[Paco500]

Are there any current PocketPC users out there that effectively sync with their Mac, either through VirtualPC, pocketmac or some beat of the missing sync for pocketpc?

I recently got myself a Toshiba e740, mostly to help with Windows Administration at work. The concept was, it has WiFi and there is a Cirtix client for PocketPC. As we use citrix here, I was hoping to be able to do administration from home w/o having to bring my powerbook home. I haven't been able to make the Citix client work yet, so mostly I just read ebooks and play a few games on the train in to work. I would love to be able to sync this thing, but VirtualPC only works very sporatically, and I'm not about to plop down $80 for PocketMac to see if it works (the reviews are pretty bad).

On the whole, I'm impressed with the hardware, it seems to be a pretty powerful system and it's almost exactly the same size as a Palm III. The OS, however, couldn't suck more, and software is nowhere as easy to find as for the Palm. The WiFi would be nice, but IE for PocketPC really stinks. It's a novelty and nothing more.

I have a spare PC laptop setup for Active Sync and installing apps, but I would like to move this all to my mac.

Anyone know of any good site or info about the Mac and PocketPC? Tips, tricks, anything that will not make me totally regret this purchase? I've considered trading it in on a new Palm, but the only ones with WiFi are those sony clamshells, and they are expensive and huge.

I'd love to hear about the experiences of those that may know.

[robot prom]

for what it's worth, PocketMac has a downloadable demo. I'd like to get a PocketPC, but I'm wary of PocketMac, and the Missing Sync isn't out for public consumption yet, so I'm waiting until then.

http://www.markspace.com/pocketpcpreview.html

[Paco500]

Originally posted by robot prom:
for what it's worth, PocketMac has a downloadable demo. I'd like to get a PocketPC, but I'm wary of PocketMac, and the Missing Sync isn't out for public consumption yet, so I'm waiting until then.

http://www.markspace.com/pocketpcpreview.html

2 questions:

1) What is your reasoning for wanting a PocketPC? My expectations far exceeded the reality of the device in many ways, and I'd love to give you my thoughts.

2) Are you on the north or south fork?

[robot prom]

Originally posted by Paco500:
2 questions:

1) What is your reasoning for wanting a PocketPC? My expectations far exceeded the reality of the device in many ways, and I'd love to give you my thoughts.

2) Are you on the north or south fork?

1. I need something between a laptop and a Palm, and the PocketPC is the closest thing so far, at least until, if and when, Apple releases a tablet or a revamped Newton. Basically I need a PIM, Word / Excel editor, highly portable presentation / communication device, with the potential for wi-fi connectivity. The PPC seems to meet most of those, but like I said, a tablet would make me very happy.

2. South fork, Hampton Bays.

[Eciton]

I'm coming from the other perspective - I've got a Pocket PC (in fact, my job is reviewing them) and I'm looking to get a Mac. I really hope PocketMac makes huge strides in the next few weeks because I don't want to be tied to my PC for the forseeable future

Why a Pocket PC? If that question is followed by 'rather than a Palm', then the differences are becoming smaller: functionality, simplicity, battery life and price are all now pretty comparable, or at least becoming more so. It's no longer true that Pocket PCs are huge, pricey, slow and burn battery life, just as it's no longer true that Palm's are small, simple and cheap. Obviously, the Palm OS units sync better with Macs, but it's now largely a matter of personal choice.

If it's a question of 'why a Pocket PC' generally, then there are a whole load of things I use my Pocket PC for:

-PIM
-Creating Word documents
-tracking expenses
-playing games
-listening to music
-checking email
-browsing the web
-controlling my TV and stereo when I can't find the remote
-reading ebooks
-chatting on messenger
-transferring files
-managing my passwords etc
-writing notes

And my PDA specifically is also my phone, so I use it for SMS and calls. All this in one small package.

PS: damn, just seen that the original poster replied while I was composing this

[Paco500]

Originally posted by robot prom:
1. I need something between a laptop and a Palm, and the PocketPC is the closest thing so far, at least until, if and when, Apple releases a tablet or a revamped Newton. Basically I need a PIM, Word / Excel editor, highly portable presentation / communication device, with the potential for wi-fi connectivity. The PPC seems to meet most of those, but like I said, a tablet would make me very happy.

2. South fork, Hampton Bays.

As I said, I've been a bit dismayed with the Pocket PC, and perhaps more time with it will bring me around. With your requirements, it looks to be the only choice. I haven done much editing of documents, just fired them up and played around. If I get a thumboard, it may come in handy. The OS seems slow, and a bit flaky to work with, I've had it 2 weeks and have had to restart 3 times. I think my various Palms required that many in the 4 years I used them. The WiFi is a cool concept, but the browser is kind of lame, way too much scrolling from side to side and up and down. Operal on the Zaurus looks like a much better implimentation. Battery life it pretty anemic, especially with WiFi turned on. 2-3 hours. Just reading eBooks and playing solitare, it needs to be charged everyday as opposed to every week or so for my Palm V. I haven't played w/ the presentation function, but I may.

If you can borrow one for a week or so to get a feel for it I would. Everything I've read mimics what I read above from Eciton, that the PocketPC's are getting closer to Palm in usability and Battery life, and that may be true of Palm OS 5 devices with big color screens, but as a true PDA, Palm still has big advantages.

I dunno- it's just underwhealming for something that on paper seemed so cool, even if it was from MS.

And I spent several summers in college living on a family (working) potato farm in Bridgehampton. Loved it out there.

[maxintosh]

Originally posted by Paco500:
As I said, I've been a bit dismayed with the Pocket PC, and perhaps more time with it will bring me around. With your requirements, it looks to be the only choice. I haven done much editing of documents, just fired them up and played around. If I get a thumboard, it may come in handy. The OS seems slow, and a bit flaky to work with, I've had it 2 weeks and have had to restart 3 times. I think my various Palms required that many in the 4 years I used them. The WiFi is a cool concept, but the browser is kind of lame, way too much scrolling from side to side and up and down. Operal on the Zaurus looks like a much better implimentation. Battery life it pretty anemic, especially with WiFi turned on. 2-3 hours. Just reading eBooks and playing solitare, it needs to be charged everyday as opposed to every week or so for my Palm V. I haven't played w/ the presentation function, but I may.

If you can borrow one for a week or so to get a feel for it I would. Everything I've read mimics what I read above from Eciton, that the PocketPC's are getting closer to Palm in usability and Battery life, and that may be true of Palm OS 5 devices with big color screens, but as a true PDA, Palm still has big advantages.

I dunno- it's just underwhealming for something that on paper seemed so cool, even if it was from MS.

And I spent several summers in college living on a family (working) potato farm in Bridgehampton. Loved it out there.

I have to agree. Played a lot with PocketPCs cause they seemed so powerful and capable. But they're really very flaky and clunky in my opinion. Nothing seems very well intergrated, the menus and buttons are too non-distinct and the entire interface just looks kind of blah (except for the Today screen, which I like). Palm OS is not beautiful, but it's incredibly clean and efficient.

Even the smaller PPCs are still a lot bulkier than a TT.

With my Tungsten, there's nothing I can't do that I can do on a PPC (except WiFi, which is coming soon).

[Eciton]

IMHO Pocket PCs are no less stable than Palm OS devices - provided you know how to handle them. Just as if you tried out a whole load of hacks on a Palm device, playing with a load of programs on a Pocket PC has a tendency to reduce stability. Some bad programs can screw things up too. For basic PIM stuff alone I wouldn't say a Pocket PC is unstable, and similarly the more bells and whistles you add to a Palm OS device the more it crashes.

As I said, I think the two operating systems are coming closer together.

My job means I'm exposed to hundreds of applications each month and most new Pocket PC devices also pass through my hands, so perhaps I'm just talking through familiarity. Then again, I did have two Palm devices (a IIIe and a Clie S300) up until about a year or so ago. I recognize they aren't exactly OS5 or anything, but hey, I don't want to appear totally clueless

Equally I'm not attempting to make the Pocket PC OS seem better than it is - I hate Microsoft as much as the next guy - but with decent third-party programs there's a whole lot of stuff that it can do. Also, the hardware has a lot going for it, which Sony and OS5 have only just caught up with: a proper d-pad, built-in mic, headphone jack and speaker; 3.5" (up to 4") 320x240 colour display, and at least one card slot - all of these are shared by every Pocket PC. Dell will sell you one of those for just a coupla hundred bucks, which beats the hell out of Sony's 800-dollar offering. And some of the new PPCs boast a real-world, in-use battery life of about 9 hours, as well as having swappable batteries.

I digress (and blabber), but my point is to try to dismiss some of the myths and to point out that the Pocket PCs have got some very good points.

Of course, they don't sync with Macs very well, which is the crucial factor here.

Paco500: try out TextMaker for word processing - find my review of it here:
http://www.infosyncworld.com/reviews/n/2817.html

For a decent browser, Netfront isn't half bad:
http://www.access.co.jp

Other 'killer apps' off the top of my head - PocketInformant (PIM); Resco Explorer 2003 (File explorer); eWallet (as available for the Palm); Photogenics (the best crack at Photoshop for a handheld); Sprite Pocket Backup.

maxintosh: compared to a TT, you should try an HP iPAQ 1910. Bloody small device and it can play mp3s out of the box . The TT is lustworthy though.

Just in general, a lot of the OSs flaws can be easily corrected by other utilities. There were a lot of hacks and tweaks from my Palm days that I couldn't live without, and it's fair that the same is true on the Pocket PC. What isn't true is the usual myth of 'Palms are simpler'. They're just different. Right now I wouldn't know my way around, say, a Mac as well as I would Windows. That doesn't mean MacOS is worse - I just don't know how to use it yet.

Anyway, 'bout time I shut up now, since I'm a newbie in these here parts and all

Sorry for blabbing, folks!

[torifile]

I tried the PPC thing for a while. I was able to get most of the kinks worked out with syncing and then I realized that I HATE windows. Really. I do. Stupid .dll files that can be removed. I just want something that I don't have to manage cryptic files on. If I want to uninstall something, I just drag it to the trash. Just like it should and the way it is on the Mac and my TT. I'm happy with it. It's seamless and it's stable.

In my experience PPCs are not as stable as palms and I've used both relatively extensively. The analogy of hacks causing instability on the palm doesn't hold water for 2 reasons: 1) because hacks are no longer an option on Palm OS 5 and 2) hacks are, by their nature, possibly more disruptive than ordinary programs. They're not really the same thing. PPC's are over-rated and they are SLOW.

And the TT -vs- HP 1910 comparison - Not even close. No possiblity of wireless connectivity of any kind. An OS that's going to be abandoned by MS (whither PPC 2003? Nowhere to be found, it's all about smartphones for MS now). It's cheap and plastic. And slow. And, while it has 3x more RAM, PPC programs take nearly 2x as much room as Palm programs (at least in my comparison of programs I use).

[maxintosh]

Originally posted by Eciton:
maxintosh: compared to a TT, you should try an HP iPAQ 1910. Bloody small device and it can play mp3s out of the box . The TT is lustworthy though.

Meh, I looked at the 1910. It was a lot smaller than say, the X5, but it was still a lot wider and taller than the TT. No wireless options, either.

There are currently 3 MP3 players out for the TT, and 2 of them play Ogg Vorbis files too. I use AeroPlayer, which is my favorite. It has skins and plug-ins for new codecs.

WMP, AFAIK on the PPC only plays WMP files. Kimona on Palm can convert MPEGs, MOVs, AVIs, etc. etc. and motion is very fluid on the TT -- I found some stuttering on WMP.

PPC is still with a 320x240 resolution, whereas hi-res Palms are at 320x320. And Palm software is still in wider abundance.

Another thing -- the Palm Ultra Thin Keyboard. This thing has revolutionized the way I take notes. It is TINY but folds out into a very respectably sized keyboard.

[marlof]

I think both the Pocket PCs and the latest Palm OS devices (both the Tungsten and the Clies) have a lot going for them. It's all a matter of personal preference, and to know what you're doing.

Arguably, I'm from the Pocket PC side of the fence (I write for Pocket PC Thoughts, and am a Microsoft MVP for Mobile Devices), but I am pretty much agnostic when it comes to cool devices. After all, I am writing this from my new iBook running OS X, while I had free access to every flavor of Windows imaginable. Next to that, I do own a Palm OS 4 device (Palm m505), just to see what it does. Just like people from the Palm side find the Pocket PC awkward at first, I found the Palm OS awkward. The same goes for my experiences with OS X next to Windows. But after a while, when you've accustomized yourself to the OS, you find good things.

Still, the Palm OS 5 for my use of a PDA sounds too limited. The things I like about the Pocket PC OS is hooking my PPC up to my Airport Extreme Base station to download e-mail to check on the road, while I'm playing songs in WMP (both WMA and MP3), and checking my schedule. All at the same time, without a noticeable delay. I want to do that today (in fact, in the past year...) and not tomorrow.

I'm pretty sure the Palm OS devices will be able to do what the Pocket PCs can do today. And I'm pretty sure that the Pocket PCs will be easier for people who prefer a simple PDA, just like the Palm OS is today. The both platforms will be moving towards each other, and then it will even be more a matter of taste which one to prefer.

And to return to the original question: I use Pocket Mac, but it's a hit and miss afair for me. I really have high hopes for Missing Sync, although it's too bad that Entourage sync won't be included in V1.

My final remark: although I can't say anything about unreleased OSes due to an NDA, all I can say that I wouldn't write off the Pocket PC just yet, even with the Smartphone around.

[maxintosh]

Originally posted by marlof:
Still, the Palm OS 5 for my use of a PDA sounds too limited. The things I like about the Pocket PC OS is hooking my PPC up to my Airport Extreme Base station to download e-mail to check on the road, while I'm playing songs in WMP (both WMA and MP3), and checking my schedule. All at the same time, without a noticeable delay. I want to do that today (in fact, in the past year...) and not tomorrow.

Granted I don't use 802.11 on my Palm, although the SDIO card is coming out sometime this month and the Tungsten-C may have it built in. Then again, the majority of PPCs don't come with 802.11 either. Palm OS 5 also multitasks to some extent, and the TT does play MP3s and OGGs in the background without problems. It gets laggy on games, but even that should be fixed when someone utilizes the DSP.

So I can do what you do on your PPC today, except 802.11. But then some Clies have that and the i705/Tungsten W as well as the Treo 270 and 300 have cellular web access.

And I underscore that Palm OS software is in much greater abundance. There are even some pretty slick 3D first-person shooter games out.

[marlof]

If you're happy with your Palm, good for you! As you I can find all the software that I need for the Pocket PC, and do 3D shooter games. And many, many other things. As, obviously, can you. As I said it's not either or, it's just a matter of preferences. For instance, I would not buy a Sony, based on the fact that it is using proprietary expansion cards. I can use a 1 GB CF card in my Pocket PC, or a 512 MB SD card in a Tungsten, but only 128 MB in a Clie? To me, that is not enough, since I like to carry tons of music around. But others might be mighty happy with a Memory Stick slot. So I will not state it sucks, I will just state it is not for me.

But right now, for Mac users, I think that it's safe to conclude that if a Palm device can do what you want, you're better of with a Palm OS device. The sync options are simply better. Using my iBook, all I can say is that I'd really like to give a Tungsten a run for it's money, and see how well it syncs etc. But don't let my girlfriend read this message.

[BkueKanoodle]

For my pocketpc setup. I use a windows XP laptgop, then use the Microsoft RDC client for OS X to take control of it. Its much faster then VPC when using a LAN, plus I can run all my windows apps on a 2 ghz processor native.

Since we use an exchange server, and the outlook client for the mac sucks anyway, I prefer to do it this way since I can then use Outlook XP.

The benefit to this is I can have all my Windows apps, and they run much faster then VPC

[icruise]

Originally posted by marlof:
I can use a 1 GB CF card in my Pocket PC, or a 512 MB SD card in a Tungsten, but only 128 MB in a Clie? To me, that is not enough, since I like to carry tons of music around. But others might be mighty happy with a Memory Stick slot. So I will not state it sucks, I will just state it is not for me.

With the new Memory Stick Pro, you can have up to 1GB on a Clie (it's expensive, but in line with the cost of the very big SD cards), but I totally agree that proprietary storage devices suck.

But that doesn't really have anything to do with Palm vs. Pocket PC -- it's an issue for a particular kind of palm. After all, there are palm models with both SD slots and CF slots (hand era), some with only SD, some with memory stick and some with none.