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Pocket PC
The Pocket
PC is "a handheld
device that enables you to store and retrieve e-mail,
contacts, appointments, play multimedia files, games, exchange
text messages with MSN
Messenger, browse the Web, and more." [1]
More specifically, a Pocket PC is a device capable of doing
those things above which runs Microsoft's Windows CE operating
system. In order to be classified as a Pocket PC, the device
must also include in ROM a software suite specified by Microsoft
that runs on Windows CE to make the operating system more
PDA-friendly.
The most current combination of the Windows CE OS and
Microsoft's software suite is called Windows Mobile 2003 for
Pocket PC. This system comes bundled with scaled-down versions
of many popular desktop applications, including Microsoft
Internet Explorer, Word, Excel, Windows Media Player, and
others. Windows Mobile runs on top of Windows
CE, a special version of Microsoft's
windows
operating system that has been re-designed for use on limited
platforms such as PDAs, sub-notebook computers, and integrated
devices.
The most current version of Windows Mobile runs on top of
Windows CE.NET 4.2. Past Pocket PC operating systems include
Pocket PC 2002 (launched October 2001) and Pocket PC 2000
(launched April 2000), both running Windows CE 3.0 underneath.
Pocket PCs are manufactured and sold by several different
companies; the major manufacturers include HP,
Toshiba,
ViewSonic
and Dell.
In Mid-2003, Gateway
and JVC
announced that they too are releasing Pocket PCs. Prices in 2003
ranged from around $800 USD for the high-end models, some of
which are combined with cell phones, to $200 for low-end models.
A $100-$200 model is rumored to be released in 1 year or less.
Before Pocket PCs were released, there were other windows based
machines of the same form factor made by HP, Philips, and others
called Palm-size
PCs. These devices ran Windows CE 2.0-2.11 and had an
interface that was nearly identical to the then-current desktop
version of Windows,
Windows 98.
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