Windows Pocket PCs

Pawnless Endgame · 3 Nov 2014 at 17:12

It's a shame that the PDAs (Win CE / Palmtop etc) didn't really kick off. The reason being though is that they didn't have phone functionality. I knew even back then 10-12 years ago that phone should have been one its features. Thankfully the PDA-phone did eventually come along, had a Sony-Ericsson P910 in 2005. Apple did the same with their iPod etc. "Smartphone" seems to be the buzz-word these days though, not PDA-phone.

DJMK4 · 3 Nov 2014 at 17:18

This is what mine looked like, and was used for, only difference is I had a different car mount, and my Sirf Star III GPS card was plugged in the top card slot, and mine was the x51

Col_M · 3 Nov 2014 at 17:24

I still have my Dell Axim X51v in a box somewhere, it was a good bit of kit for it's day.
I may have to resurrect it to have a play

JBod · 3 Nov 2014 at 19:14

I miss my Palm Pre, great OS and form factor. RIP Palm!

TheVoice · 3 Nov 2014 at 20:06

MagicBoy said:
We (one bit of local government) are still using WM6.5 as mobile devices that interface with back end systems for things like highways inspections, refuse collections.

Same for supermarkets; a lot of the terminals, backend systems etc are quite old and clunky.

DJMK4 · 3 Nov 2014 at 20:10

I would probably still use a dell axim 51 for tomtom if they didnt stop the release of it on windows

MagicBoy · 3 Nov 2014 at 20:18

TheVoice said:
Same for supermarkets; a lot of the terminals, backend systems etc are quite old and clunky.

Only old and clunky compared to shiny new Smartphone type devices that are more common now with the consumerisation of IT.

They're fit for purpose, the move to 12 month product cycles and the cloud push is a pain for business. Having a nice iOS or Metro front end on quicker hardware wouldn't make a jot of difference to the business functions these devices perform.

TheVoice · 3 Nov 2014 at 20:25

MagicBoy said:
Only old and clunky compared to shiny new Smartphone type devices that are more common now with the consumerisation of IT.

No, I really do mean old and clunky. Handheld terminals with B&W screens and a text-only interface; no GUI, no buttons (the touchscreens don't do anything), completely unintuitive to use. Same goes for the systems on PCs; still using XP, IE7 or 8, Office XP, and the main backend system is basically a green text, black background terminal interface with the server:

MagicBoy · 3 Nov 2014 at 20:34

They'll still work as well as the day they went in.

TheVoice · 3 Nov 2014 at 20:44

MagicBoy said:
They'll still work as well as the day they went in.

I imagine they do because that was probably decades ago, but from a usability perspective it's a nightmare.

Macro · 3 Nov 2014 at 22:34

LordSplodge said:
As for Word being able to do RTF you have kind of missed the point, I'm working in raw text, not RTF, as raw text is simply the most portable. I am not locked to any one piece of software.

Yeah, I know, Word does plain txt as well, I was just going for a compromise standard which gives basic formatting for readability but widest possible universal portability.

The point I was clumsily making was that using MS Office, Windows or Onedrive etc doesn't inherently lock you into propriety software, format or indeed limit portability and availability across Windows, iOS and Andriod.