ViewSonic Announces Pocket PC with Digital Camera

Ed Hardy · 06-23-2003, 11:34 AM

The ViewSonic V36 will be the first device running Windows Mobile 2003 for Pocket PC that includes an integrated digital camera.

Read more at http://www.brighthand.com/article/Vi..._Announces_V36

Kirk Stephens · 06-23-2003, 12:19 PM

Only 36.45MB out of 64MB is usable

This is simply not acceptable

On a positive note...Built in camera = cool stuff

R K · 06-23-2003, 01:10 PM

Viewsonic seems to acquire a lot of their designs from Mitac.
Could this be a variant of the Mitac Mio 339?

http://www.infosyncworld.com/news/n/3553.html

gfunkmagic · 06-24-2003, 02:55 AM

WOW!! A pda with a camera! I can't believe this innovation...er...wait hasn't this been done before?

When the heck are we going to see some really interesting desing here? Most of these new PPC's look pretty much like clones. I wanna see some different and innvative designs, and a camera isn't it...

ATF_Raptor · 07-15-2003, 09:12 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Kirk Stephens
Only 36.45MB out of 64MB is usable This is simply not acceptable

On a positive note...Built in camera = cool stuff

Seeings how you have a 1gb microdrive and a 256 SD card... I can see how you want as much storage as you can get. But not everyone is like you. 36.45 mb is more than enough for me on my V35. I have a 256mb SD card which allows me ot have more room than I'll ever need with this PPC. Sure you can never have enough memory, but if it means sacrificing size or battery and costing more, I'll pass.

clintb · 07-15-2003, 10:07 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by ATF_Raptor
Seeings how you have a 1gb microdrive and a 256 SD card... I can see how you want as much storage as you can get. But not everyone is like you. 36.45 mb is more than enough for me on my V35. I have a 256mb SD card which allows me ot have more room than I'll ever need with this PPC. Sure you can never have enough memory, but if it means sacrificing size or battery and costing more, I'll pass.

Having exteral storage memory is not the point. You can have all you want, but the programs still have to be copied into system memory to execute. The less of that you have, the fewer programs you can run simultaneously. It's like giving someone a machine running XP that has 64MB RAM and a 120GB hard drive. It ain't gonna work very well.

ATF_Raptor · 07-20-2003, 03:44 AM

Ah, so if I had a PPC with 64mb RAM, I'd be able to open up 20 programs at a time instead of just 10. /sarcasm

What programs are you using that take up so much RAM?

I haven't had a problem with running out of RAM opening up multiple programs. I can have 10 open at once and still have extra RAM free to open more.

Gerard · 07-20-2003, 02:22 PM

I find that the 64MB of RAM in my 3835 is limiting, even with just an image capture app running. Whether with a Pretec or an HP CF camera, images are written fastest to main memory (about 10 seconds with the Pretec at highest resolutions, and about 5 seconds for the HP using the mmVision software), so that's where I save them. I've installed most programs to the File Store or to an SD card, keeping always a minimum of 40MB of main memory free between photo sessions (I'll usually dump images to a CF card every dozen photos or so, when there's time). But if it happens that I have a half-dozen programs open already, and then suddenly a photo opportunity arises, I find that camera programs run sluggishly and I tend to get capture errors about 1/4 of the time with either camera. A soft reset fixes this, but with my software load resets take about 20 seconds, so photo opportunities are lost.

I'd like at least 128MB of RAM, with significant speed improvements to go along with it. That way I'd be able to better use my HP CF camera (the better camera of the two), and just generally have less slowdowns. As it is, even if I don't use a camera card I find myself soft resetting half a dozen times a day just to get the glitches out. This has been fairly consistent through 8 Pocket PCs, of 4 different models. Once a user installs a bunch of programs, the devices often (though there seem to be exceptions) become unstable. My PC is much the same. Guess it's dependent on the user and what one asks of the device...

ATF_Raptor · 07-25-2003, 02:03 PM

Ah yes, the pictures. This is a very good point I did not consider. For me, the 36.5 mb is sufficient on my V35. However, if capturing pictures to RAM is considerably faster than an SD card, then more RAM would be needed. Of course this camera is built in, opposed to a CF camera. That may speed things up a little bit. Not sure, I wouldn't get a camera for a pda. Just not for me.

imported_michaelp · 07-26-2003, 11:17 PM

Quote:

That way I'd be able to better use my HP CF camera (the better camera of the two)

I've been curious as to which is better for a while. What makes the HP camera better?