on 8/3/2000 3:07 AM, markr13 at markr13@voicenet.com wrote:
> There is absolutely no doubt that the roster
> of applications that comes with Pocket PC is amazingly, stunningly
> powerful. They are far, far, far ahead of anything available on a Palm
> OS device." Sound familiar? He goes on: "What truly clinches the deal
> for me, however, is the inclusion of the best handwriting recognition
> engine since the late Newton MP 2100. Which is not amazing since it
> includes the same version of ParaGraph's CaliGrapher that came with the
> Newton. ...I can now finally retire my Newton because the Pocket PC
> offers the same excellent handwriting in a smaller, lighter package..."
Do not fall for magazine reviews, they have a steak in polishing things up.
They will never tell you "well, the new WinCE is great for a lack of other
choices but it still lacks the finness and power the years loder Newton
Technology," else they are shooting themelves in the foot; if people were
not made to buy and LOVE PDAs, they in turn would have less customers to buy
there magazine. Else, how do you explain having Psions and the Early key
board centric WinCE devices in a "PEN COMPUTING" magazine; IMHO the only
PEN computers are the Windows Slates, Palms Pilots and Newtons.
I had lengthy e mail exchanges with the editors of the article cited above.
The WinCE editor was very friendly and approachable and we agreed that the
Newton is still quite unique in many major areas, but they will never
glorify a dead platform that has no potential revenue for them. Fair enough.
Now let me tell you some of my first hands experiences with a Casio 105 I
got for my wife and a Casio 115 my brother in law has:
You get the device out of the box eager to play with it only to realize that
you have to first charge it for a full 6 hours during which time you are not
allowed to turn it on, bummer (you can operate while charging later). And
rechargeable batteries are the only option and you have to insert a backup
battery too. I almost forgot about backup batteris since my MP2000; I really
felt at that point that I took a step backwards. Advantage Newton.
Recharging time are always 5-6 hours long, wewh. and the charge lasts
another 5-6 hours :( you have to carry the charger with you on daily basis.
When the low battery warning come on you have no clue how much more time you
still have, the thing can go dark any moment it is suspensful, and the
backup battery is not that forgiving. Data losses is a true life scenario
here. And do not forget to save, save, save your work. Advantage Newton.
Backups on the serial port takes for ever, talk about more than 4 hours to
back up, and such long time to move MP3 music, you have no choice but to
invest in a CF card to do faster backups or file transfers or invest in USB.
The Newton serial connection is not a speed demon, but I can back my 24MB PC
card with all packages in under an hour over serial.
Applications footprint is HUGE, 500k apps are normal and 1MEG apps are not a
surprise, no wonder a a std 32MB memory is a must not luxry. And WinCE take
half of it for itself. Applications can only be installed from a PC, no
beeming or internet download of apps here. Same goes for removing apps, the
auto remove function in WinCE is a hit or miss depending on the carefulness
of the programs author.
And setting an internet connection was an excersise in patientce. Boy did we
spend hours to get an internet connection. My brother in law pulled an
allnighter, no kidding. Yeh, others may look down at us and think we are not
geeky wnough to figure it out, but trust me, the process is not that
forgiving, you mess up one dialog box and you will go in circles forever.
Then there are the traditional limitations, no universal in/out box, no fax,
no printing, no close application (selective I might add), and no
application intigration (you have to attache notes manually to mail them),
and you have to enter area codes manually (no built in inteligence),
Last but not least, NO NEWTON LIKE HWR; not even close. I had a quite an
exchange with the PEN Computing author of the above articel about his daring
to compare WinCE HWR to the Newton. IMO, for a great HWR you need to
abilities: 1- to write naturally, fast, at your own pace and accurately; 2-
quick and easy access to editing tools to correct mistakes on the fly with
the least effort. On the first count, a side by side test proved the Newton
to be more accurate than the WinCE. The newton is more flexible when it
comes to taking WR notes, you simply open the Note app, set the text
insrtion point and start writing. On the WinCE, you have to be in PoketWord,
you have to set the Zoom large enough to see the page lines and have the
inter page line distance wide enough since you will have to limit your self
to writting between these lines without crossing over them, make sure that
the input mode is set to write, then start writing; as you write you will
notice that your writing is treated like ink text on the Newton, no instant
gratification is possible here. When all is done, you select the text and
tap recognise, If you did not follow the rule of writing between the lines
you effort is lost.
2- Editing: now that your HW have been recognized, you have to go over it to
correct mistakes, holding the pen over a word produces a sub menue prety
much like the Newton with your original writing at the botom and a list of
alternative words, but the alternative words list is not at all that
inteligent, 99% of the time the word you intended to write is not there, The
NEwton is much much more clever about the alternative word list it provides.
Now come the difficult part, correcting the word; since the correct word is
not in the list of alternatives, you have to highlight the wrong word, pull
the key board, and typ it your self (the key board is not at the botom of
the list of alternatives like the sensible newton GUI). No direct writing
over the wrong letter to correct the word here. Editing mistakes on the
NEwton is way too easyier and faster.
All in all, people who never worked on the Newton will never know what they
are missing, they will adapt to the limitations and will be very proud of
the technology they have, even though in reality it falls short of the feats
of the 3 years older Newton Technology.
The only serious technical shortcoming on the Newton in comparison is the
lack of ATA CF card support (please Paul), and the lack of IRcomm (all bets
are on SmartDogSW).
Sorry for being that long, beleive me, I could have gone much further on
this topic.
Khaled Tewfik
Saudi Arabia
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