What is new in Windows Mobile 5?

A lot. There are some shortcomings in Windows Mobile 5. I believe that through upgrades and patches from manufactureres and Microsoft, things will improve quickly. The nature of this OS is completely different than what Microsoft had done before with Windows Mobile and it will be a rough road. We compiled a list of some of has changed from Pocket PC 2003. Of course, this is in no way comprehensive since there are issues like memory management and storage visibility. We are leaving leaving those for another blog for now. One of the main “blessings” of this new OS is persistent storage (more on this later). Essentially, you may drain the battery of your device and NOT loose your data. I know… it was way overdue. Here are some new changes you will see…

MS Word Mobile

Word hasn’t had much of a facelift, but has now (finally) added support for tables which was a feature quite glaringly missing from the version in Windows Mobile 2003 SE.

MS Excel Mobile

Aesthetically, Excel Mobile doesn’t look that different but internally, the application now natively supports saving in “.xls” format (the same as the desktop version) instead of the “.pxl” format of old.

More importantly, Excel Mobile now supports some basic charting features.

MS PowerPoint Mobile

A new addition to the basic software suite that comes with a Pocket PC is PowerPoint Mobile, which, as the name suggests, lets you view PowerPoint slides on the handheld.

Editing is still not supported.

Internet Explorer Mobile

Again, while Internet Explorer Mobile looks much the same as its predecessor, there are a few enhancements (and a few quirks) in this new version.

For one thing, the browser now supports a fullscreen option, as well as the ability to save images.

However, it seems to have lost the ability to view a webpage without the address bar when not in fullscreen mode.

Pocket MSN

Microsoft has consolidated some of the applications into a package called Pocket MSN – the shortcut now resides in your Today screen.

Tap on it and you will be able to access all MSN-related applications. For example, tapping on MSN Hotmail will open up the e-mail application, while tapping on MSN Mobile Home will open up Internet Explorer and bring you to the relevant webpage.

MSN Messenger also resides here now, although it would have been more logical to also have it as a shortcut in your programs screen, which it currently does not.

Persistent storage

Persistent storage is the most important feature of WM5 as it fundamentally changes the way in which the operating system treats storage – in the previous version, the operating system worked by storing applications and other temporary files in RAM.

While RAM storage meant that the handheld would respond faster when the device is turned on, the downside was that when the battery ran out, you’d lose all information that was stored on it.

Persistent storage means that WM5 now stores applications and even temporary files in ROM (or storage cards) and when a user launches an application, it is copied out into the RAM to run.

The advantage of this is that the information stored in ROM is now no longer beholden to battery power and even if the battery completely runs out, the handheld would still have all its information intact.

The disadvantage is that some applications (especially those that do a lot of writing to memory) will run slower compared with the previous method.

In our tests with the Axim x51v, however, the speed difference was not noticeable at all, except for Internet Explorer Mobile, which we felt loaded pages a little slower compared to its predecessor.

Better Bluetooth support

The other interesting, although rarely mentioned feature in WM5 is that the Bluetooth profiles have been updated to include support for Bluetooth Human Interface Devices – this means that the handheld now natively supports Bluetooth keyboards and mice.

We tested the x51v with a ThinkOutside Bluetooth keyboard (which, unlike some Bluetooth keyboards, fully supports the Bluetooth HID profile) and it worked without us having to install any other drivers, although you do lose some extra functionality provided by the company’s own drivers for the keyboard. Contributor - TAN KIT HOONG