Windows Mobile vs. Palm OS

Windows Mobile vs. Palm OS
How you plan to use a PDA will best determine which operating system you choose. Palm OS-based devices, mostly found on PDAs from Palm, provide the simpler approach. Out of the box, Palm devices will synchronize appointments and contacts with the Palm OS's proprietary personal information manager desktop software, the Palm Desktop. Most Palm OS vendors also bundle a program that syncs your data with Microsoft Outlook. To create and edit Microsoft Office-compatible documents on a Palm OS device, you will need third-party software such as Dataviz's Documents to Go (bundled with some Palm devices) or Cutting Edge Software's Quickoffice.

Microsoft's Windows Mobile OS (the latest version is Windows Mobile 5, usually with a device-specific patch) basically looks like a considerably shrunken version of the desktop Windows OS. It can run numerous applications simultaneously--though only one app can appear on screen at a time. Unlike the Palm OS, which shuts down one application (or runs it in the background as appropriate) when you open another, Windows Mobile requires you to manually close an application or it will run in the background and use up memory you might want for other purposes. (The latest Windows Mobile devices have a memory manager that lets you see what applications are running and how much memory they are using.) Windows Mobile generally requires more memory than the Palm OS, so most Windows Mobile 5 PDAs come with at least 64MB of ROM and an equal amount of RAM.

The Windows Mobile OS is more complex to use than the Palm OS. But with most keyboard-equipped Windows Mobile devices, you also get pared-down versions of Microsoft Office apps such as Outlook, Word, Excel, and PowerPoint--letting you create and edit documents as you would on your desktop. When you synchronize your Windows Mobile PDA with your PC, documents on each are updated accordingly. The integrated Windows Media Player 10 in Windows Mobile 5 handles MP3, WMA, and other multimedia files; it also allows you to run content from subscription sites (such as Rhapsody) that use Microsoft's Digital Rights Management technology. A growing number of vendors are offering Windows Mobile devices. Hewlett-Packard has historically offered the greatest variety, but more competitors are emerging--particularly in the PDA/phone arena.


from http://tech.msn.com/products/article.aspx?cp-documentid=2746114&page=2