I read with interest Hal Goldstein's User to User in the Sept/Oct issue (where he gave his candid opinion of Windows CE). The company I work for bought a few HP 320s for trial, and as a long-time HP palmtop user I took one and gave it a try.
I put my HP 200LX away and spent 30 days with the HP 320 and Window CE. In the end my impression is, "What a silly machine." It is slow, the screen is not "crisp," and it is not a productivity aid in any sense.
Its two positive points - having a wide screen and being backlit - do not compensate for the poor functionality of the Contacts, Calendar and Excel programs (slow to bring up, cumbersome to enter data on multiple "forms," and slow to find an entry). I also missed the functionality of the HP calculator and the 10-key numeric keypad. I put the Windows CE "calculator" on the HP 320's desktop, but once again, found the application to be "silly" in comparison to the HP 200's functionality.
Last week I went back to my HP 200LX and it was a relief, like finding a long-lost friend. The HP 200 is a serious machine, whereas the Windows CE machines are still toys - waiting to mature.
It would be nice if HP could take the wide screen and backlighting and incorporate them in a new HP 200-like model - but Windows CE has a long way to go to be a productive and responsive user interface. For now, life is too short to switch.
Enclosed is my subscription renewal. I look forward to another year of reading The HP Palmtop Paper.
Linda Leng
Townsend, MA