The PDA Pundit: Palm or Pocket PC? It's All About the Apps

Software is an important part in the process of choosing a handheld; if you already own a PDA, that choice may come down to what you already know.

Yardena Arar, PC World

Got a question about handheld computing? Write to The PDA Pundit.

Palm or Pocket PC? If you're thinking about buying a personal digital assistant these days, this is the first decision you'll have to make. Unless, of course, you made the decision long ago and are committed to one operating system or the other. And with PDAs, it's the little things that make those commitments last.

Little things like, in my case, a shareware solitaire game that I've put on a succession of Palm-based devices I've tested and owned over the years. I'm not sure who wrote it; I wouldn't know where to download it nowadays; and it doesn't even run properly on the latest version of the Palm OS. (PalmSource warned us about these rogue apps when it introduced Palm OS 5 a year or so ago.)

But I've figured out the workarounds I need to run the game, and for me it's a comforting presence that makes a new Palm device seem familiar. I've never found anything quite like it for Pocket PCs, so no matter how much Microsoft improves its handheld OS--Windows Mobile as it's known these days--I'm unlikely to stop buying Palm PDAs.

I don't want to seem unduly harsh on Microsoft here. In fact, in some respects its handheld OS seems to be doing better than its bigger siblings on the desktop: When was the last time you heard of a virus crippling a fleet of Windows Mobile handhelds? I also give Microsoft an A--well, okay, a B-plus--for its efforts in improving its handheld software over the years. I remember a time when I couldn't read a long address in Pocket Outlook's contacts, a shortcoming Microsoft has long since addressed, along with many others. You can argue that Windows Mobile for Pocket PCs still lacks the simplicity of the Palm OS, but it's certainly come a long way from its humble Windows CE beginnings.

For a long time, Pocket PCs had a big advantage over Palm PDAs for corporate users. Because Palm OS 5 came along, Palm devices couldn't support the processing muscle for heavy-duty apps. Palms for a long time also lacked expandability until fairly recently, while Pocket PCs added things like CompactFlash slots relatively early on. This is why, for example, the first Global Positioning System map packages for pilots all required Pocket PCs: You simply couldn't cram sufficient map data into a Palm device.

But the latest Palm devices have overcome these limitations, making the playing field far more level--especially on the high end. A powerful handheld such as PalmOne's Tungsten T3 or C can stand up to the best Pocket PCs in terms of power and room to store apps. These days I can have my Palm shareware app and my big database too.

Tough Choice

Corporate types may still prefer Pocket PCs for their security features, but there's little impetus for veteran users like myself to switch. If you're a first-time PDA buyer, however, the choice between Palms and Pocket PCs is tougher now than it ever was.

Prices are pretty competitive for comparably configured models, and there are terrific hardware designs for both platforms: My recent favorites on the Windows Mobile side include Dell's Axim X3 and Hewlett-Packard's IPaq H4150 and H4350. How, then, to decide? I recommend paying a visit to a big PDA software site such as Handango and searching in the categories you're most likely to care about. (Don't be ashamed to include games on the list.) You should also search Google to check out the shareware scene.

You'll quickly discover one big Palm advantage: There are far, far more Palm than Pocket PC apps--by a margin of 3 to 1, when last I checked. This may be because Palm had a head start, or because it's just easier to develop for the Palm OS. But whatever the reason, the superior software selection makes it easy for me to recommend the Palm OS to people who ask which handheld platform to choose. It's the same reason so many people buy PCs rather than Apple computers even though the Mac OS is in many ways more elegant than anything out of Redmond: They want that huge selection of PC software. With handhelds, just as with desktops, it's all about the apps.