A gigabyte hard drive on around 5GBs is a lot of things won. Ok, the greater the better, but I want my next Pocket PC to use a small coin sized “micro drive” integrated and ready to go. Not a big SATA hard drive at around 200GB (yuck!), since I can buy an external hard drive for than. That way the Pocket PC will still (most likely) feel like a PDA and not like piece of lead. Oh, and make that integrated hard drive user-replaceable, and you’re on even better grounds. I think that the normal RAM and ROMs could be allowed to stay for those apps that I want to open up "instantly", like TextMaker.

2. Scratch Resistant Touch-screen

The next-gen DVD will get scratch resistant in the near future – why not my Pocket PC's screen? The rocket scientist part is done and over with, now start putting it to use in our belowed PDAs.

3. OneNote for Pocket PC

I am not alone in saying that the built-in Notes application is a bit… anti-Notes? Frankly, I can find Notes useful for taking a few skribbles down, but otherwise I use Pocket Word, or TextMaker for some serious note-taking. Microsoft, give me some of the note-taking software you’ve build for the Tablet PCs. OneNote is a great example of what I would like to see on my Pocket PC – albeit, not maybe that advanced but in the general direction...

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4. Digital TV Right Here or Right There Where I Am

Digital TV DVB-H tuner chips are being manufactured – so, put one in a Pocket PC! I want to be watching TV wherever I am, whenever I want and in VGA resolution. Compact flash, or SD expansion ability are also options to consider. With DVB-H, hissing, popping and static in pocket TVs is left in the last century. I believe that this is a feature of the near future that will make PDAs sell (almost) like butter in a grocery store.

5. Soft-input-panels and Transcriber Supporting More International Languages.

I want to be able to use Transcriber and the other soft-input-panels for writing in my local languages (Finnish, Swedish and English) with the local accented characters supported and recognized. Nokia has (according to my sources) done it on their PDA phone 7710, so it shouldn’t be impossible. The situation for me today is that if I write "terve" in Transcriber, it strangly transcribes that into "lardy" – which scares me.

6. USB 2 Host and Maybe IEEE 1394

USB host is handy for many uses; I like to use it for transferring files to and from my Pocket PC using a USB memory. What I would like to see in the future is more support for USB 2 hosting and maybe IEEE 1394 (aka. Firewire, iLink, etc.). IEEE 1394 would be great to have for transferring larger files, like purchased music and videos, plus connecting to computers directly to transfer files without ActiveSync (if that is possible somehow).

7. Built-In Support for Mouses

Currently, we can’t use a USB mouse or Bluetooth mouse with our Pocket PCs without a third party’s driver since the Pocket PC OS doesn’t have a system for displaying an on-screen cursor. Please Microsoft, include that someday soon? I (and many more) would be eternally grateful if you did.

8. Support for More Language Layouts on the External Keyboards

I want the ability of setting the regional external keyboard configuration so that if I want Finnish/Swedish or Danish/Norwegian keyboard layout on the attached external keyboard, then I should be allowed to change that setting without digging around in the registry or changing some DLLs. Today, I have to use the assumed standard US English keyboard layout on all Pocket PCs regardless if I plug in an USB keyboard with Finnish/Swedish layout or use a Bluetooth keyboard with Russian layout.

9. A Better Connections Settings

I sometimes even wonder what I do in the Connections settings: the layout and text is a bit messy and I just can not get a hold of what I am really doing when I change a setting somewhere. But, I must hand it to Microsoft, WM2003 iimproved on the Connections settings since Pocket PC 2002. So, they are on the right track, now they just need to stay on this track and keep improving it. (Wasn't setting modem settings easy enough in Windows CE 2, or did I miss something?)

10. A Web Browser with Some More Sting

Pocket Internet Explorer is as a web browser far from good, in my opinion. Pocket Internet Explorer renders big webpages just too slow for me at time, and I really miss:

• better JavaScript support,
• multiple window support,
• the Opera browser's mouse gestures,
• better indication of encrypted SSL webpages,
• and tabbed browsing

I hope that I will one day see more browsers for the Pocket PC platform from both Opera Software and Mozilla Foundation. Competition is good for stimulating innovation, I believe.

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