[Writing on Your Palm] Microsoft’s latest revision to the Pocket PC platform is disappointing to say the least. Is the Pocket PC a casualty of Microsoft’s bid for the Smartphone market? … Pocket PC 2003 looks pretty much the same as Pocket PC 2002, which wasn’t all that different — except to us geek-types — from Pocket PC 2000. Notable differences are network-oriented, especially the new and improved (really, this time) Connection Manager and a Pocket Internet Explorer that supports XHTML, CSS stylesheets and other advanced web standards.

While the above is nice, it’s perhaps more notable what Pocket PC 2003 does not offer. There’s no easy, “no reset needed” landscape mode (which would have been really nice with the new PIE). There’s no resolution independence, or even an increase in screen resolution over the current 240×320. Pocket Word and Pocket Excel are still anemic. While some criticized Pocket PC 2002 as being little more than a facelift for the original Pocket PC, this is even less.

Interesting. Since I havent seen the new version yet (not to say I haven’t tried), its hard for me to comment on it. I just hope there’s an upgrade for my aging 3650 (or perhaps I just get a new 2200).