Re: If the PocketPC is more popular than Palm, how come I never see them actually used?

I posted this elsewhere but I thought I'd mention this again. I tried
going to the "Dark Side" with an refurbished HP iPAQ 2415 through the
company's employee purchase plan. I bought it last week and will
return it this week. It ended up costing about twice as much as my
Tungsten E which, aside from the on/off switch I've repaired, is as
good as it gets. I tried the T5 but it was heavy, clunky and slow. I
did like to rotate the screen for Docs-to-Go spreadsheets though.

So over the weekend I tried "falling in love" with the HP, marveling at
the quality of the HP hardware, but shocked by the poor MS software.
First off I didn't like the use of MS Outlook as the desktop interface,
but then the built-in apps I need like the Palm's memo pad and todo
list are almost useless on the Pocket PC. Completed tasks don't
disappear on the checklist and there's no category structure to the
notepad. That's beyond awkward, it's downright buggy. I'm sure
Microsoft calls these "features".

I think they plan on users purchasing additional software to make the
Pocket PC useable, which is the same way they sell their desktop OS. I
expected the memo, calendar, check list and address book to function
the same or better than the Palm, but they're far worse, almost being
unusable.

I will say the HP hardware is top notch, and OS seemed stable (but then
again it wasn't really tested), and I like the ActiveSync. Also the
iPAQ had 802.11b and Bluetooth which worked well. But without fast,
rock solid, useful built-in applications, it's really just a pretty
toy. I need stablility, the memo pad, a functional to-do list and
simple and clean Palm desktop. So I'm staying with the Palm Tungsten
E until it dies, 'cause I sure don't see anything better on the
horizon.

~Bob

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