TuxTops published my comparison piece between the two leading platforms in the PDA world: Palm and PocketPCs. This might be a useful guide to users who are considering a new PDA, or switching.
The Gloves Are Off: Palm Vs Pocket PC
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
I’ve been a fanatic PDA user ever since the Atari Portfolio. And I must say that Palm simply is the least fancy OS and has the least fancy applications. Windows Mobile (of whatever they call it today) looks great and has fantastic multimedia applications. Symbian feels good and has fanatastic internet and synchronisation tools… but in the end, I always find myself flocking back to Palm. Reason for me (subjective, I know!): fantastic well designed interface. Less clicks to get to your information, great battery life and 100% one hand control. The latter is especially handy in a car … try to input an appointment in a Windows Mobile device, while driving 120 km/h on a freeway.
“try to input an appointment in a Windows Mobile device, while driving 120 km/h on a freeway.”
You shouldn’t even be calling with a phone in your hand and eyes on the road, let alone input an appointment with a stylus while you look at the screen. Idiot
“You shouldn’t even be calling with a phone in your hand and eyes on the road, let alone input an appointment with a stylus while you look at the screen. Idiot”
Ever heard of Duo Sim and a decent integrated car phone. That means you talk handsfree with a decent set of speakers and mike. Then you use your PDA/Smartphone for input only and the TREO 650 clearly wins, because you can enter everything with one hand (thus the other one your steering wheel) … to me Palm OS is not only more stable, but also safer
Ever heard of Duo Sim and a decent integrated car phone. That means you talk handsfree with a decent set of speakers and mike. Then you use your PDA/Smartphone for input only and the TREO 650 clearly wins, because you can enter everything with one hand (thus the other one your steering wheel) … to me Palm OS is not only more stable, but also safer
Uhm..hello? Holland has banned calling with a mobile phone while driving because drivers become too distracted and can’t react fast enough, requiring car-kits instead. Other countries are doing the same. How is using one hand for input while occasionally looking at a screen even remotely safe compared to that?
“Uhm..hello? Holland has banned calling with a mobile phone while driving because drivers become too distracted and can’t react fast enough, requiring car-kits instead. Other countries are doing the same. How is using one hand for input while occasionally looking at a screen even remotely safe compared to that?”
Yeah, I know… I’m from Holland too. You can either pretend that we live in a perfect world, or accept the situation that people scrible/SMS behind the wheel. I know it is not safe, but it happens…. and in that sense one hand input on a TREO is much safer than stylus action on a CE/pocket PC/Mobile device (or tungsten, etc).
Two hands on the wheel is always safer, but simply not always a reality.
I’ve never owned a PocketPC or a Palm, but I can’t imagine them being nearly as useful as my Zaurus. I can’t say I’m a big fan of Qt, but Trolltech’s Qtopia environment is very easy to use. And with the choice of OpenZaurus and Gentoo, I’ve got everything I need in the palm of hand.
I am getting a zaurus next week, I will write a comparison after I have used it for a while.
PocketPC:
9. Runs on faster XScale hardware than PalmOS usually.
Palm:
11. No VoIP support from third parties. Usually Skype or Stanaphone require 300 Mhz and a microphone and only few PalmOS devices feature these.
I don’t think it’s really fair to consider that “oh most recent pocketpc’s use xscales” and when you’re talking about devices with palmOS you’re considering older devices in the mix too. Most POS devices made in the last, I dunno, maybe two years, have at least a 300mhz proc, and a lot of them use the Xscale 400mhz.
PalmOS:
2. Most apps run at 160×160, even if the screen is capable of 320×320 or more.
Well, if you’re saying this, then something is really strange, because I had a Zire 71 almost as soon as it was out, and had it for a year, and yes, in the first couple of months, palm OS 5 was too new and all, and many apps were 160×160, but before I traded it in for a ppc (needed wifi), a year ago, I think I had ZERO apps running at 160×160, and I had a lot of demo’s and freeware (I like to carry a lot of crap, you never know when you’ll have 2 hours to “sit through”), so I don’t think that this ‘Con’ is fair. IF you were referring to 320×480 screens, then yeah, I agree, most apps are for 320×320, and not for 320×480.
>I don’t think it’s really fair to consider…
No, it is fair. PalmOne still sells PDAs that are WELL below 300 Mhz, like the brand new Tungsten E2. PocketPCs on the other hand, their lowest end today is 312 Mhz. Two of the Zires are well below 200 Mhz and are still shipping normally.
> I think I had ZERO apps running at 160×160
I meant *double pixeling*. They use the FULL 320×320 area, but by double pixeling their 160×160 native resolution. Many PalmOS apps are still designed only for 160×160 (and then double pixeling at 320×320), while the LOWEST resolution for PocketPCs was always QVGA anyway (240×320).
>No, it is fair. PalmOne still sells PDAs that are WELL below 300 Mhz, like the brand new Tungsten E2. PocketPCs on the other hand, their lowest end today is 312 Mhz. Two of the Zires are well below 200 Mhz and are still shipping normally.
You’re right, but still, the Zire line was pushed down in price, and it’s supposed do be cheap, so I think it’s not fair saying that a $300 ppc has an xscale while a $130 palm doesn’t. As for the T|E2, yeah, you’re right about that one.
> I meant *double pixeling*. They use the FULL 320×320 area, but by double pixeling their 160×160 native resolution. Many PalmOS apps are still designed only for 160×160 (and then double pixeling at 320×320), while the LOWEST resolution for PocketPCs was always QVGA anyway (240×320).
Yeah, I know what you meant, and I think I had zero programs doing this, the programs that did it normally were easily spotted because of visual glitches, lame fonts, and too big icons and colors on the app. If I had programs still double-pixeling, I sure didn’t notice.
13. Requires 7.5 MBs of RAM to start up with, PalmOS 5 can run on 2 MBs (admitedly, that’s nothing in front of the 16+ MBs Linux requires with Qtopia or GPE).
Humm, it’s strange you’re saying that, because I have a HP Jornada 680 handheld pc (the ones that came with wince), with linux (jLime), and I have 16mb ram + 8mb CF swap, and when I start opie, and run the system info app I get:
Total Memory: 11552kb
Used 5512kb Buffers 92kb Cached 5184kb Free 728kb
Total Swap: 7800kb
Used 1508kb Free 6292kb
So opie + the app that’s running + all the other things that are running seems to be using about 7mb ram, which is few than windows mobile.
There is no way you can read the memory consumption correctly on a Linux (or ANY unix) because of the way it is caching things. I am more than sure that Linux+Qtopia requires more memory than WinCE. And the fact that it actually *uses* swap already after a boot (as you illustrated), it’s an indication that it doesn’t fit in your RAM.
Well, I tried disabling swap and rebooting, and Opie still runs just on 16mb, including screenshot applet, and I can open system information and the calculator just fine (if I try to open more things… then it almost grinds to a halt). Also, the jLime kernel is pretty bloated at the time (rfs, xfs, jfs in a pocket device?) and newer versions will be less monolithic, so I think opie should run fine on 16mb, with the kernel fixes, and it is unfair that you are saying that it needs 16+.
GPE and matchbox, on the other hand, use full gtk, I think, and normal X server, so those should be pretty heavy (haven’t had time to try them on my jornada).
…according to the people I’ve asked, the Office programs for Palm are much better in compability than the built-in one for PocketPC.
Also, I just read that displaying bullet lists was new in the Word for Windows Mobile 2005, but surely, that must be wrong?
This is absolutely wrong. I have bullets on my Word 2003 just fine.
It would be nice to include Symbian/UIQ into the mix. Those smartphones like the P910i are very capable machines, use sis files for easy installation and syncml for data synchronization.
and I believe the author does not.
I think the author probably owns only one of them (I won’t mention which because it will just distract from the main point of this).
Try both and decide on your own instead of relying on the author’s opinions.
>and I believe the author does not.
As Thom wrote, I have 6 PDAs. 3 PalmOS (a user since 3 years ago, my newest is the TH-55), 2 PocketPCs (for 6 months now), while the Zaurus is arriving on Tuesday.
It’s a difficult call to choose between the two sides. I was heavily in doubt myself on this, but a few months ago Eugenia laid out th eoptions to me, and in the end I found the compatibility with Linux/OS X more important (I don’t have a Windows machine). So, I chose a Tungsten E2, also because it was much cheaper than any PPC optionsI could find in The Netherlands.
I think I have made the right choice. I’m extremely pleased with the performance of my Palm, and it does everything what I wanted it to do. It chrashed only once, but that was because I had been fiddling with the system files.
Really, there is no way in which you can call either a winner. They both have their strong points.
I think the author probably owns only one of them (I won’t mention which because it will just distract from the main point of this).
Erm, Eugenia owns about 6 PDA’s or something, both Palm and PPC.
Ahum,speaking about a pocket PC isn’t this one neat? :
Sony Vaio U71/U50.
http://www.dynamism.com/u71/
What about the Alphasmart Neo or Dana? Palm OS married to a great keyboard and three AA batteries. For a writer or anyone who needs to get away from the desktop, in order to get clarity of purpose (i.e. no distractions), in order to think clearly, this surely is a winner?
I’ve recently bought a PPC at Orange (smartphone), and it feels much slower than my T|E. I’m always waiting for stuff to come up, and when it finally does the device goes on to interpret the other keypresses or whatever I did, flashing all sorts of screens. My T|E was much quicker, even though the hardware wasn’t.
These nasty little machines will be replaced by Tablet PC in 2-3 years.
These nasty little machines will be replaced by Tablet PC in 2-3 years.
Well Tablets have been out for a while now, and the adoptance has been underwhelming..any reason for your belief in a change of trend?
What I want in a PDA is a set of simple apps, long battery life and simple usage. PocketPC is, in true proprietary Microseft fashion, both extremely bloated and, at the same time, totally useless and incompatible with my setup (a bunch of BSD boxen). I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Fuck the proprietary Microseft system.
What exactly is double-pixeling? I also feel that it wasn’t fair that the article neglected to report that several Palms support 320 x 480.
Just like “zooming” something. It’s actually running/designed for 160×160 and scaled for higher resolution…
…Actually, each original pixel corresponds to four pixels in this case (2 in x axis and 2 in y axis. Not sure about the interpolation type, but basically thats it…).
I owned a Palm once, and I found it to be a technology in search of an application. Very easy to pass on these devices right now.
I bought an O2 XDA II mini recently.. runs all the pocketpc software ive tried great. Its 416 Mhz comes with 1.3 meg camera stylus 65k bright screen.. its cool. Dont buy a pda .. buy such a pda phone.. youll never go back (after all half the pda info is for contacts which u need in your phone anyway ).
I think PDAs are a thing of the past – unless you are an individual that really does not want convereance or does not want to own a mobile phone.
A more worth-while would be Symbian vs Windows Mobile 5 vs PalmOS 5.x
WM5 is already out on some devices AFAIK.
I would like to see linux go at it – but there are so many *different* variations that are completely incompatible that it’s not worthwhile to compare (the linxu varions on PDAs and smartphones are not like SuSE vs RedHat on the desktop)
I tend to feel that a PDA only is dead weight in my pocket
Nothing could be farther from the truth; PDA’s aren’t going anywhere. Businesses thrive off of these devices, I know one of our local hospitals recently rolled out a ton of these to doctors/nurses (an example of types of professionals that can’t be tied to a desk, but still need information at their fingertips). These are a must have for any type of mobile professional, and they are just getting better which is a godsend.
Currently I have a Symbian phone and a Palm as an e-book reader. I gave away my useless Pocket PC.
Here are my impressions:
Pocket PC disadvantages:
1. Consumes more battery (why does no one care?).
2. After a long use, memory gets bogged down and it has to be reset.
Pocket PC advantages:
1. Integrates very well with Microsoft Outlook.
2. Truly multipurpose (it is a “pocket PC”).
Palm disadvantages:
1. Serious lack of phone+PDA alternatives.
2. Bad (and buggy) SD card interface.
Palm advantages:
1. Good battery autonomy.
2. Fast application switching.
Symbian disadvantages
1. Horrible PDA functionality (can’t search by company field, can’t export – 3rd party export tools are incomplete).
2. Horrible synchronization sotfware (Siemens, but from what I’m told Nokia is no better).
Symbian advantages:
1. Lots of alternatives to choose from.
I’m looking forward the new Nokia 770 Internet Tablet. It’s linux based, open, and has the incredible resolution of 800*480!!
Also, it seems that the good folks at handhelds.org managed to get Nokia’s Maemo running along with GPE!
> Palm disadvantages:
> 1. Serious lack of phone+PDA alternatives.
> 2. Bad (and buggy) SD card interface.
Ever heard of Treo, Qool, Samsung, etc …. ???
go back into retirement.
I was just beginning to enjoy OSNews again.
Why are you posting as OSN staff? You aren’t OSN staff, you are a reader just like the rest of us.
I smell more OSN biased crap, fix her account!
All I know is that my LOVES her Treo 650. She’s got quite a few apps for it now and surfs the web on it and loves the phone portion (which uses the Palm address book of course).
As for me. I moved to a job where I have very few meetings to go anymore so I really don’t need a PDA of any kind to help me keep track of appointments. That was really the only reason for me having one. Other than that I prefer my Garmin GPS, my iPod, and Powerbook to a PDA.
doing seconde tier PDA support for a large US telco I support Palm OS, PPC, Blackberry and Symbian device I can’t believe anyone would claim the Palm OS is more crashy then PPC, many of my Palm OS (Treo 600 & 650) users are unware of the procedure for soft reseting their devices after months of use, they just don’t need to do it very often. The PPC users (HTC Pocket PC Phone edition and HP 63XX) usually have to soft reset at least once a day due to crashes and freeze ups.
When it comes to PDA devices considering the cost of each and functionality I would prefer a Palm Treo 650 over for example an HP iPaq 6325 or Blackberry 7780. It’s far easier to use a Treo than what currently is being offered with Windows PDA devices. Treo users can also keep the device in their pocket or on their waist side with out having a bulky device. The only draw back with the Treo vs other smartphones is the lack of WiFi being built in instead as an add on. Though GSM providers such as Rogers Wireless offer EDGE support which helps improve data communication. My only hope is that Palm will allow current Treo 650 users to install PalmOS 6.1 as an update when released which will include WiFi support.
Why are you posting as OSN staff? You aren’t OSN staff, you are a reader just like the rest of us.
I smell more OSN biased crap, fix her account!
I have to go with Pocket PC hands down; writing applications for these devices is a snap due to the more modern tools available (as Eugenia mentioned in her article). If Pocket PC’s could get a decent RBDMS (meaning one that doesn’t sap resources as much as the one’s available right now), it would be even that much easier. I love writing software for these little buggers!
The Palm vs PocketPC debate seems to be pretty well balanced in the article. PalmOS seems more suited to low-speed embedded PDA devices while Windows Mobile 2003/2005 is better suited to the higher end users that need all that functionality. I quite like PalmOS but unless they start getting their act together Windows Mobile 2003/2005 will pretty much take over due to the better media and Internet capabilities.
I’ve given the Treo 650 a go and it’s pretty nice, if basic with PalmOS 5. It suits the market well with the size and dimensions it needs. The Xda Mini I also tried, that was OK except Windows Mobile needs a larger screen and more feedback about connections (ie, Internet and VPN). An Internet connection via VPN over GPRS is pretty painful (ie, so slow I had a hard time figuring out if it was working) but it does work.
I am surprised nobody here has mentioned the upcoming HTC Universal (pics at http://www.eprice.com.tw/news/?news_id=2913) which pretty much leaves everything coming out in the dust (with maybe an exception of that Nokia 770, but that’s a different market really) that is due out Q3 2005. This is what I’ll be evaluating next, and you should see more designs like it for 2006.
Since it’s WCDMA and GSM compatible, it will get faster Internet speeds on WCDMA. BlueTooth and WiFi (B) lets it connect so corporate VoIP is possible. The dual cameras and swivel LCD screens means video conferencing is possible without breaking your neck. Definitely in the power user realm, I don’t see the average person plonking $1250 US (or whatever it is) down for what is essentially a mini-laptop.
If that’s the actually price tag for the HTC Universal then they’re insane thinking they can mass market this product. While it looks cool I doubt many people are willing to spend $1250 USD on a GSM smartphone. Well maybe if it has integrated GPS with included TomTom Navigation software
Note sure yet what the actual pricing is – I’m hoping it’s sub-$1250 US when it comes out, preferably sub-$1000 US. The Xda Mini goes for about $850 Au now, but it was about $1150+ Au when it first came out, so I’m estimating it’s about $1250 US for the Universal so it’ll hit about $1650 Au (about right, I think, but I’m hoping it’s less…)
Don’t forget that it has WCDMA which is up to 10x faster than GSM/GPRS, and has BlueTooth/WiFi B and decent video conferencing abilities. If you’re going to spend about $1000 Au on a phone + addons, an extra $650 Au isn’t a lot for 4x the screen area (double res) and something that’ll do what you want if you’re a power user. GPS stuff would probably work via USB or card addon, BTW. If you have WCDMA I’d use an online street directory to figure out where I need to get to.
i own both a palm os and pocket pc, and my short observation of the devices are as follows.
the palm os has a much nice looking interface, very pleasing to use and look at. the machine does not multitask though. i cannot connect to the net through my cellphone over bluetooth and then use a bluetooth keyboard at the same time. I can do this with the pocket pc though. The pocket pc works well with external peripherials whereas the palm os sometimes required 3rd party software.
I got sick of carrying multiple devices so I switched to a phone/pda hybrid a while back – the XDA. Not bad but pretty unreliable. I upgraded to the XDA II shortly after it was released and despite the added features, it was a lot worse. The thing would hard reset at random intervals or just hang for no reason.
I also got tired of trying to get it to play nice with Linux so I grabbed a Treo 600. What a difference! Everything just works, the battery life is amazing and with the smaller app sizes, my memory card is a lot more useful.
i’d get a pocket pc just because they made ultima underworld for it
this author owns a ppc
“PocketPC:
9. Runs on faster XScale hardware than PalmOS usually. ”
and what? palm don’t need a fast processor… windows need it… with 200Mhz i can go on the web, watch divx, listen mp3 connect to a database… with a ppc at this speed… it’s difficult
“PalmOS:
2. Most apps run at 160×160, even if the screen is capable of 320×320 or more.”
majority of palm system with palm os 5 use 320*320 display any new application use this resolution and some use 320 * 480
“Pocket PC advantages:
1. Integrates very well with Microsoft Outlook.”
same thing with palm
“ppc 1. It has some form of protected memory and so when applications crash the OS stays alive (well, most of the time).”
it’s very very easy to crash a ppc
“2. Able to run more complex games, some 3D games too.”
gameplay is bad with a pda… only game who is correct are game played with the pen…
“11. Better office format compliancy, MS Office is usually bundled with the PDA.”
false everybody know the best is document to go
“12. ActiveSync rocks, it allows for direct internet connection and can mount the PDA to your desktop”
false, i do it easily with a palm os 4
“13. Programming APIs similar to Win32, porting is easy, development too.”
sorry but the win32 api is complex, majority don’t use win32 api directly to wrote all their program
“14. Basic and .NET available if C/C++ is not desired.”
a lot of programming tool are available on palm
C, basic, java, pascal, c++
“palm: Its C API is archaic.”
hahaha, cool linux, windows, driver… are archaic
please, stop to fud, you don’t know anything to palm
another time, we have an author tells anything