For a pretty good Pocket PC experience, check out this wireless service
Windows CE—based PDAs have been around since 1996, and wireless services have been available almost as long as the first devices. I've tried most of these services, but I've never found one that entirely suits my needs. Early wireless services were dedicated to text-only email and operated at very low data rates. Later services provided full wireless Internet access (including Web-browsing and email-attachment capabilities), but such access typically has been poorly optimized for the Windows CE devices' small form factor. For the past couple of months, I've been testing a new wireless service that addresses these problems. OmniSky's service—OmniSky 2.0—isn't perfect, in part because the company originally developed the service for devices that use the Palm OS, but it's better than any other wireless service I've tried for a Windows CE device.
The OmniSky service, which is based on the Cellular Digital Packet Data (CDPD) data-transmission technology, has been available for Palm V and Handspring Visor PDAs for a while. Now, the service is available on Compaq iPAQ and Hewlett-Packard (HP) Jornada Pocket PCs, and the company is developing a version for Casio's Cassiopeia Pocket PC. I tested OmniSky on a Compaq iPAQ with a Sierra Wireless AirCard 300 wireless PC Card modem and a PC Card expansion pack.
The PC Card expansion pack is necessary because the iPAQ, unlike most Pocket PCs, doesn't have a CompactFlash (CF) adapter slot. The expansion pack encases the iPAQ and connects to a proprietary electrical socket on the bottom of the device. To make room for a PC Card slot, the expansion pack is large, and the result is quite a handful—5.11" high by 3.28" wide by 1.2" deep, and weighing about 10 ounces. Compaq has built in an additional lithium-polymer battery to take advantage of the extra capacity. With both the lithium-polymer battery and the iPAQ's built-in battery charged, I've enjoyed 6 hours of continuous operation, or several days of intermittent use.
Using OmniSky on the iPAQ
To install OmniSky on a Pocket PC, you use a standard Windows-based installer and Microsoft ActiveSync 3.0. After setup is complete, you simply reset the Pocket PC. An OmniSky entry appears in the Start menu.
OmniSky's top-level interface, which Figure 1 shows, lists partner content (optimized for small PDA displays) and icons for the service's email Inbox, Web browser, directory, and Internet search features. The menu also offers a My OmniSky link to a customizable page that can include stock quotes, weather reports, horoscopes, sports news, and local news.
The partner-content links cover a wide range of interests, including finance, shopping, international and local news, sports, and entertainment. Within these categories, you'll find content from well-known providers such as E*Trade, Travelocity.com, eBay, The New York Times, MSNBC, Yahoo!, Citysearch, Excite, and Britannica. Much of the partner content is consumer-oriented rather than business-oriented; but some of the content is useful to travelers: MapQuest's interactive driving directions and Etak's traffic reports particularly impressed me. While I was testing OmniSky, some of the service's partner content (e.g., FedWorld news, USA TODAY's top stories) wasn't accessible. At press time, OmniSky still hadn't resolved the problem.
OmniSky's online directory lets you search for people or businesses based on a name or telephone number. With a feature called one-tap, you can easily capture addresses and phone numbers and add them directly to the iPAQ's built-in Contacts application. OmniSky also offers a slick Search feature (powered by Google's search engine), with which you can look for information either in OmniSky's partner content or on the Web.
Exploiting the iPAQ's built-in version of Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE), OmniSky lets you browse any public Web site. However, the iPAQ's small display and the AirCard 300 wireless modem's low data-transfer rate (19.2Kbps) impede this activity. Most Web sites today are optimized for PC displays that provide at least 800 * 600 resolution. On the iPAQ's 240 * 320 display, you'll spend an awful lot of time scrolling around to find the information you want. (Filling out complicated forms can be particularly annoying.) If the page you're browsing doesn't have much fine print, you can use IE's Fit To Screen option to resize and reposition text and graphics. However, as Figure 2 shows, this capability doesn't always help.