Tony Kan over at My Apple Newton discusses three possible Newton MessagePad replacements – the HTC Advantage, the HTC Shift, and eBook readers like the new Kindle from Amazon.
Tony considers what features make the Newton so worthwhile – form factor, OS, battery life, third-party software, etc. – and then seeks a comparable product available today.
For me, the PIM applications, reading and generating new MS Office documents, must also be added in for consideration. Of course Value for Money must also be included. But this is a final but not insignificant evaluation which can only be carried out after having applied all the other tests.
He notes that the HTC products are stuck with the Windows Mobile platform, but features like superior wi-fi connectivity and handwriting recognition make them worthy competitors.
I often wonder if any Newton “replacement” will hold water with the Newton community. The platform has such a unique personality and does what it does so well, it’s hard to imagine a product that will ever be accepted with such vigor and passion as the MessagePad. Perhaps we’ll see if Apple’s rumored netbook/tablet can serve as a sequel – though if it lacks handwriting recognition, I doubt it.
There IS no Newton replacement! Why would you even want to consider something else than a Newton? OS 1.x has no problems with 2010, and Eckhart Köppen has already done a lot of progress on it for OS 2.x. So there’s nothing to worry about.
Newtons are perfect. Sure, you can run Newton software in Einstein, but what’s the purpose then of buying a $600 device with a color screen and crappy battery life just to run Newton OS on it? The Newton hardware is better than anything else in the world. Just the fact that it doesn’t use proprietary batteries (well, that’s not true for the Motorola Marco) makes it a million times more advanced than any “modern” device out there.
Posted by Matej Horvat on March 19th, 2009.