Is PPC Catching Up To Palm?

[Flash-57]

I regularly get together with a group of friends to play board games. Some of us are techno-geeks and others just use whatever technology works best for them. About three years ago, I was the first to show up with a PDA (a Palm IIXE). Everyone was impressed and the next month, one other person in the group got one. Over the next few months, everyone got one.

About a year ago, I showed up with my N760C. Everyone was suitably impressed. A few months ago, one fellow showed up with a PPC. It looked to have all the features of the Clie and more, for about half the price.

This last weekend, I was the only one left using a PDA with a Palm operating system. All six others had moved on to the PPC and seemed to have no regrets at all.

I pointed out that I've been saving up to get the NZ70V, which was much better. But, their PPCs seemed to be just about as good (sans camera) and priced at only $200-$400. I had no real comeback for that.

As I mentioned in a thread a few months ago, it looks like it's just a matter of time before PPC takes over the PDA market. Am I a fool for wanting to stay with Palm?

I still have my Amiga and Betamax machines down in the basement, next to the 8-Track player. Should I just stack my Clie on top of the pile and get a PPC?

[minhaferzz]

IMO, the biggest downfall of PPC is the OS itself. I too, was on the verge of switching over... but after going through 3 different models (HP 1910, HP 5455, and Toshiba e750)... I decided that the OS was too buggy. Every single unit did a hard reset on me after a couple days of use. The hard reset may have been a result of conflicting software, but the frustration of going through installing everything back was just a pain.

[JackAxe]

I've always thought that the PALM was the one playing catch up. SONY has done a wonderful job on pushing the PALM PDAs forward, but there are still some features that are behind the PPC. The guy that programmed XCade mentioned that PALM OS5 is still lacking features needed to make some of the more advanced applications, in this case higher end emulators. These are things that PPC has in abundance.

From my experience with the PPC OS, it's very stable and quite reliable. The only hard resets that occured were from user error when I was first learning how to use the OS. Now that I'm familiar with it, my PPC and PALM are both equal when it comes to reliability. The PPC needs to take a lesson from the PALM when it comes to exiting programs.

The only thing that the Clie' has on PPC for me, is it's larger screen rez and audio remote. I also like the gamepad better then most of the PPC d-pads.

<]=)

[TechnoCat]

It really depends on what your metric is. I program on the PPC as a tiny part of my work life. WinCE is unstable, incompletely implemented, and a PITA. It's very hard to make things as usable as on the Palm.

But WinCE is a better "Windows-lite" than Palm.

If you measure state-of-the-art by feature count, networking, and similarity to laptops, Palm will never catch up. If you measure it by battery life, ease-of-use, speed and efficiency as a PDA (e.g. finding a phone number, setting an alarm), PPC is way behind the bulk of the Palm market, high-end Sonys excluded. (i.e. the NX70V is a terrible Palm for portability, battery life, and even for looking up a phone number when in tablet form - no hard buttons!)

[cbulock]

I would understand if you left Palm and went for PPC. I have a feeling that if Palm and Sony doesn't start to make units with the same specs as PPC's for the same price, it won't be too long until it is dominating the market. I love my Clie, and while the PPC might have some faults, I don't think theres enough to keep the general population away.

[j0nblayz]

i'm am very happy i converted over to ppc, actually it was kinda of a accident that i converted over, my t615 broke, and futureshop had no 615 or 665, and the rest i didn't like other then the ipaq 1910, so i jus got the 1910 instead. ppc is very powerful i think, has so many features, but i do have to say theres few downside of using ppc, first of all syncin with outlook, can't sync sub-folder correctly like pocketmirror, have to use categories in outlook to sync correctly, which is kinda pointless, another one is that you cant type something long in notes or calender or tasks, if you want to type something long, you have to put it into notes part and keep it short in the title or else ppc will cut half of it off (hope that made sense), another is using contacts/notes/tasks, it was so much easier with t615. i love my pocketpc, but honestly, ppc is only good for multimedia, if you want jus want it for basic functions like email calender and tasks, then stay with palm. multimedia on ppc is AMAZING, play divx, mpegs, streaming mpegs, streaming mp3s, ogg, mp3s... also its able to browse the internet, i was never able to with t615, people say whats the point of browsin the net on ppc, well its kinda fun when layin in bed and yer too lazy to go on the computer, you jus turn on yer ipaq and start surfin, not fast but does it job when readin forums. battery life is bout the same as my t615, one bad design of the ipaq is that the IrDA is build onto the side of the ipaq, so using it for remote is pointless, and the strength on the IrDA is hella weak. so i'm tryin to say, ppc is good for games and multimedia only, other then that stay with palm... heh..

[Flash-57]

I'm very much on the fence. I've invested a lot of time, money, and effort in palm-operating system apps and files. I probably have $300 worth of memory sticks and no other Sony device to use them in.

But, I do value multimedia pretty highly--it's great to watch movies and stuff. And, the PPC is about half the price. And, three years from now I don't want to be the only human on earth running Palm OS.

Now, if Sony would drop the price of a Clie, it would be no contest. But, it seems to me that it takes forever for them to lower the price. When the NRs first came out, I decided to wait until the price dropped from $500. But, it never did--not even weekend sales at CompUSA. The NXs came and went and finally the NRs dropped a bit, when they went on clearance. I'm certainly not going to buy one then!

So, I've been waiting for the NZ to drop from $800. No luck so far.

I'd have a better feeling if Sony's main policy wasn't to squeeze every nickel possible out of their customers. I'd prefer a policy of lowering prices to dominate the market like the PPC makers seem to be doing.

[JasonO]

Two slightly different markets. But I think the market is shifting. Originally, the PDA was specifically that, a Personal Digital Assistant. It was intended to replace the paper day planners, phone books, etc. that we carried around. When the first PPCs came out, they intended to replace the computers we use, or at least supplement the tasks we do on them.

I think the market is moving toward the second one. As people become more familiar with PDAs, they are demanding more and more out of it until it becomes as powerful as the desktop computer they use. And that is when PPC will take over. The only way Palm/Sony can avoid losing the market is to move faster than the market without adding the cost, so they'll always be at the next step when the market gets there. Since the end goal happens to be a replacement or supplement of the desktop, Sony/Palm would have a license to use the MS OS, or portions of it. And at that point, MS has them because they'll do exactly to Palm/Sony what they did to IBM. The only way it would fail is if the desktop is replaced by, say, Linux before them. And MS has their hands in that one too. They have incredible foresight to make sure they are always into everything.

[JasonO]

Followup: Don't try to buy based on what is going to be popular. Figure out what you need and buy to your needs. One of my coworkers is very happy with her $20 pocket organizer. Not palm, not PPC. It does everything she needs.

[DazalC]

well. the reason why I think PPC is taking over the market is very easy. and its called "MICROSOFT" :(
I was goimg to buy a PPC too, cause of the bigger screen, more memory.. faster procesor... but just the fact that it uses a windows based OS scared me..
they r just too much color.. too much nice things...
anyway.. sony should start making faster and better devices.. for lower prices.....

PD:sorry for the bad english!! :P

[jamesj1k]

I bought a Sont TG50 clie.
Cost me $400.

It has everything I need right now.
MP3, Voice recorder and watching movies.

As soon as something really neat comes out on PDA's I will be switching to PPC due to faster speed, more memory and lower price.

Im still sticking to the awesome Sony Cybershot digital cameras though.

James

[Puppy]

I'm going to be buying a new PDA (so I can give my current Palm to a family member), and because of the seemingly good prices, I was VERY tempted by PocketPC. What I found though, is that PocketPC is still incredibly poorly designed. The interface is just insanely backwards compared with Palm (on both the PDA itself AND the desktop...). The fact that you STILL have to close programs with either a 9 step process, or a 3rd party app is proof enough of that (but hardly the only example).

And multimedia capabilities are pretty much equal now with OS 5, and will only get more so.

So I'd have to say Palm's in no danger from Microsoft, unless they totally blow it with OS 6. I am kind of ticked off that there's no exact Palm PDA with the hardware I want though. Palm's own PDAs haven't appealed to me since the started in with the Mxxx line (I really want a 3/Visor form factor).

[JackAxe]

At the this time, I personally would rate PPC as a slightly better multimedia machine. Only because of DIVX and Flash Player 6.

<]=)

[pigburger]

I think when people compare pricing between the PPC and the Palm you can't forget the freeware factor. Half the software I have (at least) is freeware which is a market that is virtually non-existent for the PPC. Plus since MS bundles their own office package, their is no competition to create a better office suite. Not only is an office suite usually bundled with your Palm OS device but it's usually Docs to go, which I've read independent reviews saying that it is far better then pocket word. The only reason docs to go is better because it has to try to keep ahead of Quickoffice (my choice) and wordsmith and the like. Competition is a very good thing in this case.

Then there is the design factor, when was the last time you had to catch your breathe after seeing a new PPC model. With Palm it's like every 4-6 months, with the T series, the NR, the TT, the NZ, and now the Zire 71. Other than the really thin Compaq, pretty much all the PPCs look the same. It's like driving a Taurus....

[macktv]

And don't forget Palm is now catching up in the memory area with the new Tungsten C which is supposed to have 64mb (59mb usable).

[sindu]

The form factor of PPC is catching up but not the OS...at least for what I need. I don't use PDA for multimedia except the MP3. The simplicity of Palm OS is the key for me.

[hayashikerubin]

yeah, i like palm cos of the simplicity in performing the required tasks. currently using the nr70, which i am very satisfied with. still think it is the best in performance and form factor.

[hansschmucker]

Originally posted by DazalC
well. the reason why I think PPC is taking over the market is very easy. and its called "MICROSOFT" :(
I was goimg to buy a PPC too, cause of the bigger screen, more memory.. faster procesor... but just the fact that it uses a windows based OS scared me..
they r just too much color.. too much nice things...
anyway.. sony should start making faster and better devices.. for lower prices.....

PD:sorry for the bad english!! :P

Yep, I'm scared by that as well. I still use WinXP on my desktop, but for the rest, I've switched to free alternatives whenever it's possible, like:

InternetExplorer > Mozilla (Never see a banner, popup or whatever again, WITHOUT additional software)
Microsoft Office > OpenOffice (Just read some review, they all say pretty much the same: The interface takes some getting used to, but after you've learned the basics, you can forget MSOffice! )

Secondary OS: MSDOS > MandrakeLinux9
What can I say. It's amazing. It runs straight out of the box, or the free iso images, and can do almost everything. Problem is the Almost

Server: MS > Apache, WarFTP
Why would I want a big slow, single platform server from MS if I can have it all for free, and way better?

Scripts: ASP > PHP: Free and Great

Dev: MSVC > LCC: Free for noncommercial use and does about everything.

There's way more... but as you see, life without MS is possible!

About the screen comment: 320x240 is smaller then 480x320

[DazalC]

:D :D :D :D :D

[NXTacy]

Originally posted by JackAxe
At the this time, I personally would rate PPC as a slightly better multimedia machine. Only because of DIVX and Flash Player 6.

<]=)

The NX and NZ have Flash. I rip my own DVDs I don't d/l them from net so can't say about divx but I hear using the image converter those work on Clies too.

[Mastermind]

Yeah the Clies have Flash 5 but its Sony exclusive. Real player is Tungsten specific if I am correct.The biggest problem I have with Palm OS right now is software fragmentation. I went through this three years ago with Palm Size PC and Pocket PC 2000 devices. You had to know whether your "pocket pc" was MIPS, SH3 or StrongARM compatible before trying it, then the performance was tuned for one chip but not the others.

I would really like to buy a new clie to replace my T415 but its has to have Palm OS5, Flash Player 6, 32meg of ram for $250 or less. This shouldn't even be wishful thinking. But with Sony and Palm I might as well wish for a pink cadillac.