2. New Operating System Only With New Purchases

First the bad news - if you've got an older Pocket PC running Windows CE 3.0, you won't be able to revel in the delights of Microsoft's new operating system, Pocket PC 2002 - not even if your device conforms to the hardware requirements for Pocket PC 2002. The operating system requires you to have an Intel StrongARM CPU with a clock speed of 206 MHz as a bare minimum. Up till now, though, only Compaq produced CPUs that were this fast. And the manufacturer only started offering an OS update a short time ago.

PDA With Windows GUI - Video & Sound

One of Pocket PC 2002's main improvements is its enhanced multimedia support for video and sound. Also, Microsoft has made some important tweaks to the OS. The GUI is more or less the same as the one used in Windows XP; like its desktop counterpart, it can be adapted to the user's need. For the first time, Internet Explorer is able to display web and WAP content. E-mail handling capabilities have also been improved. Now that Pocket PC 2002 has been launched, users have access to Outlook subfolders on their PC or notebook.

Pocket PC 2002 goes more than just a step beyond its predecessor in the area of communications - because it uses the Obex standard, this OS even enables users to easily exchange data with Palm OS devices via the infrared port. This is a good way to exchange virtual business cards, for example. Also, Pocket PC 2000 is the first Windows operating system that supports Bluetooth for short-range communications. Unfortunately, Microsoft failed to eliminate one specific disadvantage of its mobile operating system - in Windows CE, you cannot shut down applications merely by closing the window; awkwardly enough, Pocket PC suffers from the same design flaw as its predecessor. So, instead of closing the program, you only minimize the application and it continues to run in the background. If you really want to close the program, you have to go to the Settings/Control Panel under the menu item Memory and click on Programs Executed to turn off the program and free up the memory that it was using. Compaq and Hewlett Packard make life a lot easier for the user - both manufacturers provide easy-to-use programs for controlling running tasks as standard tools in their retail Pocket PC packages.