This may sound like a silly question, but you’ll have to forgive me... having never used a PPC before, my only frames of reference are conventional PCs & Laptops, which I’ve used for many years.

My question is this: If I bought the newer Jam (dark grey, which comes loaded with Win Mobile 2003 SE) would I be able to upgrade to Win Mobile 5.0 in the future? I really don’t know how differently the OS works on a PPC as opposed to a PC. Is such an upgrade possible?

Shall I go ahead with the purchase of the Jam now, even though I really want to use WM 5.0? Or do you recommend I go with a PPC that comes pre-installed with WM 5.0?

Thanks for the help.

RO13

Welcome to PPCD ( Pocket PC Dubai ).
I am not following if they will offer WM5 on JAM or not. I myself have a JAM and hope to see the upgrade. Others who are following the upgrade of JAM to WM5 might know better than me. However, I would like you to consider the K-JAM. It is almost the same size of JAM with WM5 and a sliding keyboard, which will always act as a plus to a PDA.

You can click on this link to buy it from eXpansys UK. It should hit the market on September 16th

Cheers!

P.S. Please update your location so that it would be easier for others to provide you with advices on marketing, shopping and more issues

Saad, thank you for the advice pertaining to the K-Jam. The unit looks great. I always thought that getting a PPC without a keyboard (especially one that slides) would give you less mechanical problems i.e. vertical, and more worryingly, horizontal play.

Still, if you say that having a keyboard is an advantage, I’ll have to reconsider (rather unhappily) the purchase of the Jam2. I guess I won’t realize the merits of a keypad until I’ve actually owned a PPC.

I’m still interested in knowing if the Jam’s OS can be upgraded to WM 5.0 at a later date. The price of this unit should go down with the release of the K-Jam, right?! Making it even more appealing... as this will be my first PPC.

If anyone can help me with clearing up the WM 5.0 issue, I’d be able to make a more informed purchase.

Thanks.

First of all thanks for updateing your location.

Seecond, the best person to answer your question will be Docc. He is so good in this. I will try to let him in to share his valuable info regarding this matter.

I do not recommend buying a JAM and upgrading it to WM5 since it will; for sure have, alot of issues. However if you still have to buy a JAM, insure it is the 128MB version ( which they call the black JAM ). Under no circumstances do not ever buy the 64MB ordinary JAM.

I think you can find the Black JAM in Gadgets World

If you couldn't find it try to search everywhere in Dubai. Keep eXpansys as your last resort. Insure to buy the i-mate version and not the Qtek, because their support is much better.

quote:

Originally posted by RO13:
I’m still interested in knowing if the Jam’s OS can be upgraded to WM 5.0 at a later date. The price of this unit should go down with the release of the K-Jam, right?! Making it even more appealing... as this will be my first PPC.

If anyone can help me with clearing up the WM 5.0 issue, I’d be able to make a more informed purchase.

Thanks.

There is no word from Club i-Mate regarding releasing an upgrade for i-Mate JAM, nonetheless it is the most successful device they have ever released but I don’t expect them to release a WM 5 upgrade, they never released an OS upgrade in the past.

Still I recommend i-Mate Jam because the specifications are excellent in terms of processor speed and hardware design. The new K-Jam has an advantage of a slide out keyboard, WiFi built-in and the latest OS.

If you need Wireless LAN then and the latest WM 5 then K-Jam is the way to go however it has a slower processor and it is a little thicker than the Jam.

If you are new to Pocket PCs then I suggest to go for the Jam as a starting point since the price is very attractive and currently Gadgets World have a new special offer you can check it out here

Hi Guys,

This is indeed a very controversial topic as it has pretty much plagued every single board out there. The JAM has done so well worlwide that the lack of WM5.0 is becoming a sorespot for all the owners now.

A clarification first. Contrary to what OEM's will say, in an interview with a Windows Mobile executive, it was CLEARLY established that 64MB ROM is infact SUFFICIENT enought to run WM5.0. A question was also asked if older devices such as the PDA2k and the JAM can expect an upgrade. Not to my surprise, the executive said that Microsoft had absolutely no problem with it but it was entirely the decision of the OEM's and we all know what that means.

Logically Microsoft would not have a problem because they have to get paid for every copy of WM5.0 sold. It is the OEM's that would have to bear the extra cost. I am sure that even if we were charged a decent sum, most of us would actually fork out the cash to purchase it. Anyways that is the corporate issue as of now.

I suppose most of you know that there is a leaked WM5.0 ROM available for the Blue Angel. At the microsoft developer conference a few months back. WM5.0 was seen running on both the PDA2k and the JAM which goes to show that they are both capable of running it. Even as we speak, there is a thread on xda-developers where one of the readers is trying to get his hands on the JAM WM5.0 rom. The ROM's at present are not cross-compatible as most of them are beta's.

As Mohd has mentioned, OEM's have not particulalry been known to provide upgrade's to newer OS's so just forget it, its never going to happen unless you have a way of making me the head of HTC (do you?)

However, i do want to establish that, in the future, there will be a fully working WM5.0 ROM available for the PDA2k and the JAM once more official ROM's are extracted from devices like the K-JAM and the Universal etc.

Ok, now that the controversy is out of the way, lets get back on topic.

@RO13,

The JAM is a good idea if you want to start with a PPCPE as it is stable and does the job, not to mention looks great. The K-JAM is a rather much needed upgrade to the JAM. It has most of the advantages of the JAM along with many more goodies. Regarding the keyboard factor, YOU WILL NEED IT. I have been using PPC's since many years now and even the thumb-board in the PDA2k makes me feel better, so a full-keyboard should be Godsent. However, that is my opinion. Some people actually prefer the onscreen keyboard and feel that they can input data faster with it. IMO this is only good for small amount of texts, like n sms etc. For an email, i would definitely suggest a full keyboard unless you have an affinity for carpel tunnel syndrome

There is a slightly controversial topic about the K-JAM going around, and that is the processor issue. The K-JAM is a near-perfect device. It uses Texas Instruments T1 OMAP 195Mhz processor. Dont look at the numbers here. According to certain unofficial benchmarks, the T1 OMAP 195Mhz processor is actually comparable to an Xscale 520Mhz processor (also in theory). We can only confirm this with real world tests once the device is available end of this month. You can read more about our K-JAM discussion here

In the end, i will say that, since you have waited so long, just wait till GITEX and have a look at all the new devices for yourself. We here at PPCD will be reviewing the new devices to help our wonderful readers make the right choice So stay tuned

If you have any more queries, please feel free to ask

Regards,
Docc.

P.S. If you cant wait till the end of the month and need a device right now, then as Saad said, please purchase only the BlackJAM (fondly called superjam). You will need 128MB RAM

I forgot to add another detail about the T1 OMAP processor. It is the only processor to use a DUAL-CORE (dual ARM) processor, each given and individual function. One is for telephony and the other is for the PDA aspect of the device.

If you guys remember, the HP6300 went bust because it was rather slow and it looked horrendous with the add-on keyboard. Anyways, the relevance to this device here is that it sported a similar T1 OMAP 165Mhz processor. In real world tests, it proved to be the slowest amongst all the devices. I dont know much the extra 30Mhz bump in the K-JAM can give, but i am not gonna put too many hopes on it. Other than this the device is just perfect

Docc.

Thanks Docc and Mohd for popping in.

And since this is your first PDA, I just wanted to let you know that you will be needing 2 more things:

A screen protector
a thin plastic sheet that will prevent the screen from scratching + UV protection. If you find more than one type, buy the more expensive one because it will be better in quality and at the end it's price will be around a 75-150 Dhs only.

A memory card (SD card). This is a universal accessory. That means in case you change/upgrade your device in the future, you can still use this SD card in your next PDA. So my advice is to spend some money here since it will expand the use of your PDA. The best brand in the market IMO is SanDisk. Buy the Ultra II because the read/write speed is quite fast. And when it comes to the size, I will go for the largest 2GB.

In simple words my recommendation is the SanDisk Ultra II 2GB SD card. I personally have it, and it contains:

more than 4500 pictures (I like photography)
more than 40 audio CDs ( like to listen to music while running my 7 miles everday )
11 half an hour series of Fawlty Towers ( converted from my DVDs)
the remaining of my programs and some small documents.

Price might reach upto 700 Dhs, because it is the fastest and largest in size + which is the most important thing it has a

Lifetime Limited Warranty!

I had a SanDisk 256MB SD which I got in 2002 and got damaged and was replaced in 2005 with a new one for free (no shipping charges) from Amazon.com You can get it replace either buy the retailer (which I don't think you can do in UAE) or from the company. I managed to do both, but preffered Amazon.com becasuse they are the best of the best

Please can some one tell me the difference between the Jasjar and the K-jam

quote:

Originally posted by Saad Al Haddad:
Welcome to PPCD ( Pocket PC Dubai ).
I am not following if they will offer WM5 on JAM or not. I myself have a JAM and hope to see the upgrade. Others who are following the upgrade of JAM to WM5 might know better than me. However, I would like you to consider the K-JAM. It is almost the same size of JAM with WM5 and a sliding keyboard, which will always act as a plus to a PDA.

You can click on this link to buy it from eXpansys UK. It should hit the market on September 16th

Cheers!

P.S. Please update your location so that it would be easier for others to provide you with advices on marketing, shopping and more issues

Gentlemen, thank you for your help. You’ve been very kind.

I will most probably go with the BlackJam. I just hope the price drops around GITEX time. I would also like to get a minimum of 1GB memory (hopefully 2GB).

Unfortunately, at Dirhams 700 for the memory chip and 2,650/- for the Jam2, plus some more cash for miscellaneous items, I’ll be spending a small fortune!

Well, at least I can rest assured that I'll get an awesome piece of equipment which has come highly recommended by you nice gentlemen.

I thank you again for your help.