Soon To Be Ex-Palm User With Newbie PocketPC Questions

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.pocketpc (More info?)

As a proud PPC owner, I would be happy to answer some of
your questions:

#1 - yes, you can sync with both.

#2 - I believe there are 3rd party aps to help with this.

#3 - I own a Dell x50v and absolutely love it!! VGA
Rocks!!

#4 - Dell is most likely going to replace the X5 series
this year, and the X50 series next ('06) year. Rumor is
that the X50 will be upgradable to WM2005 - but don't bet
on it!

The purchase of a PPC is a very personal one - only you
know what you need in a device, and while they are all
similar, you really need to weigh the differences. I
spent 2 weeks researching my purchase - weighing pro's
and con's - my wife thought I was loosing my mind over
a "fancy calculator", but in the end, I am very happy
having gone with X50v

HTH, xfiler

>-----Original Message-----
>Folks,
>
>I have been a Palm Pilot user for almost 5 years.
During that time, I
>have been through 3 Palms, a IIIxe, a Zire 71, and a
Tungsten T2.
>
>Without going into the gory details, I have gotten tired
of Palm's (in
>my opinion) poor business ethics and poor
quality/durability issues.
>My latest Palm (a Tungsten T2) has the digitizer working
>intermittently starting a few days ago (You have to bang
it on the
>table to get it to work). And it is only 1.5 years old.
>
>Anyway, I have decided to look at PocketPCs for my PDA
use. But I
>have a few questions, and hopefully you all can answer
them.
>
>1. Is it possible to sync your PocketPC with two
different PCs (i.e.
>home and work)?
>
>2. If it is possible to sync with your home and work PC,
is it
>possible to have everything on your home PC synced to
your PocketPC,
>but have the work PC not sync with all items in the
Pocket PC?
>(Example: I have contacts that are personal, i.e.
relatives, friends,
>etc., that do not belong on my work PC. I would like to
have them on
>my PocketPC, but not uploaded to my work PC. But, I
would like to
>have new business contacts that are stored on my work PC
to be
>downloaded to my Pocket PC. Same thing for email,
Notes, Tasks, etc.
>In Chapura for Palm, the "Private" flag was used to
allow business
>items to be downloaded into the Palm, and to keep
personal "Private"
>items from being uploaded into the work PC. Is there
something like
>that on the PocketPC?)
>
>3. How does everybody like the QVGA screen (240x320)? I
am used to
>Palm's 320x320 screen. Is it that much worse? What
about the VGA
>(480x640) screens now available from Dell, HP, etc.? Do
they really
>look good?
>
>4. I am looking at a Dell X50v. Anybody using that
PocketPC? Any
>owners of older model Dell PocketPCs have problems with
>quality/durability (i.e. has it lasted longer than a few
years, have
>some had problems within 6 months, etc.)
>
>I think that is about it for now.
>
>Any thoughts/opinions would be appreciated.
>
>Thanks,
>
>The Nth Traveler
>-----------------------
>Get rid of 1st and 3rd words before at sign to reply by
email
>.
>

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.pocketpc (More info?)

As a new Palm Zire 71 -> Axim X50v migrant, I can tell you I'm not
unhappy. It's solidly built, no issues really; it's about the same
weight and size as my old Zire 71; battery life seems to be similar.
It's a lot more complex an operating system, though; it's been quite
different to try to adapt to it. I've been using Palm devices for quite
a few things, mostly for a specific database program, also as a journal
reader, for viewing photos and offline news reading. I occasionally
used it for eBook reading, mp3 playing, and card games. When I went to
conferences I took my mobile device instead of a laptop, so I was using
Documents to Go office programs a bit, too.

So, my impressions after one month with an Axim X50v:

I really like the X50v's built in WiFi. I'm learning to use Pocket
Explorer, and I think it's OK but very limited. Being able to access
documents directly off the server HDD with a WiFi connection is a big
plus.

The screen is excellent - 480X640; it's a definite step up from even
the nice screen on the Zire 71. It's too bright, though, for nighttime
use (reading in bed)- I had a hack for the Zire that addressed this but
I haven't found anything yet for the Pocket PC.

The biggest migration issue was the Calendar and Contacts - there's no
utility to migrate from Palm to PocketPC. It took a lot of fiddling to
get all the info transferred, and even then, it wasn't perfect. See my
previous thread for details:

http://groups-beta.google.com/group/microsoft.public.po...\\

The Contacts program (in the Pocket PC itself) is too primitive
compared to Palm's; not nearly as customizable. Calendar is ok, a bit
better, actually. Outlook 2002 is quite a bit of an improvement on Palm
Desktop; it's more customizable (although much harder to learn) and
it's got better features. Notes and Tasks are OK; I didn't use these
features much on Palm, so from my perspective they look very similar on
the PocketPC. I like the voice recorder note-taking feature on the
X50v, it works very well.

Pocket Word and Pocket Excel are average compared to their Documents to
Go counterparts; but then, they're free and they do work. "Pocket
Access" and "Pocket Powerpoint" don't exist, a big surprise and very
disappointing; I'm in the process of looking at 3rd party apps. The
next generation Windows Mobile 2005 is supposed to have a built in
Powerpoint viewer/presenter (not editor).

Activesync is OK but not great; believe it or not I really miss the
"hotsync" button. Activesync automatically starts up and the Axim turns
on every time I cradle it - a real pain, actually. Even if it's set to
manual, a couple of very large 3rd party "conduits" run every time I
re-cradle whether or not they just ran a couple of minutes ago. I'd
like to be able to choose when I sync, and be able to choose to do it
only once a day, for instance.

I was using Plucker for Palm but it's still alpha-level for PPC, so
I've had to switch back to Avantgo for off-line news and webpage
browsing. With a fast connection it's not so bad, but.... again,
Plucker allowed scheduling options I really miss. And Avantgo doesn't
carry "The Onion"!

Pocket PC is a bit slower to load some things; I'm using a large 3rd
party database program and I'm leaving it running in the background all
the time because it takes a very long time to load (~15 seconds)
compared to the Palm where it loaded instantly. Other programs are not
delayed at all, so I rather think it's a programming issue with the
software, but still....

My favorite freeware ebook reader isn't available for PPC, so I'm using
Mobipocket standard and Microsoft eReader (for .lit). Kind of
disappointing; Mobipocket can't read .zip compressed documents or .lit,
and the standard version doesn't autoscroll; the button assignments are
not very intuitive. I haven't downloaded a .lit to try out MS's reader
yet; my Palm ebook viewer couldn't read them either.

I also haven't tried Pocket Microsoft Media Player with MP3s yet, but
just about anything would be better than RealPlayer was on my Zire -
ugh, what a dog of a program! The one disappointing thing about Pocket
MS Media Player is that you can't get full desktop Media Player 10 for
OS's other than WinXP; I have Win2K machines so I'm S.O.L. - I can't
use many of the nice multimedia features.

Anyways, I don't mean to be too negative - these are just my
impressions in the first month; YMMV. There's always going to be a
learning curve, and "different" doesn't always translate to "worse".
Now that it's done I'm actually happy I made the switch; for the same
price as a T5 (I bought my X50v refurbed) I got more memory, built in
WiFi, both a CF and SD slot, and a replaceable battery. I also got a
device that probably isn't going away (a la Sony Clie) any time
soon.....

ECM

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.pocketpc (More info?)

>It's too bright, though, for nighttime
>use (reading in bed)- I had a hack for the Zire that addressed this but
>I haven't found anything yet for the Pocket PC.

Start > Settings > system > brightness. no hack required. it's adjustable.

by the way. very informative and well thought out reply to the original
posters inquiry.

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.pocketpc (More info?)

KDE wrote:
> >It's too bright, though, for nighttime
> >use (reading in bed)- I had a hack for the Zire that addressed this
but
> >I haven't found anything yet for the Pocket PC.
>
> Start > Settings > system > brightness. no hack required. it's
adjustable.
>

Thanks, I did find this control. The X50v is still very bright at
minimum setting, IMO; I find it hard to look at the display in the
dark. The Palm hack added several more levels of brightness between
"minimum" and "off", including "just barely on" - excellent for late
night viewing when you're eyes are dark adapted. It saved power in a
big way, too - battery life was almost doubled. I'm going to keep
looking for a similar utility for Windows Mobile.

> by the way. very informative and well thought out reply to the
original
> posters inquiry.

Thanks!

ECM

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.pocketpc (More info?)

On 29 Apr 2005 12:48:36 -0700, "ecm" <thedeepabyss@whoever.com> wrote:

>
>The biggest migration issue was the Calendar and Contacts - there's no
>utility to migrate from Palm to PocketPC. It took a lot of fiddling to
>get all the info transferred, and even then, it wasn't perfect. See my
>previous thread for details:
>

I migrated all my Calendar and Contacts from Palm to PPC very easily
in the space of minutes, by syncing the Palm to Outlook, and then
syncing the PPC with Outlook. For me anyway, I didn't lose any
entries at all.

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.pocketpc (More info?)

> Being able to access
>documents directly off the server HDD with a WiFi connection is a big
>plus.

That sounds very cool and really intrigues me....
thinking on doing this myself

But can you expand a bit on just how useful it is... in
what way useful?

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.pocketpc (More info?)

>Now that it's done I'm actually happy I made the switch; for the same
>price as a T5 (I bought my X50v refurbed) I got more memory, built in
>WiFi, both a CF and SD slot, and a replaceable battery. I also got a
>device that probably isn't going away (a la Sony Clie) any time
>soon.....

So you are glad you went from Palm to PPC so far?

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.pocketpc (More info?)

Jason wrote:
> On 29 Apr 2005 12:48:36 -0700, "ecm" <thedeepabyss@whoever.com>
wrote:
>
> >
> >The biggest migration issue was the Calendar and Contacts - there's
no
> >utility to migrate from Palm to PocketPC. It took a lot of fiddling
to
> >get all the info transferred, and even then, it wasn't perfect. See
my
> >previous thread for details:
> >
>
> I migrated all my Calendar and Contacts from Palm to PPC very easily
> in the space of minutes, by syncing the Palm to Outlook, and then
> syncing the PPC with Outlook. For me anyway, I didn't lose any
> entries at all.

Yep, that's the easy way.... I had to do it the hard way, after my Palm
was stolen. Without a Palm, there's no direct path to send the Desktop
data to Outlook....

ECM

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.pocketpc (More info?)

m...@privacy.net wrote:
> > Being able to access
> >documents directly off the server HDD with a WiFi connection is a
big
> >plus.
>
> That sounds very cool and really intrigues me....
> thinking on doing this myself
>
> But can you expand a bit on just how useful it is... in
> what way useful?

The network share was very similar to doing it with a laptop over WiFi;
I set up the shared directory on the "server" computer (my desktop) and
navigated to it with the Pocket PC - from file explorer click on the
little hand holding the grey box at the bottom; then type in
//comp-name/<enter>, and enter user name and password and you're
golden. It was really simple. I think the secret is to set the network
type to "Work" rather than "Internet" so it treats it like a LAN rather
than asking to set up a VPN. It's like having a 160GB HDD attached to
my PPC -I'd say it's pretty useful....

I've been using it to upload/download photos and mp3's to the desktop
computer so far; I have most of my photos from the last 10 years and
almost all of the music I've ever bought on a RAID 1 array. I'm sorting
through and editing pics with Resco's Photo editing program (included
with the X50/X50v), and then sending them back to the server. Works OK;
I haven't been able to get a proper color profile for the X50v's
screen, so I limit myself to sorting, orientation and cropping.

The MP3's have to be copied to the PPC to play, unfortunately, I
haven't been able to figure out how to "stream" them.... give me
time.....

I've also backed up the PPC to the desktop this way so I can leave the
cradle at work.

m...@privacy.net wrote:
> >Now that it's done I'm actually happy I made the switch; for the
same
> >price as a T5 (I bought my X50v refurbed) I got more memory, built
in
> >WiFi, both a CF and SD slot, and a replaceable battery. I also got a
> >device that probably isn't going away (a la Sony Clie) any time
> >soon.....
>
> So you are glad you went from Palm to PPC so far?

Yeah, I am; IMHO Palm is dying.... unless they make the leap to
Unix/Linix or at least start offering a significantly more complete OS
they're on the way out. There's been no significant improvement in
their devices or OS for at least 3 years. Lean and mean is one thing,
but lack of features will kill you.

It's not been an easy transition to Windows Mobile, though. It's NOT a
"full" OS, even though it's much more complete (or complex...) than
PalmOS; I'm still trying to figure out what I can and can't do with
it....

ECM

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.pocketpc (More info?)

Thanks to all for your input.

The Nth Traveler
-----------------------
Get rid of 1st and 3rd words before at sign to reply by email