There have been several references to my posts, but I'm a bit pressed and
will only write a capsule summary response for now.
Thanks to the links I received here, I was able to download the approved
version of Opera 8.6 for my WS003SH. The installation instructions were a
bit unclear, but I opted for the approach of putting the entire downloaded
CAB file on the Zero3 using ActiveSync, and then did the installation there
(and deleted the installer file afterwards). Opera has so far run without
any problems, and there has been no problems about registration. It does
work substantially better than Microsoft's browser, but I'm still not sure
if I'd pay more much money for it.
With regards to input, I'm not complaining about the Japanese aspects of the
device, but about Microsoft's crippled design and implementation. Part of
that crippling does involve removing useful English functionality,
especially when it is replaced with nothing on the Japanese side. My
complaints about the keyboard are mostly about the poor legibility in most
normally lit rooms. That was the only major problem I blame Sharp for.
My overall conclusion remains unchanged, even though Microsoft seems to be
"winning" the PDA wars, as someone put it. Microsoft's version of "victory"
here is to destroy the entire industry, and I think they are doing quite a
good job. I actually stumbled across some additional evidence a few days
ago, a report confirming that Microsoft was still losing money on PDAs as of
last quarter.
Received on Thu Jul 27 15:11:06 2006