The new Pocket PCs from Hewlett-Packard and Compaq are probably not worth the HK$5,000 price tag. There is but a small increase in usability between the new hand-helds and the older Pocket PCs.
Microsoft has resolved one sticking point - power management. Pocket PCs 2002 last about twice as long as the older models. It has a Windows XP feel and there are significant improvements to the software.
But is it worth splurging HK$5,000 on a mobile device that barely accomplishes what ultra-portables already do well? There is almost no allure for consumers besides that brilliant 16-bit TFT display. If you are using your PDA primarily as a digital secretary, the price is high. Palm hand-helds, which are a fraction of that, would do the job.
For about HK$3,000 to $4,000, you can get the older 16-bit colour Compaq iPaq H3600, which has come down in price to make way for the new model. If you are an IT manager considering PDAs in place of bulky laptops and PC tablets, your main consideration would be software support, and there are many more Palm and Linux than Pocket PC developers.
Windows CE products were generally a failure but since they were rejuvenated as the Pocket PC, which supposedly took away some of the stigma, it has become a force for PDA market leader Palm Computing to reckon with. Last year, Pocket PCs had about 8 per cent of the global PDA market, according to IDC. This year, it doubled to 16 per cent. The world is still buying more Palm hand-held computers than Pocket PCs but the strides made by Microsoft and friends are tremendous.
Pocket PC 2002 looks and functions like Windows XP, Microsoft's new desktop operating system, and integrates well with the desktop XP. Thus Pocket PCs are a more attractive solution for the corporate environment than Palm, to some extent Linux, and Symbian OS hand-held computers. Moreover, IT managers would prefer to support one and not two different operating systems.