing in ROM to work with it??

I still don't like the base UI and I think it's clunky. HP has done a pretty good job trying to mask it with their overlay but it still begs for more 'intuitive-ness'

good luck

mike

bayoyong

shawnc

Foo is right. I have been a long-time PPC owner (though not a "techie" by any means). I brought a Treo 300 about 2 weeks ago and I LOVE IT! My reason for owning a PDA was the capability to interact with Word and Excel from my desktop. Imagine my surprise when I read in a Pocket PC Thoughts forum that not only can I do that with a Palm, but apparently the Palm software works BETTER than the PPC. Something about retaining more formatting when syncronizing files. This was the height of arrogance/indifference by MS and was enough to push me to try Palm. The only thing I miss so far is the ability to listen to MP3's. I had never even heard of MP3's when I brought my ipaq 3 years ago. About a year ago I started burning MP3's and now it is the most frequently used aspect of my PPC. IMHO the surprising part of Palms position on multimedia is that multimedia is perfectly suited for Palm's target market (younger professionals, college students, etc).

As I said earlier, I love my Treo. The ability to access the internet live (no avant-go download) faster than many folks can do from home, to read and respond to email (in 3 years I was NEVER able to get this to work on my ipaq), and do all this without a seperate ISP has exceeded my expectations.

I do miss the MP3 capability and there isn't as much software that is useful to ME as I had thought there would be, but all in all I am happy to be in the "Palm" world.

My only bit of advice, don't turn this site into a PPC bashing forum. Both OS have their strengths and weaknesses and we all have a vested interest in seeing both of them succeed.