Other PPC Tests

Other PocketPC Testing

Intro

One of the beauties of the internet is that you can find end-user reports and comparisons instead of relying like before
on what salesmen said and magazines reported. Salesmen are there to sell stuff...'nuff said, and while magazine tests
did their best to provide fair data, their testing didn't always match what you would have done
and more importantly they often provided stars instead of hard numbers...

Anyway, this is my modest contribution to the wealth of end-user reports on the internet.
Naturally these are tests I found interesting so I apologize in advance if you don't ;-)

Let me first state that these tests have no scientific pretensions and are only here to hopefully give you an idea of "real life" usage:

Tests

Wireless Speed Comparisons - Infrared/Bluetooth/802.11b
Power draw of 802.11b CF cards

Wireless Speed Comparisons - Infrared/Bluetooth/802.11b

PPC

Type

Speed

Type

Hardware/Settings

Laptop

802.11b

3,420kbps

4.9mb mp3 transfer from shared drive

Lucent Silver PCMCIA

3670

802.11b

1,400kbps

5.4mb mp3 transfer from shared drive

Lucent Silver PCMCIA

3670

802.11b

1,150kbps

5.4mb mp3 transfer from shared drive

Ambicom WL1100C-CF card

3670

802.11b - PS

850kbps

5.4mb mp3 transfer from shared drive

Lucent Silver PCMCIA - PowerSave

Laptop

802.11b -PS

740kbps

4.9mb mp3 transfer from shared drive

Lucent Silver PCMCIA PowerSave

3670

802.11b - PS

720kbps

5.4mb mp3 transfer from shared drive

Ambicom WL1100C-CF - PowerSave

3975

802.11b

300 kbps

1.3mb Internet download (802.11b WAP)

Lucent Silver PCMCIA

3670

802.11b

300 kbps

1.3mb Internet download (802.11b WAP)

Ambicom WL1100C-CF card

3975 ⁹

Bluetooth

160kbps

5mb File transfer from home network (BT LAN)

1.2.2.9 Widcomm drivers

3975 ⁴

Bluetooth

95 kbps

	5mb File transfer from home network (BT LAN)
	1.3mb Internet download (BT LAN)

Built-in BT adapter

3670 ⁴

Bluetooth

80 kbps

1.3mb Internet download to PPC RAM (BT LAN)

Socketcom BT CF card, rev. E

3670

Infrared

70 kbps

1.3mb Internet download (ActiveSynch pass thru)

Built-in IR

3670⁴

Bluetooth

64 kbps

5mb File transfer from home network (BT LAN)

Socketcom BT CF card, rev. E

3975

Infrared

56 kbps

1.3mb Internet download (ActiveSynch pass thru)

Built-in IR

Comments:

Used the "standard" BT USB dongle (EPO, Belkin, etc...) first with 1.2.2.4 ⁴ drivers and then 1.2.2.9 ⁹ drivers

Very much below expected/rated speeds for PocketPCs

For 802.11b, the bottleneck could be the PPC saving to its RAM

It seems PIE has some "optimization" issues, although it clearly isn't designed to handle large file transfers !

It seems the BT LAN implementation on the Socketcom BT card is less efficient than Compaq's

Power draw of 802.11b CF cards (more to come)

PPC

Autonomy till power off

Powered off at

Hardware/Settings

3670

133'

10%

Lucent Silver PCMCIA in PC Sleeve (original, not +)

3975

126'

20%

Ambicom WL1100C-CF card

3670

45'

50%

Lucent Silver PCMCIA - PowerSave

3670

44'

50%

Ambicom WL1100C-CF - PowerSave

3670

34'

50%

Lucent Silver PCMCIA

3670

34'

50%

Ambicom WL1100C-CF card

Method:

Used Dual CF sleeve with no additional battery

Used Semsons CF to PCMCIA adapter for Lucent silver card

Streamed mp3s over my home network using WithMP3 1.52

Sound and brightness at 50%

Comments:

Unless you have a 39xx (and I presume 38xx) there isn't much point using an 802.11b card with your PocketPC unless you have an extra battery !