Re: A summary of my PocketPC (about 2 months' worth) -- Sharp/WillCom WS003SH
- From: J-Mac <jcmcgowan@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 17 Jul 2006 02:12:29 -0400
Shannon,
Wow, you've pretty near written a book here! I will try to respond
where I can inline below, however I am not familiar at all with your
specific device, so please pardon me if some answers are more generic
than device-specific.
On Mon, 17 Jul 2006 10:05:37 +0900, "Shannon Jacobs"
<shanen@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
First, USB charging is apparently impossible. I hope you haven't sold any of
those big USB chargers for this device, since that will not work. I think
the problem is that the AC adapter for this device puts out 1,000 mA, but
the USB specification is only 500 mA for one USB port.
Have you tried charging the device yet? If/when you do, try charging
it only with the device off. If you cannot power off while the device
is connected, at least make sure the screen is off and do not try to
use the device while it is charging. Many USB charging devices have
issues and they are exacerbated when users try to use the device while
charging it.
Next issue is Opera. When I went to the WillCom shop to ask about this, they
recommended against it, saying it makes the machine flaky. However, there is
a newer version of Opera available, and the IE browser is pretty terrible.
Recommendations? And do I have to pay for Opera if I do install it?
If this is a Pocket PC Phone device running WM5, you certainly should
be able to run the latest (Version 8.60) version of Opera for PPC. And
yes, you will have to pay for it. I did. Why wouldn't you have to pay
for Opera? Other than the beta versions, I believe that Opera for PPC
has been a paid version only, and not provided free by Opera. If you
are thinking of the Opera version that was freely available for
Symbian devices, Opera has not afforded that same benefit for PPC
users.
Minor annoyance regarding incoming email. Sometimes it receives it, but
other times it just indicates the email is there and I have to manually
force it to finish the download. I have not been able to figure out any
pattern on this.
When you create a new account, one of the settings asks if you want to
download headers only or the entire message body. Did you see that
when creating your first account? You should be able to go into the
account settings and change it if you are only getting headers. Be
careful, though, as too many bodies for too many messages can eat up
your RAM quickly!
Personally, I would use QMail or WebIS FlexMail for much better
features than the native mail application.
Next question regards firmware updates. How can I tell what's installed on
the machine and whether or not I should update? (I think that I confirmed
that I had the latest firmware as of a month ago.)
Setttings>System Information should show you your current firmware. As
for what the latest is for your device, that is usually available at
the manufacturer's website. However you can also try some forums that
keep am eye on such things. Howard Forums is a good one, covering a
lot of devices. It's at http://www.howardforums.com
Keyboard report: Mostly useless. Apart from the size, the layout is odd
enough that I need to see the keys to use it, but the lighting of the keys
is terrible. In very bright light, it's okay, and in very dim light, it's
not as good, but at least fairly visible. However, in between, there is a
wide range of lighting levels where the keyboard is not readable. I think
that turning off the keyboard light would be very helpful most of the time,
but this is apparently not possible. All you can do is dim the display,
which also dims the keyboard, but which makes the display too hard to see.
Suggestions? (This is the major flaw that I would blame Sharp for. The rest
of the problems are mostly Microsoft's.)
I never use the default keyboard myself. Take a look at Calligrapher
by Phatware ( http://www.phatware.com ). It's an advanced handwriting
recognition program. Phatware also develops Transcriber that comes
with Windows Mobile. Even if you prefer a keyboard, Calligrapher has a
keyboard that is nicer than the default. I use the TenGo keyboard
almost exclusively. It's an alternative keyboard that lets even a poor
typist like me to input at >30 words per minute! (
http://www.tengo.com ).
Others worth trying: Resco Keyboard Pro [
http://www.resco.net/pocketpc/keyboard/default.asp ], and SPB
SoftwareHouse's Full Screen Keyboard [
http://www.spbsoftwarehouse.com/products/fsk/?en ].
BTW, all sites shown here are English versions. I don't know about the
availability of Japanese versions of the products. You'll have to
check them out and see what they have there.
However, I was more concerned with the PDA data--and Microsoft makes that
part *VERY* difficult. I am unable to believe that Microsoft can be so
incompetent by accident or by naivety, so right now I believe that this is
deliberate incompetence. Microsoft's strategic goal is probably to cripple
the PDA market, and they don't mind losing some money there to protect their
Windows monopoly. To Microsoft, the losses are relatively trivial--but no
legitimate PDA company can stand the bleeding.
Can't help you here, as most is a "slightly" opinionated discourse!
However I will point you toward a couple of excellent websites that
might help to ease the pain:
http://www.pocketpcfaq.com/ - A voluminous site by Chris De Herrara,
who posts regularly here.
http://www.bevhoward.com/bhhpj.htm - A great site by Bev Howard, who
is also a regular here.
Search problem report: The data search ignores the body of the To-Do items.
Confusingly called ?? in Japanese. Only the title of the To-Do is
searchable. Please check to see if I'm mistaken, but I think this is another
example of a deliberately crippling design choice by Microsoft.
Text input report: Terrible. As already noted, the keyboard is generally
unusable because it's not visible enough. I expected that, but I thought I
would go around it with the 'block recognition' input system when I'm
working in English. According to reports, that input mode is basically like
Graffiti, and using Graffiti, I can input about 30 wpm in English.
Unfortunately, block recognition was removed from the Japanese version of
the device. Again, Microsoft deliberately crippled the functionality. The
Japanese input is usable, though slow--and I have to use it for English,
too.
Fallback position is to use the scribble note system (in memo). That works
moderately well, but the memos are often mangled when transferred to the PC.
That basically means I have to take the time to transcribe the notes to get
much use out of them, which is increasing my work, not reducing it. Again,
design and implementation incompetence by Microsoft.
See my comments under "Keyboard", above.
Microsoft Office software report: Worthless. The file format confusion is
especially annoying. I'm only interfacing the data to Microsoft's own
products, mostly Word and Outlook. Microsoft has succeeded in making all
parts of this pretty much worthless. However, I suppose Microsoft regards
that as successful, since this is the main area of feeping creaturitis where
Palm was induced to commit suicide.
Can't really tell what your specific issues are here.
Microsoft Internet Explorer report: Awful (though not completely worthless).
Much inferior to the old Opera I had on my previous phone with the much
smaller display. Again, I can't believe that such implementation
incompetence is purely accidental.
Pocket IE can be modified to behave slightly better with some 3rd
party applications, but a better bet is Opera for PPC or the latest
version of NetFront.
Synching with computers: Worse than awful. Totally unintuitive, cranky, and
I really don't know how much data has been lost. Perhaps none, but I
certainly can't tell and I have no trust in it. Data and folders show up or
disappear, and I still haven't discovered any clear patterns. I'm really
curious about the insane limitation to only two computers. Did God send
Microsoft a stone tablet inscribed "Thou shalt sync with only two
computers." In contrast with the Palm experience, quite unacceptable, though
I'm forced to accept it. All Microsoft had to do was copy Palm's approach,
and not make things worse. If this is accidental incompetence, then I'm a
monkey's uncle. The really amazing thing is that these problems are highly
visible, have been going on for years, are widely discussed--and remain
unresolved.
In previous versions of WM and Activesync, the two computer limitation
could be overcome, but I haven't tried personally on WM5 and AS 4.X,
so I cannot say for sure. Take a look at Chris and Bev's sites, listed
above, for more info.
General stability: Satisfactory, though I think any credit probably belongs
to Sharp. The device does sometimes get flaky and need rebooting. Some data
may have disappeared, or maybe it's just moved somewhere else?
Overall report: Expensive learning experience. Microsoft has succeeded in
destroying the utility of PDAs, but excuse me for not throwing
congratulatory flowers.
OK, OK... Once you get more used to it, I think that you will find
that the capabilities and the extesibility of 3rd party applications
take the Pocket PC platform well above any others. But if you are
truly hellbent on stomping your feet, well.... maybe you should go
back to what you DID like? Palm?
Either way, I wish you good luck and happy times with your new device!
--
J-Mac
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