Question about the speed on the Touch Pro...

**Cicatrize** · #1 (**permalink**) 11-06-2008, 10:23 AM

Ok, this may seem like a dumb post, but I really don't know too much about WM...

Yesterday, I was playing around with my Touch Pro, and it got me thinking a bit...

If I were to build a computer with a Pentium II chip running 500+ mhz, add 288 MB of regular SDRAM, and supply graphics with a crappy onboard graphics chip on a cheap motherboard, and also install a small hard drive, it would easily run Windows 98, and probably fairly quickly.

I imagine that Windows 95 and 98 are much more demanding operating systems than Windows Mobile 6.1. So that brings me to my question: Why is operating a device like this so slow in comparison to a desktop computer of comparable hardware? Is it BUS speed? Data transfer rate from the internal storage? Mobile processing not strong enough?

I just don't get it. This isn't a thread about me being mad about my Touch Pro at all, though. I think it's the fastest WM device I've ever owned, but now that they're getting this much RAM and processing power in them, I'm starting to have some of these questions.

Can anyone shed some light on the technicality of this and the reasoning behind it? Thanks!

**cornelious2** · #2 (**permalink**) 11-06-2008, 10:27 AM

part of the problem is MHZ isn't exactly comparable from chip to chip. Just how fast that particular line of chip functions comparable to other chips in that line. The ppc processors use a completely different list of instructions to perform its tasks. The other thing is people have always had lots of issues with winmo causing slowdowns and such, so maybe if you could figure out how to get 98 to load it might run decently.

**Cicatrize** · #3 (**permalink**) 11-06-2008, 10:35 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cornelious2

part of the problem is MHZ isn't exactly comparable from chip to chip. Just how fast that particular line of chip functions comparable to other chips in that line. The ppc processors use a completely different list of instructions to perform its tasks. The other thing is people have always had lots of issues with winmo causing slowdowns and such, so maybe if you could figure out how to get 98 to load it might run decently.

Well, obviously, that's not possible, but gave me a chuckle.

I'm aware of most of these things, but even with a different set of instructions, I'd imagine that the CPU on these new HTC devices is much more powerful than an old Pentium II chip.

Something in the hardware has to be slowing this down.

**cornelious2** · #4 (**permalink**) 11-06-2008, 10:40 AM

actually I seem to remember people getting either 98 or xp working on the mogul(though it killed the phone part while in the pc version obviously). don't remember how well it ran though. Considering Linux boots on these devices I really don't see it as all that impossible.

its a completely different architecture for a ppc and a pc though so newer <> more powerful considering the pII had a much greater powersupply and the phones have to function off of a small battery.

**Cicatrize** · #5 (**permalink**) 11-06-2008, 10:46 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cornelious2

actually I seem to remember people getting either 98 or xp working on the mogul(though it killed the phone part while in the pc version obviously). don't remember how well it ran though. Considering Linux boots on these devices I really don't see it as all that impossible.

its a completely different architecture for a ppc and a pc though so newer <> more powerful considering the pII had a much greater powersupply and the phones have to function off of a small battery.

Hmm...true. But laptops nowadays use awfully small batteries that don't really put out that much power, but are able to run just as fast as a desktop computer.

**Big D5** · #6 (**permalink**) 11-07-2008, 08:55 AM

I would say data speed is your issue here when MS moved from WM 2003 to WM 5 they changed all the memory usage. The WM 2003 PPC 6600 was the fastest PPC I ever owned but every time the battery went dead I lost all my contacts etc... With the introduction of WM 5 MS started using rite in read out memory and really lagged the system without a hard drive these devices will be slow so until someone makes a hard drive that can run at any angle, has low battery consumption and a small size we are stuck with either slow data speeds or loosing everything when our battery pops out.

**Baffles** · #7 (**permalink**) 11-07-2008, 09:32 AM

Haha, the Windows 98 on PPC thing was under an emulator. It is impossible to get 98 to run natively on these phones, as they use ARMv4i cpus, whereas Win98 is written for x86 processors. The only reason Linux can boot is because it's open source and readily able to be compiled for any CPU architecture GCC will target, arm being one of them. Arm processors aren't as powerful as x86 cpus, hence it being slower. Also, I'd argue that WinMo 6.1, especially with TF3D, is much more demanding than Windows 98.

Laptops use batteries bigger than the Touch Pro, and last significantly less time as well. I'm sure they could enlarge the phone, stuff a full blown x86 CPU in there, and make it faster... but then your battery life, size, and heat issues would be worse. Significantly worse.