One thing can be said about Microsoft, the company and its products are always evolving in some way, shape, or form. In the case of the Pocket PC platform, we've seen some great leaps and bounds forward in some areas, and virtually no movement ahead in others. In this review, we covers some of the key operational differences between Pocket PC 2002 and Microsoft’s latest handheld operating system, Windows Mobile 2003 for Pocket PC, and demonstrate some of the improvements (or lack thereof) that Microsoft has made.

Testing Platforms

We were fortunate enough to acquire two production Toshiba Pocket PC's with Windows Mobile 2003 for Pocket PC. One was a production e755, the other is a production e355. Both were acquired locally in the Phoenix, Arizona area at a common consumer retail store.

Both handhelds are manufactured and developed by Compal, with the e355 using Accelent Systems' Schema Development Suite tool. Both companies are approved hardware OEM's for the Pocket PC Platform, and both Compal and Accelent have in-depth knowledge of producing good Pocket PC development and production hardware.

When one starts up a Pocket PC with indows Mobile 2003 for Pocket PC loaded on it, you get a very familiar look as the earlier edition. Same start menu, same time and speaker controls, and the typical today information format.

At first, appearances can be deceiving - nothing really looks different, except for the connection icon that's next to the volume control. This connection icon is designed to simplify the use of modem, wireless, and wired networking.

When one clicks on the connection icon, you get a bubble notification that shows you your current connection, as well as a hyperlink to change the settings. One of the nice things that the bubble will do is tell you what networks are available (if you have 802.11b, wired, or Bluetooth), and you can click on which settings you want.

When you click on the settings, you get what seems to be a simplified way to connect your Pocket PC to a network. If your unit has any sort of built in networking device (like 802.11b), some vendors have chosen to implement a Windows XP like zero configuration setup. Unfortunately, for use in a corporate Wi-Fi setting, the zero configuration setup is somewhat useless. I still had to manually intervene to get things set up properly with both Cisco 350's and Cabletron Roamabout access points.

You can configure your network adapters to select the now familiar (and somewhat hated) "Internet" and "Work" settings. One nice thing about the network adapter settings is the applet's capability to show the current IP address, in either DHCP or static format.

VPN Support Is Improved - Sort Of

Microsoft has always touted the business level quality of the Pocket PC Platform, with networkability being one of the key differentiators between the Pocket PC platform and the competition. The capability of Virtual Private Network connectivity was supposedly a plus.

Ironically, one of the things that most people could never get working was the VPN connectivity in Pocket PC 2002. Fortunately, Windows Mobile 2003 for Pocket PC's implementation of the VPN has performed far better in initial testing.

After selecting the settings hyperlink in the connection notification bubble, you can select an option to add a VPN connection. When you do that, you begin a wizard that starts to configure your VPN connectivity.

Of course, you have to know your IP address and other necessary information for your VPN.

You can enter in your username, password, and Windows NT/2000/2003 Domain information. If your VPN does not support DHCP, you can click on the Advanced button to enter in other vital information like static IP, DNS, WINS, SLIP and IP Compression.

Once you're done, you go to a selection area where you can define multiple VPN connections. This part was most impressive, because support personnel can VPN into different endpoints as necessary.

The nice and the not so nice about the Pocket PC 2003 VPN client

Once your VPN connection is configured, you can then select it from the connectivity notification bubble to connect to it. You can also verify immediately that your primary network connection is active before you start your VPN.

Click on the "Connect VPN" hyperlink, and your Pocket PC immediately begins to connect. One of the nice things in this particular screenshot is that you can see the notification arrows partially disappearing. This demonstrates one of the new features of Windows Mobile 2003 for Pocket PC - the arrows will appear and disappear while you have any network activity.

One of the disappointing things about the VPN client is it's lack of range. In a controlled test environment using Windows 2002 Advanced Server running Routing and Remote Access Services (RRAS) as the VPN endpoint, successful connections were able to be made only if security settings were reduced. RADIUS had to be off, and only unencrypted passwords were able to be used.

One of the good things that Microsoft has added to the new operating system is the capability of handling digital certificates. You are now able to handle personal certificates as well as getting the bonus of Microsoft providing some basic root certificates.

The basic root certificates included with the our review unit came from some of the major certificate providers - Thawte, GTE, and Entrust. Some Class 2 and Class 3 Public certificates were included as well.

Improved Internet Explorer

One of the areas that has always been lacking in the Microsoft Pocket PC world has been the lousy browsers. The lack of basic browser support has enabled companies like NetFront and BitStream (with their Thunderhawk product) to create a mini-industry of replacement browsers. In the case of Windows Mobile 2003 for Pocket PC, the stock Internet Explorer version included is more than adequate for most browsing tasks.

The Internet Explorer version shown above seems quite similar to the disappointing versions of Pocket PCs past. The format looks the same, it has similar buttons, and includes the same lackluster start page. Underneath, however, is a drastically improved Internet Explorer that can do nearly everything IE 5.5 and 6.0 can do.

One of the biggest gripes from the corporate sector has been the total lack of support by Pocket Internet Explorer in handling Outlook Web Access (OWA). In most corporations users feel that email is a critical application that needs to be accessed no matter where one happens to be. In the case of the Pocket PC, OWA proved to be one of the biggest rocks that Microsoft stumbled over. Thankfully, OWA works quite well in the Windows Mobile 2003 for Pocket PC world.

Shown in the screenshot above, Internet Explorer is able to access Outlook Web Access without a problem. Not only is it able to display the proper views...

..it's able to open messages within a specific windowed pane.

In addition, popular sites like CNN are able to be viewed in the slightly restrictive 320x240 screen

And, in a side by side comparison of the same website, Pocket IE 2003 compares rather favorably against IE 6.0 on Windows 2000. There are some minor issues with the style sheet interpretation, but overall, Pocket IE 2003 works rather well.

One of the other complaints with prior versions of Pocket IE was its network and rendering speed. I can definitely say that Pocket IE 2003 is somewhat faster than it's predecessors.

Again, using a controlled environment, we set up Windows 2000 Advanced Server with Internet Information Services (IIS) and performed a generic speed test that contained 1MB of uncompressible data. Using a Toshiba e740 running Pocket PC 2002, and the newly released e755 running Windows Mobile 2003 for Pocket PC, a head to head comparison was done using a private, standalone Wireless network.

We ran ten tests on each unit, with the cache cleared between each test. Each unit was hard reset to ensure a clean operating environment. The IIS Server used was an AMD Athlon 1.8Ghz with 1GB of RAM on a Cisco 3500 series 24 port 10/100 switch with the network port set to 100/Full Duplex. The access point used was the ubiquitous Linksys WAP11 802.11b Access Point. The averaged results are as follows:

Average download time - 11.2 seconds

Average Estimated Line Speed - 741.8 kilobits/sec, 90.9 kilobytes/second

Average Download time - 10.1 seconds

Average Estimated Line Speed - 816.1 kilobits/sec, 100.4 kilobytes/sec

As you can see, Pocket IE 2003 is slightly speedier than Pocket IE 2002. Your mileage may vary, since the tests performed were in a controlled networking environment, and the real Internet as we know it has lags here and there.

One of the other major complaints about Pocket IE of revisions past is the fact that the browser could not handle SSL sites with certificates properly. If you encounter a website that uses SSL with certificates, you'll get a page similar to the one shown above that asks you if you want to continue, a-la IE 6.0.

You'll also get warning when you leave SSL encrypted sites. One of the nice things is that you can shut the warning off if you want to.

One of the bad things about Pocket IE 2003 is that it tempts you, pleases you (in most areas), and then truly disappoints you in other areas. Strong security websites like Banks and Stockbrokers will bomb out as shown in the example above. I couldn't even get into the main Bank of America web page at all.

New Windows Media Player

Windows Media Player (WMP) has been upgraded to version 9. Aside from playing the usual .MP3 and .WAV files, I was able to play an WMP9 encoded file with no problems at all.

I did discover an interesting quirk. It seems that Microsoft has either changed the way they output video to the screen, or they totally rewrote the video driver hooks. In times past, I used to be able to use either Developer One's Pocket ScreenSnap to capture stills while WMP was in use, or I was able to see it using the Microsoft Remote Display Power tool. In Windows Mobile 2003 for Pocket PC, I was unable to capture any screenshot or display anything using the Remote Display tool while WMP was active. This occurred with both the e755 and the e355, so the video chipset difference did not factor in this case.

Included with Windows Mobile 2003 for Pocket PC is a new game called "Jawbreaker". It's kind of a Tetris-in-reverse type game in which you remove like colored circles to clear the board. It's easy to learn, and somewhat addicting.

At first glance, the new email client looks similar to prior versions. There are some improvements in the inbox client, however, that make it somewhat different than it's predecessors.

When you configure your inbox, you see the normal options of setting new accounts, choosing how email addresses are determined, and where to store attachments.

One new item that is familiar to hard core Outlook users is the addition of a signature. What's neat about this signature insertion tool is that it can insert different addresses for different email accounts.

Setting up your email account is very similar to previous versions, with one minor exception.

You now have the capability for the Inbox to auto configure the email address. This is useful for most internet email users. If your email setup uses a redirector (like mine does), you have to still manually configure your email account. One nice thing is that if your email server is Microsoft Exchange based, you can now enter in a domain name to help with authentication.

One interesting addition is that the Inbox application has the ability to send quick, preplanned messages - just like some of the Motorola text pagers.

Included with Windows Mobile 2003 for Pocket pC is a new theme - Spiral

Despite the fact that Microsoft has done some huge improvements in the networking, browser, and email areas, other applications either got a minor cosmetic facelift, or were totally ignored.

The calendar now has color differentiation between weekdays and weekends

The contacts application can support v-cards and has faster searching capabilities by just entering in a few letters

The tasks application has a gotten a facelift, but is otherwise unchanged

And, worst of all, the Pocket Word and Pocket Excel applications are unchanged from previous versions. This is unfortunate, since the Pocket PC's competition can handle Word and Excel files far better and with no formatting loss, despite the use of third party programs.

Views, Rants & Raves:

Overall, I'm really pleased with the improvements that Microsoft has made in Windows Mobile 2003 for Pocket PC. Browser improvements, networking improvements, and the overall operating system speed seems to be a lot snappier. Surprisingly, the e355 with the latest operating system has a perceptible speed increase over the e740 with Pocket PC 2002, despite the fact that the e740 is running at 400Mhz versus the e355's 300Mhz. It seems that the operating system has been optimized for XScale, and the improved PXA255's memory bus speed really makes it scream.

The jury is still out on the networking improvements. The interface may still frustrate networking guru types, but for generic home office users, the networking interface is a drastic improvement. I definitely like the networking connection icon on the top system tray, and I absolutely love the fact that it indicates whether network traffic is present.

Pocket IE 2003 brought my hopes up and then dashed them down slightly. I was totally stoked that it was able to run with my workplace's Outlook Web Access, and loved the fact that it could render pages faster and in a similar visual look to it's big brother (IE 6), but was very saddened that I couldn't access some SSL web sites. I was also surprised to find out that the Mozilla identification string still identifies it as a Pocket Internet Explorer variant, so some sites will either dump you to a WAP version, or a Pocket PC specific one (if it has one).

Windows Media Player didn't disappoint. It handled every .MP3 and .WMV video file that I could throw at it. I even converted some MPEG's into a Windows Media Player 9.0 only format, copied it to the Pocket PC, and played it with zero problems.

The new inbox improvements are fascinating yet unfulfilling. The auto-configuration wizard was nice - providing you have a "generic" email address that conforms to standards. I can't really see the need for the Motorola style quick messages. Until there is a Blackberry-like service available for the Pocket PC, the quick messages are really useless.

I'm most disappointed with the lack of improvements in the Pocket Word and Pocket Excel applications. There has been absolutely zero changes to the core application since the clamshell Handheld PC's running Windows CE 3.0, with only minor improvements like spell check added in recent variants. I don't know why Microsoft insists on converting files and losing the formatting. It's been proven that you can convert a Word or Excel file and not lose the formatting. Microsoft should be able to do the same thing.

There has been questions that have come up about whether or not an upgrade from Pocket PC 2002 to Windows Mobile 2003 for Pocket PC is necessary. Frankly, I'd say no. I'm actually able to do more with Pocket PC 2002 and some basic "must have" third party applications, like NetFront's browser, CheckPoint VPN for Pocket PC, and VxUtil.

I've had a chance to directly compare Pocket PC 2002 and Windows Mobile 2003 for Pocket PC on the same platform. Admittedly, I somehow toasted the ROM on an e755. This happened while loading software onto the file store area of the unit using ActiveSync 3.7, and I had to take it back to the retail store I purchased it from. I ended up with an e755 that had Pocket PC 2002 loaded on it. (Note: I since found out that I had to update the USB drivers on the host PC and create the partnership using ActiveSync 3.5 first, then upgrade to 3.7. It's a good thing that I archive ActiveSync versions. The bad thing is that I could have still had an e755 with Windows Mobile 2003 for Pocket PC if I knew about it earlier.)

Disappointed, but willing to try it out (knowing that I'd get a free upgrade from Toshiba), I loaded my standard applications onto the e755 and was just as happy with the speed and snappiness of the e755 on Pocket PC 2002. Admittedly, the memory bus speed increase on the PXA255 may have something to do with it, but there is only a minor perceptible difference in using the same core applications between the two operating systems.

I'm also not surprised that some applications won't work properly in transitioning from Pocket PC 2002 to Windows Mobile for Pocket PC 2003. It stands to reason that this will occur - the base level code in the new operating system is derived from Windows CE.NET. Application vendors will have to go through a verification process to make sure that their programs work with it. Many have either done so already or have started to.

If you are purchasing a new Pocket PC, go ahead and get one that has Windows Mobile for Pocket PC 2003. For the average user, the improvements will more than make up for any of the existing shortcomings.

If you are an existing user of Pocket PC 2002, it's up to you to decide if you want the latest and greatest in operating systems. Just be aware that the improvements may not be up to your expectations, and that the major differences in the OS jump may mean longer than normal delays in the upgrade availability - so be patient.