Pocket PC WikipediaPPC redirects here. For other uses, see PPC. A Pocket PC PPC, PPC, also known by Microsoft as a Windows Mobile Classic device, is a kind of personal digital assistant PDA that runs the Windows Mobileoperating system. It has some of the abilities of modern desktop PCs. As of 2. 01. 0, thousands of applications exist for handhelds adhering to the Microsoft Pocket PC specification, many of which are freeware. 1 Some of these devices are also mobile phones. Microsoft compliant Pocket PCs can be used with many add ons such as GPS receivers, barcode readers, RFID readers, and cameras. In 2. 00. 7, with the advent of Windows Mobile 6, Microsoft dropped the name Pocket PC in favor of a new naming scheme 2Windows Mobile Classic before, Pocket PC devices without an integrated phone Windows Mobile Professional devices with an integrated phone and a touch screen Windows Mobile Standard devices without a touch screen. But in 2. 01. 0, even Windows Mobile devices were discontinued in favor of Windows Phone devices. HistoryeditThe Pocket PC was an evolution from prior calculator sized computers. Keystroke programmable calculators which could do simple business and scientific applications were available by the 1. In 1. 98. 2, Hewlett Packards HP 7. HP BASIC language and some basic PDA abilities. The HP 9. 5LX, HP 1. LX and HP 2. 00. LX series packed a PC compatible MS DOS computer with graphics display and QWERTY keyboard into a palmtop format. The HP Omni. Go 1. DOS based PCGEOS, but was not widely sold in the United States. The HP 3. 00. LX built a palmtop computer on the Windows CE operating system, but not until the form factor and features of the Palm platform were adapted that it was named the Pocket PC. Prior to the release of Windows Mobile 2. Microsofts e. Mbedded Visual Tools, e. Mbedded Visual Basic e. VB and e. Mbedded Visual C e. VC. 3 e. VB programs can usually be converted fairly easily to NS BasicCE. 4 or to Basic. According to Microsoft, the Pocket PC is a handheld device that enables users to store and retrieve e mail, contacts, appointments, tasks, play multimediafiles, games, exchange text messages with Windows Live Messenger formerly known as MSN Messenger, browse the Web, and more. src microsoft buyersguideFrom a technical standpoint, Pocket PC is a Microsoft specification that sets various hardware and software requirements for mobile devices bearing the Pocket PC label. For instance, any device which is to be classified as a Pocket PC must Run Microsofts Windows Mobile, Pocket PC edition. Google Earth for mobile enables you to explore the globe with a swipe of your finger. Fly through 3D cities like London, Tokyo and Rome. Dive in to view the world at. Note 2008 and older issues are only available as. chm files. On most versions of windows you must first save these files to your local machine, and then unblock the. Come bundled with a specific suite of applications in ROMNote the name. Windows Mobileincludes both the Windows CE operating system and a suite of basic applications along with a specified user interface. The Pocket PCWindows Mobile OS was superseded by Windows Phone on February 1. Mobile World Congress that year. No existing hardware was officially supported for a Windows Phone 7 upgrade. Additionally, not a single one of the thousands of apps available for Windows Mobile would run unaltered on Windows Phone. Operating system versionseditWindows Mobile 6. The first Windows Mobile 6. September 2. 00. 9. Leaked ROMs surfaced in July 2. The generic ROM images for Mobile 6. Several phones running Windows Mobile 6. Windows Mobile 6. Windows Mobile 6. Microsofts Windows Mobile 6. April 1, 2. 00. 8 and introduced instant messaging like texting. 8 Windows Mobile 6. Windows CE 5. Windows Mobile 6editMicrosofts Windows Mobile 6, internally code named Crossbow, was officially released by Microsoft on February 1. Mobile 6 was still based on Windows CE 5 and was effectively just a face lift of Windows Mobile 5. With Mobile 6 also came Microsofts new naming conventions and devices were no longer called Pocket PCs devices with no phone abilities were named Windows Mobile Classic, and devices with phone abilities were named Windows Mobile Professional. Windows Mobile 5editWindows Mobile 5 for Pocket PC was based on Windows CE 5 and contained many fixes and improvements over Windows Mobile 2. Pocket PCs running prior versions of the operating system generally stored user installed applications and data in RAM, which meant that if the battery was depleted the device would lose all of its data. Windows Mobile 5. RAM to be used only for running applications, as it would be on a desktop computer. As a result, Windows Mobile 5. Pocket PCs generally had more flash memory, and less RAM, compared to earlier devices. Windows Mobile 2. Windows Mobile 2. Windows CE. NET 4. Microsoft Outlook, Internet Explorer, Word, Excel, Windows Media Player, and others. Windows Mobile 2. Second Edition added native landscape, square screen and VGA support as well as other fixes and changes to those features already present in the original release of Windows Mobile 2. Windows CE 3. 0editPocket PC 2. Pocket PC 2. 00. 0 was launched April 2. Windows CE 3. 0. Pocket PC 2. Microsoft Office, a chief feature being the ability to password protect Excel files. Pocket PC 2. 00. 2editPocket PC 2. October 2. 00. 1, and was powered by Windows CE 3. Some Pocket PC 2. Phone Editions, which included cell phone functionality in addition to the PDA abilities. VendorseditThis section needs to be updated. Please update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information. October 2. Pocket PCs are manufactured and sold by several different companies the major manufacturers include HP under the i. PAQ and now defunct Jornada brands, Toshiba, Acer, Asus, Dell under the now defunct Axim brand, Fujitsu Siemens, E TEN, HTC, and View. Sonic. In Mid 2. Gateway Computers and JVC announced they would release Pocket PCs, but the projects were discontinued before a product was released. Prices in 2. 00. 3 ranged from around US8. A 1. 002. 00 model was rumored to be released within 2. Pocket PC never went under 3. Many companies ceased to sell PDAs by 2. Major companies such as Viewsonic and Toshiba stopped producing new Pocket PCs. Before the Pocket PC brand was launched, there were other Windows based machines of the same form factor made by HP, Philips, and others called Palm size PCs. These devices ran Windows CE 2. Windows, such as Windows 9. Companies like O2, T Mobile and Orange are marketing Pocket PCs that have integrated mobile telephony smartphones. All users have to do is put in the SIM card and follow the wizard, to put their SIM contacts in the address book. An example is O2s Xda, or T Mobiles MDA Compact. Both of these devices, while bearing the phone operators logo, are manufactured by the dominant Pocket PC manufacturer HTC. One of the more popular high end consumer market Pocket PCs was the Dell. Axim x. 51v, which was discontinued in 2. Hardware specs included 3. TFT VGA display with 6. Intel XScale. TM PXA2. MHz, 3. 36 MB of memory 2. MB flash, 6. 4 MB SDRAM, integrated 8. Bluetooth 1. 2, integrated Intel 2. G multimedia accelerator with 1. MB video memory. Expansion was possible via Compact. Flash Type II and SD slots supporting SDIO Now, SDIO and MMC cards. Included is a 1,1. Ah user replaceable battery est. Ah also available. 9Some Pocket PCs feature integrated GPS often combined with mobile phone functionality. Pocket PCs with built in telephony differ from Windows Mobile Smartphone Edition devices in several respects, including the lack of a touchscreen on the latter.