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Souce: New York Times

Pocket PC's for Smaller Pocketbooks

Professional technology reviewers have one thing in common with lawyers, therapists and dermatologists: they are frequently approached by advice-seekers at parties.

Consider, for example, the frequent question, "What palmtop should I buy?" For this, the gadget guru generally trots out ****tail Party Response 342-B: "First, choose which camp you want to join: Palm or Pocket PC. A Palm is small, simple and inexpensive. A Pocket PC is bigger, heavier and pricier - but it has a lot more features."

At least, that's what you used to say. This season, though, ****tail Party Response 342-B is officially outdated. First, Palm models caught up in power and screen quality. And now there's a new generation of small Pocket PC's that cost as little as $250. That's an astonishing break from the tradition of $700 Pocket PC's like the trendy Compaq iPaq.

Because they all run the same Microsoft software, Pocket PC's are fundamentally alike, and the new Dell Axim X5, Hewlett-Packard h1910 and ViewSonic V35 are no exceptions. Each model features a 240-by-320-pixel touch screen that is very bright, indoors and out, and can display photos by using a palette of 65,000 colors. Each model has a microphone and tinny speaker for voice notes, and a headphone jack for MP3 music playback. Each also offers a thumb wheel at the left edge, which makes scrolling convenient (at least for right-handers).

Finally, each Pocket PC keeps its address book, calendar, to-do list and e-mail automatically in sync with your Windows PC's copy of Microsoft Outlook. (Each of the cheapie Pocket PC's reviewed here even comes with a copy of Outlook, for the benefit of the six American office workers who don't already have it. Weirdly, it's Outlook 2000, not the current 2002 version.) A Pocket PC works with a Macintosh only with the help of add-on software (www.pocketmac.net).

Choosing among the new crop of inexpensive Pocket PC's, then, is a matter of bells and whistles. If expansion-card slots are a priority, then the Dell Axim is a steal of a deal. It offers two slots, which you can use simultaneously: a Secure Digital slot for extra storage and a Compact Flash slot, which can hold, for example, a Wi-Fi card for wireless networking.

The Axim comes in two models, each attractively designed with black rubber side panels for easy gripping. One boasts 32 megabytes of memory, good battery life (for a Pocket PC, anyway - about nine hours) and that incredible $250 price. The $350 model is faster (400 megahertz instead of 300), has twice the memory and includes a docking cradle that can recharge both the Axim and a spare battery. (The battery on both Axims is, mercifully, removable.) By contrast, the cheaper Axim connects to your PC using cables: more compact for travel, but a hassle.

It might be ungrateful to say this about a machine that packs the power of a 1995 desktop computer into a 5-by-3.2-by-0.7-inch slab weighing 6.9 ounces, but the Axim is bulky and heavy in comparison with the HP and ViewSonic models. Worse, remember that unlike most Palms, Pocket PC's generally lack a flip lid to protect the screen; once the Axim is nestled in its even bulkier leather carrying case, it does not, in fact, fit into a pocket at all. You have to wonder if this Pocket PC might not be better named a Lunchbox PC.

But if you can do without the Compact Flash slot, you can avoid the Axim's porkiness by buying the HP iPaq h1910 instead.

Now, HP clearly cut corners to keep this model's price to $300. For example, you get only a cable for synching, not a bona fide cradle. Its 200-megahertz chip is fine for office work, but too slow for flawless music and video playback. And of the unit's 64 megabytes of memory, only 46 are available for your use; the palmtop's own software fills up the rest.

On the other hand, the battery is removable, there's a Secure Digital card slot, and the screen is gorgeous, featuring high contrast and rich colors that, at least in side-by-side taste tests, narrowly beat the Dell and ViewSonic screens. The big news, though, is its sleekness: 4.5 by 2.75 by 0.5 inches - tiny enough to disappear completely behind an index card - and 4.2 ounces. Those numbers make the h1910 the smallest Pocket PC ever, smaller even than the venerated Palm V. HP, in fact, has created the first Shirt Pocket PC.

If you like the HP's delicious size but not its speed, don't panic. The ViewSonic V35 runs at 300 megahertz and has 64 megabytes of memory (37 free for your use). The V35 is just as thin as the HP and the same weight, albeit slightly taller and wider (4.8 by 3 inches). In short, it's a relatively high-powered machine that costs only $300 but remains almost Palmishly petite.

The battery isn't removable, and you get a cable for synching and charging rather than a cradle. But the screen is bright and crisp, the manual is nice, and goodness knows, the price is right. Finally, the ViewSonic's long, sturdy, telescoping stylus comes closer to being a real writing implement than a toothpick (like HP's stylus) or a flat Popsicle stick (like Dell's).

So if "What kind of palmtop should I get?" is the question, is "Get a Pocket PC" the answer?

From a pure features-per-dollar perspective, the answer is yes. In price, the closest color Palm model is the m130 ($250), but it's not nearly as powerful. It lacks the voice recorder, copious memory, headphone jack and high-resolution screen. Palm's handsome, compact Tungsten T is closer in usefulness. It comes with every feature you could dream of, including built-in Bluetooth for wireless synching, but it costs $500.

The point of all this is that it's no longer safe to generalize about the relative sizes, features and prices of Palms versus Pocket PC's. The deciding factor should be your preference in the operating system: Palm OS or Microsoft Pocket PC.

If you can't manage to spend a few minutes with each palmtop type to decide for yourself (in a store, for example), here's a summary:

The Palm OS is simple to navigate, clean to behold and effortless to use. To record "Lunch with Chris," for example, you just write it directly onto your calendar screen; to do the same on a Pocket PC, you have to open a dialog box and tap your way through some menus. As a Palm bonus, there's a library of about 10,000 add-on programs and games that run on the Palm - many times more than what you'll find for Pocket PC. And Palms sync with both Macs and PC's.

The Pocket PC operating system is vast and complex. Computer professionals adore its seething power and the way it effortlessly synchronizes with your copy of Microsoft Outlook whenever it's connected to the PC (you don't even have to push a button). Mere mortals, though, are likely to operate as they do in Windows: they'll master only the features they need to get their work done, uncomfortably aware that they're ignoring the rest.

Either way, the closing of the feature, price and size gaps between the Palm and Pocket PC worlds is welcome. In fact, there's only one disadvantage to all this progress. Now, when people at parties ask, "Which palmtop should I buy?," the answer is, "How much time do you have?"