I used an IPaq for over two weeks and found myself figthing the damn thing
more often than not.
I'm not a MS basher...in fact, I prefer WinXp to just about any OS...but
WinCE (PocketPC) is HORRIBLE and slow. It is AMAZINGLY
counter-intuitive...it's like MS did tremendous market research to find out
how people do their everyday tasks and then instructed their software
engineers to do the exact opposite.
I have a friend who uses a WinCE device and he audibly weeps whenever I demo
my MP130...like a small child. Lost at the drive-in.
And everything Brad says here about the handwriting is true...
(shakes head)
-----Original Message-----
From: Smith, Bradley [mailto:bradley.smith_at_artisansw.com]
Sent: Tuesday, April 23, 2002 8:46 AM
To: 'newtontalk_at_newtontalk.net'
Subject: [NTLK] Non-defection
Hey everyone,
I was considering defecting to an iPaq. Here was my reasoning: -
iPaq has
1. Smaller, colour screen but with same or similar resolution to 2100 (not
sure)
2. Lighter, Smaller
3. Talks to modern devices
4. Has same cursive recognizer as newton plus alternative recognizers
similar to grafitti
5. Fast
6. Deferred recognition option, same as Newton
7. Can play MP3s, show pictures etc.
Will synch with Windiws and Mac (using 3rd party s/ware)
Looks good on paper doesn't it?
Anyway, my colleague has one so I've been playing with it all morning in
real world use and:
1. If it gets a word wrong (and it does, much more often than the Newt's
printed recognizer) then you can't "scrub" it out. You need to make delete
gestures to cover however many letters ther are in the word, or call up and
onscreen KB and tap backspace repeatedly.
2. No outline / checklist stationry
3. No way to make the little insert character symbol to allow you to add a
character to a word.
4. No easy way to change a word's capitalization
5. No diagrams / sketches in the notepad
6. Copy / paste / drag / drop never worked properly
7. Undo is broken in that youwrite a word, the iPaq adds a space at the end
for you. You change your mind and hit undo and it removes the space. Further
undos remove one character at a time from the end of the word. What a piece
of cr........
8. No intelligent assist
It's amazing. They have the technology and hardware to produce something
great yet somehow they manage to make the device completely unusable.
My colleague is now looking at ways to overcome these problems. I'll let you
know what I find out.
So close, yet so, so far...
Brad
Oh yeah, and you can't get an ethernet card for it for less than 20 quid
either :-)
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