New handheld PCs more than a handful

By Richard Morochove

First published October 29, 1998

Jupiter is the biggest planet in the solar system and it's an appropriate code-name for Microsoft's latest handheld PC (H/PC) design. Handheld is an oxymoron for this design, which I find too big to hold comfortably in one hand.

Microsoft is trying once again to conquer the handheld computer market, which it failed to do with earlier H/PC designs. According to Toronto's Evans Research, about 3 out of every 4 handheld PCs sold in Canada are one of the versions of the Palm Pilot from 3Com.

The Jupiter design, more formally called Handheld PC Professional Edition, offers both hardware and software enhancements compared to Microsoft's earlier efforts. The design was jointly worked out by Microsoft and a handful of hardware manufacturers including Hewlett-Packard and Casio.

The hardware in the design is much more powerful than earlier H/PCs. The H/PC Pro permits larger colour displays of up to 640 by 480 or 800 by 600 resolution. This is designed to overcome objections to the tiny, sometimes hard to read, displays on earlier models. In addition to a touch-sensitive screen accessed via a pen, hardware makers can also include a pointing device on the keyboard.

Hardware makers have a greater choice of processors, including the StrongARM 1100, a speedy, low-power chip, now manufactured by Intel. In addition to the typical ports included in earlier H/PCs such as serial, infrared and PC Card slots, the Pro Edition also includes built-in support for both wired and wireless Ethernet network connectors. Optionally, some manufacturers may also include fast infrared (Fast IR) and USB (Universal Serial Bus) connectors.

Microsoft's Windows CE operating system software has also been improved. It now includes Microsoft Pocket Access, a cut-down version of the Access database found in Microsoft Office for notebook and desktop PCs. This lets you synchronize databases on the handheld PC with a desktop computer.

More importantly, it opens the way for custom applications developed in Microsoft's Visual Basic programming language. These programs could run on both desktop and handheld PCs.

One of the beefs about earlier H/PCs was the lack of available applications written by companies other than Microsoft. The new Pocket Access is the carrot Microsoft extended to software developers induce them to write for the units.

The calendar in Pocket Outlook offers more views of the data and works with more e-mail programs allowing you to browse messages without having to download the complete message.

Finally, Pocket Internet Explorer works with the newer 3.2 version of the HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) used on the Web and comes with 40-bit data encryption to permit access to secure Web sites (a 128-bit upgrade is downloadable).

Typical of the new H/PC Pro designs is the Jornada 820 handheld PC announced last week by Hewlett-Packard. It's the first model in the Jornada family, which HP will use to brand other handheld models in the future.

It's much smaller than a conventional notebook, just 9.7 by 7.0 by 1.3 inches thick, weighs just 2.5 lbs. and includes 16 megabytes of RAM and 16 of ROM. The 8.2 inch colour VGA display features a resolution of 640 by 480 and 256 colours.

You can use the Jornada 820 on the road all day long - up to 10 hours continuous use without recharging the battery. An optional extended battery pack increases battery life to up to 15 hours.

I found the keyboard with touchpad usable for touch typing, although it felt somewhat cramped for my big fingers. The unit includes a built-in 56 Kbps v.90 modem so you can check e-mail on the road and surf the Web.

My biggest beef about earlier H/PCs has been their slow operation, the significant lag between selecting a function and its completion on the screen. I found no such problem with the Jornada, which uses the 32-bit StrongARM processor running at 190MHz. It operates rather snappily compared to previous Windows CE handhelds, although it's not up to the performance of today's notebooks.

The H/PC Pro is neither fish nor fowl, so I wonder who'll use this new type of computer. It's too big to hold in one hand with ease, yet doesn't have all the power of a notebook computer. I'd feel uncomfortable using an H/PC Pro as my only computer. However, it could fill a useful niche as a type of computer terminal that travelers could take on the road to access e-mail and files on a remote server.

I see the H/PC Pro design as an interim step in the move to make computing power more accessible. I suspect that many business users will prefer the ultra notebook design discussed in my column two weeks back. For roughly one pound more in weight (and about double the price), you receive something with capabilities similar to a standard notebook computer. Yet the comparatively low cost of the H/PC Pro will make it a good choice as a second computer for budget-conscious travelers. CW