If you haven't heard, Hewlett Packard's Pocket PC line of Jornada products
has a bug. Due to a hardware limitation, the system displays 4,096 colors
instead of the 65,536 colors, which HP had promoted at the launch in April.
Since the discovery, HP has been attacked non-stop in newsgroups by users
that feel betrayed and the press in online media looking for a way to crucify
the Pocket PC platform. But how badly are existing users really affected by
this problem? And should buyers interested in the Jornada 540 reconsider
before making the purchase?
Assessing the problem
First of all existing users of the Jornada 540 series should take a deep
breath. While no one likes to hear that they device they purchased doesn't
perform as promised, let's look at the facts:
Fact #1: Only 1 built-in application really displays 65k-color graphics on a
normal basis
Pocket Internet Explorer is the only Pocket PC application that displays
hi-color images. All of the other applications (Money, Reader, Streets,
Windows Media Player and the entire Pocket Outlook suite) have a fixed color
palette that does not use more than 256 colors. Pocket Word/Excel may display
more colors if a hi-color graphic is embedded inside the document, but these
occurrences are infrequent.
Fact #2: Even Pocket Internet Explorer doesn't need hi-color
Although Pocket Internet Explorer is the most likely application to require
hi-color, most web sites still design with the 216 color "web-safe" palette.
This means that most users won't even need hi-color in Internet Explorer.
Moreover, most of the "mobile" sites being designed for handheld devices use
black and white or only 16 colors to reduce the size of the page and decrease
load time.
Fact #3: Only "photo album" and streaming video third party applications
really benefit from higher colors
The Jornada bug was discovered by people trying to display scanned
photographs on their Jornada. While the device is fully capable of displaying
graphics that contain any number of colors, it will "dither" (trying to match
the color by using colors of close value) when a graphic contains more than
4,096 colors. The majority of Jornada users will probably be extremely
satisfied with their device, after they've had a chance to look at the What
Does 12-bit Color Look Like? article by
Rich Jackanich.
Now, if you combine all this with the fact that the other high profile Pocket
PC (namely the Compaq iPAQ) displays the exact same number of colors, you
have a majority of the market. This means that developers won't develop
applications that exclude 12-bit color devices, but rather will work very
hard to make sure that programs deliver a high level of user experience for
all color depths.
So to the unbiased reader, this should squelch the press who has been making
such a large issue of what is now clearly a relatively insignificant bug.
And, to HP, my compliments on handling the predicament in a quick and
professional manner; you quickly assumed responsibility for the problem and
offered an unconditional full rebate for any user that is not satisfied with
their purchase. As always, you live up to my expectations as a company that
stands behind your products through thick and thin.
--Dan Hanttula
