Sunday, December 8, 2002
Dude, You're Getting a So-So Handheld?
Posted by Ed Hansberry in "THOUGHT" @ 01:00 PM
There was a column in the Washington Post this weekend on the Dell Axim X5. The author makes some valid points and no one would claim that either the Dell Axim or the Pocket PC OS is perfect. No device or OS is. Some of his comments though were just plain silly. Let's go through them.
1) "That seeming redundancy [of both a CF and SD slot] makes a fair amount of sense: SD Cards are smaller, but CompactFlash cards are in wider use, and with two slots you can use one to add Bluetooth or Wi-Fi wireless networking and leave the other free for extra memory." Well, you can use the CF slot for networking and the SD slot for memory but not the other way around. The Dell SD slot is not SDIO.
2) "The Axim's 300-megahertz Intel XScale processor seemed more than sufficient, except when it lagged a bit during the display of photos." This was followed by a comment a few sentences later. "...the two-second wait to wake the Axim." I have confirmed with another user that is indeed the case. A bit of a shame, and surprise. I wonder if it is the screen Dell is using? It is a great looking transflective screen, but perhaps Dell cut corners in costs opting for one that takes a second or two to warm up. I know the screen on the 3900 iPAQ is nearly instant. I know it isn't the processor.
3) "All this, alas, is a little chunky to carry in a jeans pocket -- 7.2 ounces, 5 inches long, 31/4 inches wide and three-quarters of an inch thick. This size problem gets much worse if you use Dell's SUV of a carrying case, a thick, padded shroud that prohibits toting the Axim anywhere but in a purse or briefcase." Ok, that is correct. It is iPAQ sized and a bit thicker. It does have two slots though. Make your choice. Dual slots or not. You can have the much thinner V35 or the Palm M500 sized h1910 if you want in the same price range.
"Then there's the Pocket PC 2002 software, which has defects that Dell can't work its way around." Ok, so, what are they? :?
4) "...the need to tap the Edit menu (which isn't actually a menu) to revise most items." Yeah, this is new to the Pocket PC 2002 interface. With the Pocket PC 2000 UI, you could tap anywhere on the screen to put your contact or appointment into Edit mode. Not so with 2002. Why? Well, 2002 now has hotlinks so that items like URL's, email addresses and phone numbers (in the case of Phone Edition) are hotlinks that will launch your browser, email app or dial the number. Ideally, I would like to see a hot zone around the hotlinks that did this but tapping on other items like the name, address or category would kick it into edit mode without having to hit the Edit menu item. The benefit though, as with many other Pocket PC functions, is you can launch a web page from a contact to go to their home page or send them an email by simply tapping on the email address. You can also create documents from within other applications without having to actually launch the app. See this column for more information on this feature. Also, it isn't "most items." It is tasks, contacts and appontments (PIM items) using the default Pocket PC applications. You do not need to press Edit to change the cell of an Excel spreadsheet, to change a Word document, to edit an outgoing email or to change PIM items when using a third party utility like Pocket Informant.
5) "...the spinning-beach-ball cursor that regularly surfaces..." {shrug} I guess it depends on what you are doing. I never see that with basic apps like Word, Tasks, Contacts, etc. I do with larger apps like Pocket Informant, Excel and Reader. I guess that is the price you pay for having a big rich application. The other alternative is to kill the beach ball and just wonder if you tapped the icon or not. :roll:
6) "The Pocket PC handwriting software is particularly maddening. Its letter recognizer accepts regular characters, unlike Palm's Graffiti, but it requires you to write them in three areas -- capital, lowercase, and most numbers and punctuation." Yeah, I loved this one. So, you can either learn to write in three clearly defined areas of the SIP or you can learn an all new alphabet. Ok, whatever you say. It is funny that when you walk into CompUSA or BestBuy and look at the demo units, Pocket PCs have things like "testing 123" or "trial appointment" in memory and Palms have total gibberish because no one intuitively goes up and writes an A as an upside down V. Tell me which one is more productive out of the box. Never mind that for those set on using a Graffiti style of input can use the included Block Recognizer soft input panel. It emulates the Graffiti unistroke alphabet and the more common shortcuts.
7) "Its auto-complete word suggestions obscure the bottom two lines of text." Well, you can configure that to be 0-4 lines. Let's see something. I have my word completion set to 3 rows and I typed "This is a test of the word completion feature of the Pocket PC." Using word completion was 59 letters and taps to pick the words and 75 letters without using it. 27% more taps/strokes not using the feature. Yeah, I'd vote for something that would increase my work load 27% any day of the week. :roll: And again, you can turn it off if you don't like it. $10 says when Palm implements this now that they have the horsepower to do so and multitasking may finally become a reality in OS6, it'll be declared magic. :D
8 ) "...the Programs screen that fails to list many installed programs..." Huh? How many of you have ever installed an app and the icon didn't appear in the Start Menu or programs screen? And if it didn't, how is that the fault of the Pocket PC? Sounds like a bad programmer to me.
9) "I'd rather see Dell apply its cost-cutting talents to the Palm side of the business, where it will find a better operating system, greater liberty to fine-tune it and more potential customers." :lol: How is it that Palm OS licensees are seen to have greater flexibility? The freedom to leave things out it would seem. Office applications, voice recording, full screen handwriting, Audible support, MP3/WMA/WMV support, email, instant messaging, terminal server support, etc. The list goes on. Every single Pocket PC you buy today has all of that and more. No Palm does, and few have most of them. Yet someone like Sony comes up with a non-standard screen resolution (Ok, Handera did it first) that many apps don't work in, and that is declared innovation? Wow. To be sure, Sony has cool hardware, but you still can't listen to music on your NX70 while your device is synchronizing and when you put in your proprietary WiFi card to synchronize Avantgo... oh, wait. Avantgo doesn't work on OS 5 yet. Ok, when you try to email your expense report (you did remember to install Documents To Go didn't you?) while you are chatting with your co-worker on a third party messaging client you have to install, you can forget it. One or the other.
Anyway, he is entitled to his opinion, as we all are, and I have occasionally been accused of spinning things towards the Pocket PC myself. :wink: It is abundantly clear what device this columnist has been using and that this review is a bit less than objective. Before anyone posts with a flame that we aren't objective, please take a look at the URL in your browser as you read this. You can expect pro-Pocket PC items here. We do call 'em like we see 'em though. Peruse the recent V35 posts here, and ask any one of the sites editors about Connection Manager. The Washington Post though does claim independence except for its editorial pages. This wasn't on the editorial page. In contrast, Pocket PC Thoughts is pretty much one big editorial. :)
I am sure when a Palm OS based device can finally do everything a Pocket PC 2000 can do (one step at a time folks) it will be declaired revolutionary. Me? Well, I gotta run. I need to VPN to my LAN, sync email via IMAP4, Pocket RSS and Avantgo, all while continuing to listen to Mannheim Steamroller in my headphones.
1) "That seeming redundancy [of both a CF and SD slot] makes a fair amount of sense: SD Cards are smaller, but CompactFlash cards are in wider use, and with two slots you can use one to add Bluetooth or Wi-Fi wireless networking and leave the other free for extra memory." Well, you can use the CF slot for networking and the SD slot for memory but not the other way around. The Dell SD slot is not SDIO.
2) "The Axim's 300-megahertz Intel XScale processor seemed more than sufficient, except when it lagged a bit during the display of photos." This was followed by a comment a few sentences later. "...the two-second wait to wake the Axim." I have confirmed with another user that is indeed the case. A bit of a shame, and surprise. I wonder if it is the screen Dell is using? It is a great looking transflective screen, but perhaps Dell cut corners in costs opting for one that takes a second or two to warm up. I know the screen on the 3900 iPAQ is nearly instant. I know it isn't the processor.
3) "All this, alas, is a little chunky to carry in a jeans pocket -- 7.2 ounces, 5 inches long, 31/4 inches wide and three-quarters of an inch thick. This size problem gets much worse if you use Dell's SUV of a carrying case, a thick, padded shroud that prohibits toting the Axim anywhere but in a purse or briefcase." Ok, that is correct. It is iPAQ sized and a bit thicker. It does have two slots though. Make your choice. Dual slots or not. You can have the much thinner V35 or the Palm M500 sized h1910 if you want in the same price range.
"Then there's the Pocket PC 2002 software, which has defects that Dell can't work its way around." Ok, so, what are they? :?
4) "...the need to tap the Edit menu (which isn't actually a menu) to revise most items." Yeah, this is new to the Pocket PC 2002 interface. With the Pocket PC 2000 UI, you could tap anywhere on the screen to put your contact or appointment into Edit mode. Not so with 2002. Why? Well, 2002 now has hotlinks so that items like URL's, email addresses and phone numbers (in the case of Phone Edition) are hotlinks that will launch your browser, email app or dial the number. Ideally, I would like to see a hot zone around the hotlinks that did this but tapping on other items like the name, address or category would kick it into edit mode without having to hit the Edit menu item. The benefit though, as with many other Pocket PC functions, is you can launch a web page from a contact to go to their home page or send them an email by simply tapping on the email address. You can also create documents from within other applications without having to actually launch the app. See this column for more information on this feature. Also, it isn't "most items." It is tasks, contacts and appontments (PIM items) using the default Pocket PC applications. You do not need to press Edit to change the cell of an Excel spreadsheet, to change a Word document, to edit an outgoing email or to change PIM items when using a third party utility like Pocket Informant.
5) "...the spinning-beach-ball cursor that regularly surfaces..." {shrug} I guess it depends on what you are doing. I never see that with basic apps like Word, Tasks, Contacts, etc. I do with larger apps like Pocket Informant, Excel and Reader. I guess that is the price you pay for having a big rich application. The other alternative is to kill the beach ball and just wonder if you tapped the icon or not. :roll:
6) "The Pocket PC handwriting software is particularly maddening. Its letter recognizer accepts regular characters, unlike Palm's Graffiti, but it requires you to write them in three areas -- capital, lowercase, and most numbers and punctuation." Yeah, I loved this one. So, you can either learn to write in three clearly defined areas of the SIP or you can learn an all new alphabet. Ok, whatever you say. It is funny that when you walk into CompUSA or BestBuy and look at the demo units, Pocket PCs have things like "testing 123" or "trial appointment" in memory and Palms have total gibberish because no one intuitively goes up and writes an A as an upside down V. Tell me which one is more productive out of the box. Never mind that for those set on using a Graffiti style of input can use the included Block Recognizer soft input panel. It emulates the Graffiti unistroke alphabet and the more common shortcuts.
7) "Its auto-complete word suggestions obscure the bottom two lines of text." Well, you can configure that to be 0-4 lines. Let's see something. I have my word completion set to 3 rows and I typed "This is a test of the word completion feature of the Pocket PC." Using word completion was 59 letters and taps to pick the words and 75 letters without using it. 27% more taps/strokes not using the feature. Yeah, I'd vote for something that would increase my work load 27% any day of the week. :roll: And again, you can turn it off if you don't like it. $10 says when Palm implements this now that they have the horsepower to do so and multitasking may finally become a reality in OS6, it'll be declared magic. :D
8 ) "...the Programs screen that fails to list many installed programs..." Huh? How many of you have ever installed an app and the icon didn't appear in the Start Menu or programs screen? And if it didn't, how is that the fault of the Pocket PC? Sounds like a bad programmer to me.
9) "I'd rather see Dell apply its cost-cutting talents to the Palm side of the business, where it will find a better operating system, greater liberty to fine-tune it and more potential customers." :lol: How is it that Palm OS licensees are seen to have greater flexibility? The freedom to leave things out it would seem. Office applications, voice recording, full screen handwriting, Audible support, MP3/WMA/WMV support, email, instant messaging, terminal server support, etc. The list goes on. Every single Pocket PC you buy today has all of that and more. No Palm does, and few have most of them. Yet someone like Sony comes up with a non-standard screen resolution (Ok, Handera did it first) that many apps don't work in, and that is declared innovation? Wow. To be sure, Sony has cool hardware, but you still can't listen to music on your NX70 while your device is synchronizing and when you put in your proprietary WiFi card to synchronize Avantgo... oh, wait. Avantgo doesn't work on OS 5 yet. Ok, when you try to email your expense report (you did remember to install Documents To Go didn't you?) while you are chatting with your co-worker on a third party messaging client you have to install, you can forget it. One or the other.
Anyway, he is entitled to his opinion, as we all are, and I have occasionally been accused of spinning things towards the Pocket PC myself. :wink: It is abundantly clear what device this columnist has been using and that this review is a bit less than objective. Before anyone posts with a flame that we aren't objective, please take a look at the URL in your browser as you read this. You can expect pro-Pocket PC items here. We do call 'em like we see 'em though. Peruse the recent V35 posts here, and ask any one of the sites editors about Connection Manager. The Washington Post though does claim independence except for its editorial pages. This wasn't on the editorial page. In contrast, Pocket PC Thoughts is pretty much one big editorial. :)
I am sure when a Palm OS based device can finally do everything a Pocket PC 2000 can do (one step at a time folks) it will be declaired revolutionary. Me? Well, I gotta run. I need to VPN to my LAN, sync email via IMAP4, Pocket RSS and Avantgo, all while continuing to listen to Mannheim Steamroller in my headphones.
