Palm vs. Windows CE/Pocket PC, Round Four

I found this interesting review by someone that shares my experience with Palm vs Pocket PC.

For the fourth time, I've purchased a Windows CE device to see whether the Windows CE world is poised to crush my trusty old Palm devices. For the fourth time, I say, "No, it's not," but it's getting closer.

A few years ago, I purchased a couple of Windows CE-based Casio palmtops and an early Compaq iPAQ. Unfortunately, the devices ran an OS that looked like squashed Windows on a small screen, chewed up battery power like it was going out of style, lacked a useful software set, and required about 10 times the CPU power of a Palm device to do the same job. So you'd think that I'd have sworn off Windows CE (or Pocket PC 2002, as it's now called to try to escape the bad reputation of past OSs) platforms for good. Which brings us to device number four.

I recently found a nifty new productivity tool that combines a phone with a PDA--the Samsung i700. Although the device itself isn't all that exciting, I was intrigued by its ability to retrieve my email through its cell phone link and do so at 1xRTT speeds--144Kbps in theory, about 64Kbps in practice. Even better, Verizon, my cell phone service provider, serves the out-of-the-way rural area that I live in. It sounded like the perfect tool for a traveling guy like me.

The only catch is that the device runs Pocket PC 2002. But what the heck, I thought, who cares what OS it runs? After all, I'm just using it as a wireless email appliance that happens to have a cell phone attached. So, I thought I'd just ignore the PDA abilities. (Of course, in the end I couldn't ignore the PDA part: a big bright colorful transflective screen, a 200MHz processor, and 64MB of RAM--take that out and see what it can do.)

The first thing I noticed is that the Pocket PC platform has a desktop that's too sprawling to fit on a PDA, even a big PDA. At least I can no longer say that I'm being forced to view Windows through a very small pane. As with other Windows CE/Pocket PC devices I've tested, the memory management is still irritating; believe it or not, when you start a program, the application remains in memory until you either perform a soft reset or you navigate to Windows CE's Control Panel Memory applet, which lets you shut down the program. I'm not joking when I say that most experienced Pocket PC users agree that your best bet with Pocket PC PDA/phone combinations is to do a soft reset every night to keep the system reliable. Sounds a mite too Windows 9x-ish for my taste. I can't remember the last time that I ran out of memory or had to reset my Palm device.

Regarding power, the i700 has both a main battery and a piggyback battery that should give you 2 to 3 days worth of work, assuming you don't spend much time on the phone and are careful about shutting off the backlight. In contrast, I've run my Palm Tungsten-T system for about a week without a recharge, and my old Palm 505 once ran 3 weeks without a recharge. Then again, the Palm 505 ran on a 33MHz processor and had only 8MB of RAM, so the comparison might seem unfair--but consider that Pocket PC could never run on that slow of a processor and small amount of RAM.

Despite the fast processor, the OS is sluggish compared with the Palm. I found an interesting benchmark of sorts in the Handmark Software implementation of the Monopoly board game, which the company sells for both Palm and Pocket PC platforms. The Palm version runs quite quickly on its 33MHz processor; the Pocket PC version is quite laconic by comparison. Finally, the included synchronization software, ActiveSync, is just as irritating as always, disconnecting your host computer from your PDA at random times even though the PDA is in the cradle and the USB connector is snugly in place.

But some Pocket PC features have changed for the better. My first pleasant surprise happened when I wanted to transfer some of my Palm address book to the i700, so I attempted to beam a contact, and it worked. And my earlier complaint about the lack of Pocket PC software no longer applies. Yes, the Palm world still has more software, but Pocket PC is gaining on Palm. And that, in the end analysis, is why I think that Palm might finally find itself losing ground to Pocket PC. Now that third-party innovators have joined the Pocket PC party, anything can happen--inexpensive useful add-ons, lots of freeware, who knows. But until that happens, I'm going to keep carrying my Palm--and the Pocket PC device.