niels786
11-26-2002, 10:31 PM
We are using Pocket PC's (> 500 devices) for a commercial application for the healthcare industry. The software was developed with Microsoft Embedded Visual Basic (EVB) and Embedded Visual C (EVC), i.e. EVT 3.0. Most of the Pocket PCs used are Compaq iPaq 36xx, 37xx and 38xx. One of the problems we faced was sufficient but not great performance of the devices. Therefore some time ago we were delighted to learn that Intel would release a new processor generation for use with Pocket PC, the XScale, which would of course improve performance, or so we thought. After getting the first device with this processor (a Compaq iPaq 3950) two weeks ago we were not so delighted anymore, the thing is actually in real life applications 30% SLOWER than the previous processor generation. Our program needs to import a few thousand records of data and write this into a database table, when I tested yesterday the older iPaq 3850 needed 14 minutes 15 seconds for a typical dataset, the new iPAq 3950 needs 18 minutes 56 seconds,
This is a SLOWDOWN by 32% !
This slowdown is noticable in every operation, calculations, opening forms, saving data,...
And this is NOT multimedia stuff or copying of large memory blocks.
Something is wrong here I thought and searched the web, unfortunately finding confirmations all over the place. Reasons I read are a major bug with the cache of the XScale and that it runs the ARM code in emulation mode but frankly I do not care about the reasons.
Obviously performance is the single most important quality identifier of a microprocessor. The bottom line is that the newer Pocket PCs are 30% slower than the previous generation due to a crappy processor. (and what I read is that the iPaq is supposed to be one of the faster XScale Pocket PC models...) In my opinion Intel screwed up big time on this one.
What would you do when Windows XP on the brand new Pentium 4 PC would craw along SLOWER than on your old Pentium III PC ? Or the newest model of your favourite car brand makes just 50 mph ? Right - You would'nt buy it.
So my recommendation is : If you can wait do not buy a Pocket PC with an XScale processor until Intel fixes their quality problems. Even battery life is supposed to be not better (we did not test this) as the new processor runs with 400Mhz instead of 200Mhz (for the older ARM processor). Yes, there is the possibility that Microsoft will release a Pocket PC 2002 built that is optimized for XScale and they even may give it away as a free upgrade (unlikely). But this will happen together with a new hardware generation of Pocket PC's, so if you buy now your hardware will be outdated already by then.
Please feel free to add your opinion to this thread.
Niels Schwartz
System Integration Analyst
This is a SLOWDOWN by 32% !
This slowdown is noticable in every operation, calculations, opening forms, saving data,...
And this is NOT multimedia stuff or copying of large memory blocks.
Something is wrong here I thought and searched the web, unfortunately finding confirmations all over the place. Reasons I read are a major bug with the cache of the XScale and that it runs the ARM code in emulation mode but frankly I do not care about the reasons.
Obviously performance is the single most important quality identifier of a microprocessor. The bottom line is that the newer Pocket PCs are 30% slower than the previous generation due to a crappy processor. (and what I read is that the iPaq is supposed to be one of the faster XScale Pocket PC models...) In my opinion Intel screwed up big time on this one.
What would you do when Windows XP on the brand new Pentium 4 PC would craw along SLOWER than on your old Pentium III PC ? Or the newest model of your favourite car brand makes just 50 mph ? Right - You would'nt buy it.
So my recommendation is : If you can wait do not buy a Pocket PC with an XScale processor until Intel fixes their quality problems. Even battery life is supposed to be not better (we did not test this) as the new processor runs with 400Mhz instead of 200Mhz (for the older ARM processor). Yes, there is the possibility that Microsoft will release a Pocket PC 2002 built that is optimized for XScale and they even may give it away as a free upgrade (unlikely). But this will happen together with a new hardware generation of Pocket PC's, so if you buy now your hardware will be outdated already by then.
Please feel free to add your opinion to this thread.
Niels Schwartz
System Integration Analyst