The question: Will we ever see this kind of PocketPC/Phone again?
As in hx470x/X5xv again?
I still love the SD/CF slots, VGA screen (I will not consider a screen without 307K pixels),
the lightning fast processor,
the ability to hardware accel the movies (I know the new processors does it, but still),
and a size just right. Will we ever see the darn near perfect PocketPC/Phone again?
*If the CF slot is substituted for the SDHC slot, I'd still consider it good :)
Two years man! Why are we STILL LEADING THE PACK? I thought technologies are supposed to improve and get faster and better every year!
Look at the DS and PSP: better technologically than the older gameboys;
Computers? Athlon X2 5200+ and Core 2 Duo E6700 are better than your 2 year old Athlon 64 and Pentium D!
Phones? Remember that old B/W screens seasons without internet? Now we have color screen internet madness with HSDPA and 3G!
Batteries? NiCad are full of problems and frustrating to use compared to the new Li-ion!
PDA/PDAPhones? My X50v is 624MHz 64MB RAM. 2004 technology! and what do I see in 2007? Slower PDAs and worse specs!
Dell/HP, please. Put HSDPA on the X5xv (and a bigger battery) and the hx470x series and I swear anything else will be history. Nothing in the market come remotely close to its usefulness:
O2 Flame? Maxing out at 4GB = suck. VGA screens are for movies and good looking VGA games: with 4GB, good luck with that. I think I recalled someone somewhere saying CF slots are useless except for storage. Well guess what? Where do you put your movies in? If you don't watch movies, why do you want a VGA screen in the first place? Oh right, GPS! I suppose running GPS AND GPRS at the same time won't murder your battery in 2 hours! That 1200mAh battery is the best laugh of PPC Phone Dec 06. Why do they think that they can get more than 4 hours out of it when the X51v struggled to do 5? And also, if they go for power, why don't they put the Bulverde 624 in it already! "Oh, I got the O2 Flame! Beat my power!" "Oh right, mine runs at 624." I said. If they want to save power, do it in software (ever heard of throttling?). Leave the possibility in. If the folks are buying this expensive device, will the higher cost of the 624 bother them much?
HTC Athena? 5" screen VGA! Ya, you tell me, that's like putting a clipboard on your face. That huge screen is gotta be a pain to baby too. MiniSD? 10GB max you out. You think that's a lot? 12GB currently on my X50v, and I don't have to put up with the power hungry microdrives (hey... I got an idea. How about I swap that crap out and put in my CF card?) Seriously, do they think that businesses will buy this while UMPCs are slightly bigger and costs less? "Hey, I got an idea! Let's buy our employees a $1700 device that is prone to damage and a pain to carry around!" Sorry HTC, I am solely disappointed in you too.
Alright... I think I turned this into a 3am rant. I am quite irritated by the fact that manfacturers are rolling out PocketPC/Phones that none I consider an upgrade.
Perhaps we're running up on a limitation to Moore's Law. More likely, though, perhaps the capability of the hardware has reached beyond the market demand for the time being. In my case, for example, I have not yet said to myself "darn ... I wish this PPC could run faster" or "I don't have enough memory to store the stuff I need".
Some days I wonder how much more capable this stuff will get before the makers of it have to start inventing problems to solve (if they aren't already doing that).
I'm disappointed that the market is heading in other directions.
I'm starting to see UMPC's advertised in sales ads in our local Sunday newspaper. They are interesting devices but can't replace a true PDA and they also cost very much more. It's possible that someday in the future the UMPC may evolve into something that will be useful as a PDA replacement. The excitement there is that they will likely have hard drives and they will run full Windows and not just PPC.
My X5 has held up very well for a long time. I'm going to buy an hx4705 and try it. Maybe it will serve me for quite a while. Fortunately there is still Ebay so we can buy reasonable devices for the near future.
youre assuming that because a mobile processors mhz is less that it isnt as fast and that is not true. Rather then up the mhz on a processor the focus now is to make them run more efficiently. I have seen many improvements. 2 years ago I had a HP Ipaq 300mhz with 32mb RAM and 802.11b wireless now my 520mhz Ipaq has 802.11B and 802.11G wireless allowing a faster internet connection and better range. As for processors most companies have been focusing more on there desktop and laptop divisions rather then there PDA processor division.
Also have you forgotten about the advancements in the technology for driving the displays on the PDA. You have Nvidia and ATI creating 3d accelerated chips for them. Then you have the storage. we now have 4 and 8gb SD Cards for our devices and 2 years ago we didnt.
__________________
HP Ipaq hx2495:
520mhz Intel Processor
64mb RAM
192mb ROM
1gb SD card
>You have Nvidia and ATI creating 3d accelerated chips for them.
Most apps don't take advantages of them. The only one I can think of is TCPMP/CorePlayer, and 4-5 games.
>youre assuming that because a mobile processors mhz is less that it isnt as fast and that is not true.
I know, but considering that most are still using Bulverdes...
>Then you have the storage. we now have 4 and 8gb SD Cards for our devices and 2 years ago we didnt.
I don't see SDHC slots in the new devices do I? Sure there are new tech, but the problem is no one is using them. The problem lies that I can't get a device to do 12GB right now. Heck, most of them can't even do more than 4GB.
I still love the SD/CF slots, VGA screen (I will not consider a screen without 307K pixels),
the lightning fast processor,
the ability to hardware accel the movies (I know the new processors does it, but still),
and a size just right. Will we ever see the darn near perfect PocketPC/Phone again?
You know I have been going through all reviews online and in my collection of PDA mags the past couple of weeks, although I have more or less in my head what's out there currently (obviously without all the detailed facts), one thing I didn't know before going through this was that hardly any of the PDA's have VGA resolution :(
Anyhow to the point of my post, the only thing I am lacking in my X51V is the access to the web anywhere, and while at it why not look at possibility to have qwerty keyboard builtin (and perhaps GPS, since any of the possible replacers have GPS built in now)
So after looking and looking what do I come down to?
NOW to my real point that just hit me as I am going through all this. I know many of you know this but are you all aware that ALL of the above, regardless of what name they carry HP, Fujitsu Siemens, Sharp AND Dell, O2, Imate, Qtek etc etc 99.9% of all PDAs including our beloved AXIMs are all made by HTC in Taiwan who in the past months have become more public and started marketing products worldwide under their own brandname http://www.htc.com/
So what's my point? Well it is obvious that all these big companies just outsource this to HTC and most likely including a large portion of the engineering. So, here is my question:
WHEN WILL OUR AXIM ONLINE COMMUNITY BECOME 'STRONG' ENOUGH TO JUST GO AHEAD AND HAVE THE PDA WE WANT DEVELOPED WITH HTC?
When is the time ready to just stop waiting for the next DELL AXIM (or any other device that will meet our needs/wants) when it doesn't seem it will happen, and we just all team up (with the help of some already exsisting company?) and just have the PDA we all want developed!? NO, I am not ready to do this, since that is already what we do (deal with manufacturers direct and have what we want made) but in a completely different field.
I know this might sound very 'out there' but I personally believe it might not be that unrealistic because the interenet is a powerful tool and the online AXIM comminities are huge, and who's to say only Axim owners would like the idea? As mentioned there are a large number of other HTC owners out there waiting for the next thing, and frankly the HTC protos that have been leaking here and there is not something to my liking. I want an AXIM with keyboard and 3G communication etc etc...
So I am just throwing this out there in the hopes there is someone crazy enough to digest this idea and go for it :D
HTC, are you reading? Start a part on your website wher you can custom order a PDA just like most laptop sellers do nowdays, just develop a number of std casings based on the various HTC made PDAs that already exsist out there :)
1. I will not consider a screen without 307K pixels
2. no expansion
3. not h.264 friendly
4. no good processor
5. no support for apps (ya ya, tell me about running your Mac stuff on there! Let see if your iPhone die first or you stress out from slowness first!)
1. I will not consider a screen without 307K pixels
2. no expansion
3. not h.264 friendly
4. no good processor
5. no support for apps (ya ya, tell me about running your Mac stuff on there! Let see if your iPhone die first or you stress out from slowness first!)
If it's linked to iTunes, it's going to be playing MP4-based movies... although I can't remember if the iPod uses h.264 or just DivX for the MP4 video encoding. Also, from what I saw of the videos, it's plenty fast for what it does; it's a damned PHONE first and foremost, and it does run Apple Widgets. Now, whether it can run the Widgets available for OS X without adaptation... that's what we'll have to see. And it browses webpages with Safari, or a version of it, which puts it heads and tails above Pocket IE.
Let's see how much the sucker costs first, and if it performs well in people's hands, THEN we'll talk about whether it'll do alright. Personally, I'm convinced that NO COMPANIES are willing to risk investing in an Axim-like product (VGA, really fast processor, gobs of storage and program RAM, WM5 and not WM5 Smartphone) for the phone market, especially given the way consumers don't know better and don't care to tinker with their phones the way us gadget-geeks do with our Axims. For them, the iPhone's probably the best introduction we can give them to the idea of a PDA, since it'll be pretty AND easy to use; two things which WM5 isn't without third-party programs.
"I'm starting to see UMPC's advertised in sales ads in our local Sunday newspaper. They are interesting devices but can't replace a true PDA and they also cost very much more. It's possible that someday in the future the UMPC may evolve into something that will be useful as a PDA replacement. The excitement there is that they will likely have hard drives and they will run full Windows and not just PPC."
"I'm starting to see UMPC's advertised in sales ads in our local Sunday newspaper. They are interesting devices but can't replace a true PDA and they also cost very much more. It's possible that someday in the future the UMPC may evolve into something that will be useful as a PDA replacement. The excitement there is that they will likely have hard drives and they will run full Windows and not just PPC."
Well lets put it that way... There will be always demand for small devices that can fit into the pocket with all the bells and whistles of Axims. Therefore even if PDAs as we know it disappear, UMPCs will eventually evolve into something like PDA. And if you want something that small and with reasonable costs, obviously it cannot be running the current version of windows.
I think customizing PDA's is a wonderful idea. Instead of making 1 type of PDA and then change it to something totally new... why not build a model of a completely customizable PDA.
Choose a processor
Choose amount of RAM
ATI, NVIDIA, or NONE
Data connections (3G, EDGE, BT, WiFi, GPS)
VGA or QVGA
Different designs (QWERTY, Large Screen, big, small, colors)
You get the point. That would be cool. No one does that and it could be a revolution for Pocket PC's. Built-To-Order. I would have it $600 and under. I would buy a top of the line PDA for $600 with VGA, 3G, CF-SD, 654+ Mhz, 256mb.
There also needs a universal gaming standard so that game makers can make one game for all graphic accelerators to run it without making special versions.
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