Phil McCavity

One thing that has disappointed my about my 4700 is the web browser and I just ran some tests which concern me a bit.

I loaded a page on desktop PC and on the iPAQ (in both portrait and landscape orientation). Then I resized the browser on my desktop to show the same part of the screen as my iPAQ and ran MS' Spy program (part of Visual Studio), which told me my browser window was 403x250 pixels.

There are plenty of sites which display fine in a 600x400 windowon the desktop but which don't work at all well on the iPAQ. Adjusting the text size doesn't seem to make any difference.

Am I overlooking something here or is Pocket IE not working properly in VGA mode?

whitelyt

I don't see a real issue especially if you are looking at sites that are not mobile friendly. Web pages will render on the PPC slower than the desktop PC. The PPC processor, graphics chip and system Bus is not as fast as a desktop PC.

__________________
Ted Whitely
whitelyt at ipaqhq DOT com

HP rx3715
Dell Axim X50v
HP 2215
Dell Axim X30

Phil McCavity

The speed doesn't bother me so much and I understand it wouldn't be the full browsing experience of a desktop PC, but I was expecting to see something similar on the iPAQ as in a browser on a 640x480 desktop screen.

I've got cable internet, an always-on linux gateway (with no monitor, kb, mouse or even a GUI installed), an 802.11b WAP and a couple of PCs which aren't always turned on. I'd like to use the iPAQ for the odd occasions when I want to quickly look at something on the net but don't want to fire up a PC to do it, or want to look at it away from a PC (like a recipe site when I'm in the kitchen). In a 600x400-ish windows that's possible, but in 400x250 it's a stretch.

inglezoid

Try using SE-Vga with Netfront 3 (font set to largest) in landscape mode.

Phil McCavity

Originally Posted by inglezoid

Try using SE-Vga with Netfront 3 (font set to largest) in landscape mode.

What is this SE-Vga? I did google it but got so many spurious hits on stuff like "PPC 2003 SE VGA" that I gave up.

Netfront3 looks sort-of alright, but it's not really the goods on its own. Any frame that's larger than the screen area prevents me from getting to other parts of the page.

whitelyt

Originally Posted by Phil McCavity

What is this SE-Vga? I did google it but got so many spurious hits on stuff like "PPC 2003 SE VGA" that I gave up. Netfront3 looks sort-of alright, but it's not really the goods on its own. Any frame that's larger than the screen area prevents me from getting to other parts of the page.

Take a look at this thread for more information on SE VGA.

__________________
Ted Whitely
whitelyt at ipaqhq DOT com

HP rx3715
Dell Axim X50v
HP 2215
Dell Axim X30

Phil McCavity

Thanks for the link. That's led to a bit of progress.

640x480 mode is an odd mixture of good and bad. I bought Tweaks2k2 which lets me modify the system font but that seems to have no effect on things like the today screen (which is totally standard, and almost needs a magnifying glass in 640x480 to read it). It's still far from ideal in IE because even "largest" font is horribly small.

Unfortunately Netfront can't get through my firewall here at work (although IE can ) so I'll have to wait till I get home to try it.

inglezoid

I find netfront in VGA quite small, but for me at least it's easily readable when netfront font is set to largest... but with a 4" screen, I don't think there's another way around the problem...at least it makes a great number of web pages only up-down scrollable (which is a great help, for me at least).

good luck!

Phil McCavity

I got Netfront working last night in 640x480 mode. In the end I've used Tweaks2k2 to just set that program to run in 640x480 and left everything else at the default resolution so I can read it. It's not too bad.

SE-VGA is interesting but nothing I tried would make the today screen readable - the system font doesn't seem to affect it and with my dodgy eyesight it's not worth the headache - literally!

In 640x480 the address box displays in a huge font but it's usable.

Thanks for the info on this. It was a great education on PPC VGA modes going through it all!

inglezoid

Glad to hear that helped.

You're right...the address bar is HUGE (and the keyboard tiny) in tha mode, but it's useable, and as soon as you're at the page you want, you can turn the address bar off while browsing the page.

just a little bit of trouble to begin with, but once you have it all set up, just takes a minute or two, and browsing webpages becomes so much better.