Windows CE and beyond....

I've been prophesizing for at least 6 years, back when I had my first Casio E-10, that one day we would see a handheld with an embedded Windows 95. Well obviously that didn't come about, but the principal held true as we now see a few devices with an embedded XP OS.

My question to all of you is this: If it became common place to see micro-sublaptops that had XP as its OS, that it used solid state memory devices such as CF or SD cards, if it had the battery life of an HPC....how many of you would go that route and totally abandon Windows CE?

Just curious how many absolute "die-hards" there are in this motley crew....

Rich

I would have to consider a few factors before "dieing hard," as it were:

1. Is the new device instant-on? This is important to me. If not, I'd pass.

2. What would the form-factor be? If it were much bigger than my J720 I'd pass.

3. The battery life would *have* to remain on par with my J720. I'd be willing to give up built-in wireless & a full USB implementation for that.

Paul

Well, in a way, aren't we all *settling* for that goal? Instant on, no moving parts, decent software compatibility, good battery life, minimal headaches?

Read my post on lifestyle, if the xp embedded machine avoided all the conventional windows headaches I'd be all over it , provided the cost was *reasonable*.

But I don't see it happening in my lifetime with my price point , sad to day.

I would be hard pressed, to be honest. Windows XP (or anything, really) means constant updates and maintenance, and I would rather not go through the hassle of it myself.


A Linux device in the same form factor and power, with instant on? I'm sold. If the price was right


Edit: Hmm, one could say my post is almost a double post of wally's

Edited by corporate 2005-08-16 6:57 PM

In one way 64-bit will kill that dream - for a little while.
Conventional software will move over to 64-bit, leaving a disparity between it and the Microsoft PDA - but I suspect not for all that long.

If Windows XP could do all you said it could, then MS would have it rolled out across the board, in the Tablet and Laptop market anyway. So by its very nature we would already be using it.
It would also ruin MS Mobile as people substituded the PDA natured applications onto EM64T/IA32.

What do I feel on this? hum, that’s a difficult question
I've never replaced my ownership of a laptop. Now that isn't genuinely through having the HPC as a replacement. As you all know by now, I'm a PDA user. My H/PC is my PDA - not a laptop replacement.
Sure it can do some fantastically neat things, and there are programs (TextMaker for example) that give that functionality.
Do I really use them though, not especially. When I write on the H/PC I reformat documents on the host... not when I write on the HPC it's for this site, and it has it's own formatting system that can't be replaced by an application - PC, MAC, H/PC or otherwise.

Years ago I was one of the people that craved the latest and greatest. I stopped and reflected one day as to exactly why that was. I concluded that it was nothing more than envy than a practical need.
How did that epiphany change my lifestyle... well; I only upgrade things when they cease to do what *I* need them to do.
I was a CE 2.0 user for many years, even when 2.11 and HPC2000 were out, I used 2.0 as my primary PDA. It was only when I need a HPC2000 device for this site that I upgraded.
Until my HPC2000 device can no longer do the tasks that I need it to do, you could make some Windows Vista Embedded micro-notebook PC sing, dance and wow crowds. But you wouldn't see me parting with any money.

i totally and completely and absolutely agree with wd8dky

these are the most important factors for me as well...

For me, I prob would not abandon the HPC devices. Abandon is too on the edge of the choice-spectrum.

I would have a combo of embeddedXP + HPC. However, having said that, I would "abandon" the HPC devices, if

1. 10+ hr battery life @ 2lbs weight.
2. the embeddedXP devices has InstantOn (or some form). Current hibernation almost makes it.
3. Affordable price.

Point 3, I won't ask for a $500 notebook for the features above. But prob a $1k ~ $1.5k notebook!

#1 is critical while #2 is arbitary. I can quite live with a hibernation notebook if it can have 10+ hr batt life @ 2lbs.

After using HPCs for almost a year, I really like the instantOn capability, but a Palm device does that as well. And if I am going to do something like type for long period [say 1~3hour] (hence needing a built-in keyboard), a wait of 10~30secs is insignificant. Whereas if I am going to just jot down something for 10secs, a wait of 10~30secs is a 100~300% wait time.

So, actually, it should be #1, #3 and then #2.