Which handheld is better, Palm OS based or PocketPC, and why.

[digitalman405]

thinking of which to buy, no money limit, need help deciding.

[EEE]

Originally posted by digitalman405
thinking of which to buy, no money limit, need help deciding.

They really fit different needs. Maybe you can tell us what you want it for?

My personal belief is that Palms are better at organising your life kind of things, and they do it well. There's very little that can go wrong with it, it's easy to learn to use, and they get the job done.

And PocketPC's are more like handheld computers, and you can do most things on it that you would do on a computer. It even has a file explorer, a registry, and a task manager. You can get programs for both that do mostly the same thing. PocketPC's are better for 802.11 networking stuff, again highlighting the fact it was designed as a computer.

[Silesia]

Depends on what you are after.


I prefer POCKET PC, but PALM as a lot more programs out there.

[lant]

PocketPC works great if you have a keyboard and use Word. 2 mates of mine have palms, and me and my other friend have pocketpc's. We make fun of their palms, and we always win

So yeah, I like PPC... Palm might be a little faster, but PocketPC is so much more like a PC, it rocks.

[EEE]

Originally posted by lant
We make fun of their palms

Why would you make fun of someone?

[B.thomson]

I have a Sony Clie PEG-TG50 (Palm OS 5).

At work, we use iPAQ 5550's (Pocket PC 2003).

All I can say is that everyone in our IT owns a Palm device for themselves, and only use the Pocket PC for work.

Palm is faster and more reliable. I have less crashes and problems on my Palm. Software support is much better on the Palm as well.

I use Zlauncher to manage my PDA and have a whole heap of other apps that manage software registration keys, expenses etc. I use Wordsmith for documents. I also connect to the net through GPRS to my T630, which usually works faster than using the Sierra Aircard 555 (CDMA 1XRTT) in the iPAQ. My GPRS is through Vodaphone, CDMA is through Telstra.

Hotsync kicks ass over Activesync.

Seriously, having been using PDA's with both Palm and Pocket PC for the last year or more both for work and home I would always choose the Palm over the Pocket PC.

[PureData]

I use a Palm Tungsten T, it's never let me down

Someone at work upgraded his Palm V to an iPaq. After a few days his battery went flat and he lost all his data (no backup). He returned it to the shop the next day and went back to using his Palm V, which has never lost his data. That's what convinced me to get mine, I'm happy with my decision

[Slugoid]

Palm is rock solid. I have an old Sony PEG-SJ30 (PalmOS 4) and it's easy to use and efficient. I use it to store addresses, notes, put reminders as well as due dates for assignment. Does all that without flaw and I don't care if it can't connect to the net or wireless lans, or listen to music and other stuff a PC can do.

[ajst2duk]

Me palm onto 4th one Tungsten T2 Palm OS5. Now am am a fanboi - so this is not objective in any way.
I use my palm for:
MP3's (have a 256mb SDcard with 5 CD's on it) sounds great, lots of skins for player and it multitasks, so I can listen while surfing etc - easy to update/change music using a USB card reader (palm is slower)
Videos, I carry a bunch of videoclips with me, can play back full-screen with sound. It always amazes people
NET - GPRS via a T610 easy as, manage 5 email accounts and can access web pages anywhere anytime
Work - docs to go lets me work on office stuff with files kept/saved in their native format, so for example I can download a spreadsheet, mark it so that it syncs with desktop version every time I sync, I can work on it while on a plane to Aussie, then when I get there email it back to the office straight off my palm while roaming.
Games
Ebooks
Bluetooth - exchange photos with phone, dial address book entries directly etc
Many other things, like addresses, password DB, dial numbers photo albums

[pingu]

i vote for the pocket pc...... i only got mine a few weeks ago and i am loving it. but it really depends on what you are going to use it for. i mostly use it for multimedia purposes, like watching tv-shows, music videos, listen to music and playing games. i chose the pocket pc because there is a lot for good emulators our there, that let me play super nintendo, game boy advance and playstation . you will be surprised how good the performance is for emualting a playstation. there are also emulators for the classica arcade machines like MAME and neogeo. if you do decide to get a pocket PC i recommend u gettin an Asus A620bt(its the one i have) it normally runs at 400mhz, but there are programs out there that let u overclock and underclock automatically depending on the CPU usage. i have mine setup so that it underclocks to 230mhz when listening to mp3s and then have it clocking upto 350mhz for web browsing, then finally overclock it to 530mhz for playstation and other emulators. you might also want to get the new dell pocket pc which is 624mhz, but has the potential to overclock to 740mhz good luck on deciding what to get.

[joshka]

i rate my ppc. on an h2210. not that i've used palm, but i chose the ppc because, well, the graffiti shizzle on the palm kinda turned me off, fair waste of 'screen' space, whereas it's more flexible on the ppc (i.e. multiple input methods).. and uh, the ppc seemed nicer multimedia styles.

i've never had a problem with losing data.. well once i lost the mp3s on my sandisk 256mb sd card, but that's an inherent problem with the card, not the pda.. or so i'm led to believe.

never had a significant problem with performance or anything. crashes were more due to incompatiblity (written for ppc2002, run on 2003 - bambow) or just poorly written programs.. that's not to say it's all bad news though.. there's plenty of good software i've come across (read: free) to do the job..

mm so in conclusion, i love my ppc. never used a palm, but i've never had a need to with my ppc being this good.

cheers.
--josh!

[FlameHead]

I use PalmOS exclusively and tried out a PPC the other day. They still have interface issues. Like how do you cancel a todo you realised you don't want to make. And for the life of me I couldn't find out how to delete the todo after i was forced to press okay. I had to tick it off as done, which really isn't the same thing.

Also I couldn't for the life of me understand why programs run as if it's windows, multi tasking.

The generic calendar aps are fairly similar apart from the interface issues which are, simply a matter of taste I guess.

Mind you, 3rd party support for the Palm is phenominal and I would never turn back to the generic aps. I use Agendus for palm instead of the scheduling and phonebook and zlauncher as my ap launcher.

Plus the Sony's and PalmOne devices are so much sexier than any other device I've seen. And in regard to games, whenever someone asks about movies, mp3s or games, I always reply "It's a business tool, not a toy, not a gimmick"

Mind you mp3 playing is super cool on the Sony's

[C-NuT]

I've got a Palm Tungsten T3. Does everything I want it to well. Way more programs for Palms.

PPCs is more like windows. ie: slower, uses more memory, crashes more.

One benefit of PPCs is if you're using wireless networking with PCs or something, but otherwise Palm's compatibilty with PCs is fairly flawless.