My wife's phone with WM PPC has weaker RAM and ROM and more software and has required a hard reset a couple of times. So these experiences bear out what you say

My wife's phone with WM PPC has weaker RAM and ROM and more software and has required a hard reset a couple of times. So these experiences bear out what you say

My wife's phone with WM PPC has weaker RAM and ROM and more software and has required a hard reset a couple of times. So these experiences bear out what you say

these days there is often a processor core to handle the phone side of things and the arm core is left to get on with WM. though in these netbook devices there is no such problem as the CPU handles the OS alone.

Most of the raw CE devices of days gone by rely on battery ram still (my smartbook does). I do agree though a large flash drive to install files and apps to would be an improvement over sharing ram between apps and storage.

I look forward to seeing some of these devices in the flesh and hopefully some reviews.

John

Now there's a great idea–I could get back the *real* flying toasters and stained glass screen savers of the early '90s… They never have run right on these new-fangled machines

It offers instant on/off, It can be synced to a desktop PC (with an Xp netbook this is a lot harder and not an automatic synchronisation to you main desktop machine).

OS is in ROM so you can forget worrying about having to reload the OS or a virus taking it out (very usefull in a kids PC as kids seem to have a habbit of killing OS installations).

Do you use Windows CE devices? No not WM or PPC etc. actual Windows CE devices like the Jornada 720, NEC900 or 900c, Smartbook G138? If not why do you feel the need to slate devices that use CE?

Yes it is not a full dektop OS and no it will not run windows XP binary files but it does offer a number of plus points that for some people can be very useful.

I agree £199 is too expensive but I expect we will see price drops and TBH if it is a convertable tablet design I can't think of any other similarly priced devices.

I use Windows CE all the time and am looking for a new mini laptop like device to increase performance a little over my Smartbook G138 (though it is very nippy on the web – it will also open a 2Mb pdf file in considerablly less than 1 second with pdf viewer software closed where an XP machine takes quite a bit longer).

If you need a light machine for keeping contacts and appointments, browsing, email and some video/mp3 duties then CE is perfect and hopefully these new devices will stir some development as well.

I agree it would be great to see a Linux option on these (maybe CE in rom but an option to boot Linux from a memory card or SSD as a dual boot would be superb).

John

I run a fair bit of PPC/WM software on my Smartbook G138 (Opera 8.6 for one thing). I have also made the GPS navigation software Route 66 version 8 (for WM) run on the smartbook so it is likely a lot can be made to run. http://www.hpcfactor.com/forums is a good resource for help making apps run (but with the number of new CE 5 devices I would hope a number of companies will re-compile for CE 5 in addition to WM (would likely need no changes to source just thrown through the compiler again).

I think Tomeraider already exists for CE. Another intresting application is TCPMP (open source media player Xvid, DIVX, MPEG4, H.264, AC3, MP3 etc. etc.), For email Qmail3, again free, is superb (with full HTML mail and secure mail support).

If you do buy one (I likely will buy one as well if they drop below £140ish or less) then do pop by hpcfactor and let us know what you think and get advice if any WM programs will not run.

Xp is about 8 year olds, now its the aptly named WInCe?

Windows CE/Mobile is about 12% of the smartphone market. waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay behind Symbian (60%) and is considered to be third or fourth rate at best.

So yeah, I guess it would make sense in a bizarro world.

>Still, if a company would release a good Windows CE-based device for about half >the price of your typical netbook (about $150 seems fair), I’d certainly think about >picking

I know there are Linux on Mips and ARM so this wouldnt be a stretch but then why couldnt other companies jumo in at 150$ price point with Linux then which you can customize at will with a variety of lightweight UI's?
Your statement makes it seems that a 150$ machine is only possible for the Wince.
Its not.

The Acer One SHOULD be somewhere around 200$ (it was 299$ this week) eventually and I think we will see the market go south with sub-200$ models as well as north with 11 inche models in the 800-900$ range.

The netbook is turning one this month (Im using the EEE launch date) and its been a spectacular ride (and much maligned by the media). I hope you do something to celebrate it.