The Bottom Line: A small stylish PDA packed full of useable features. With better battery, a bigger stylus and controls it would be perfect. Don't upgrade to Windows Mobile 5
I chose the Axim x50v as my new PDA for two main reasons: firstly because it seemed to be offering a better price/feature ratio than any of the competing models, but more decisively, because it was the only PDA currently available which offers a ready means to hook it up to a data projector. One of the uses I will put it to is running Powerpoint presentations through the optional Axim X50v presentation bundle. The Axim offers a good sized screen (3.7") VGA graphics, both SD and CF slots, bluetooth, wifi, 128mb of Rom and 64mb of Ram; in combination with the VGA output option, it was irresistible.
Unfortunately for me, the day after I ordered the X50v Dell announced the X51v. The new model is basically the same machine but with 256mb of Rom and the latest version of Windows mobile. It is only a few dollars more, and I would certainly have bought an X51v had I known.
I ordered it online and had an eventful, though ultimately successful purchase experience. (see my other review for comments on the Dell purchase process)
When the box arrived it contained the Axim,a power supply, a cradle, an adaptor to let the power supply fit directly to the Axim (usually it is fitted to the cradle) a simple but robust vinyl slip case, a CD of software and documentation. As part of a special Dell deal I also received a 512mb CF card, a leather cover and an additional battery.
My first impressions were very positive. Compared to my previous PDA (Ipaq H5550) it was small and fitted snugly into my hand. It was well finished with good quality materials and had a solid, somewhat hefty feel to it. The cradle is well made and the PDA slips into it easily. There is a handy slot on the cradle for charging the spare battery, and the charge state is registered by a light on the PDA itself -orange for charging and green for fully charged. The slip case is a functional enough cover but the PDA has to be removed from it to be used, and there are no additional pockets for cards etc. The power supply is small and the cables long - a good combination. I was surprised to see the stylus though. It is well made - a metal barrel and plastic tip but it is tiny. It is slender and short and I have found it quite uncomfortable to use. I have taken to carrying a pen/stylus combo and leaving the "official" stylus in its silo.
The free leather cover is well made though basic. It is made of good quality leather and has the Dell logo embossed on the front. It fits he Axim perfectly and holds it snugly in place. There is a belt clip with a screw in fitting for people who like that kind of thing. Inside, the cover has a couple of cheap looking clear plastic pockets to hold SD cards (not big enough for CF, I'm afraid) but no credit card pockets. It closes by way of a quite strong magnet which holds onto the metal portion of the Axim's body - a surprising method for a piece of electronic equipment, I would have thought.
The software bundle is pretty forgetable. There is the necessary Activesync program and one or two utilities that might be useful - a photo viewer looks handy, for example - but most of the disk is taken up with demo versions of programs that I probably don't want to buy.
Setting up the Activesync software to sync the machine is the first thing to do after the box is opened and it's a breeze - the CD has a well designed graphical menu that anyone could follow. There is a multilingual set up card and the manual is fairly comprehensive.
Turning the machine on was the time when I was most pleased with my choice. The screen on this PDA is marvelous. The way the VGA is implemented means that you are not seeing much more than you would on most other QVGA machines, but the detail is superb. Lines are smooth, and colours are beautifully blended. One of the places it shows best is in handwriting recognition. Gone are the wavy, spidery lines of yore. On the Axim, writing is smooth and straight, and looks much like writing on paper with a ball point pen. Because it has more pixels to work with, the recognition system takes a quantum leap up in speed and accuracy over QVGA machines. The other place where the screen is seen to best advantage is in video playback. The smoothness and detail in video clips is unbelievable - it is like watching a miniature CD player. The screen is bright and clear, and colours are very naturally rendered.
In use the Axim X50v is not as fast as I had expected it to be. Its 624 mhz chip, even though it is backed up by a dedicated graphics chip seems to go about its business at about the same speed as the 400 mhz Ipaq 5550. Strangely, some programs are much slower. Particularly, some small games, such as a version of backgammon I played a lot on the Ipaq just crawl on the Axim. A third party solitaire game is so slow as to be unuseable. This is made up for by the bundled Microsoft games which fly along on the Axim, and the possibility of some of the VGA games which look great on that 3.7" screen (there are two VGA game demos on the software CD) But I'm not really much of a gamer and the programs I am most interested in - business applications - are just as fast as the Ipaq and they look much better.
The controls are well placed, and are in the usual PDA positions but the button on the side which controls the wifi and the button which controls the voice recorder are both easily knocked. If these are turned on accidentally the battery can be unnecessarily drained. To counter the problem Dell have put a lock button on the side of the PDA. Once you have got into the habit of using it it works well to overcome the problem. I find the controls just a little small. The central 4 way rocker in particular is tiny and fiddly to use. There are LCD indicators for wifi and bluetooth, and for battery charging.
The sound qualities of the machine are superb. The speaker is the best I have heard on a PDA, and the MP3 playing quality is excellent. The operating system has Windows Media Player 10 integrated with it. While it is a good basic program for sound and movies, I will buy more complete programs at some time in the future to give more functionality. The voice recorder is very good, and after owning 3 other PDAs with voice recorders, for the first time I actually find myself using it. It can audibly record voice from 5-6 feet away, and can pick up, for example, a meeting round a table.
I was apprehensive that the machine had only 64mb of Ram, but after using the "large Rom" system for a week or two now, I really like it. It is a new way of thinking for PDA owners. Rather than dump everything into Ram, programs are stored in Rom, leaving the Ram empty for program useage. The Rom functions like the HDD of a computer, in other words. It might marginally slow some programs but it has the advantage of being more robust than Ram in the event of battery failure. With all my main programs now on the PDA I have filled less than 1/3 of the 90mb of available Rom space. That doesn't mean that I don't covet the 256mb Rom of the X51v!. There have been one or two minor hitches in using the Rom as file store space. Microsoft Reader couldn't be activated while it was in Rom, and in one or two cases I have had to manually create shortcuts (using the Explore feature of Activesync) and place them in the start menu folder to get programs in Rom to show up on the start menu. With virtually unlimited storage available through the CF and SD slots, this PDA has enough memory for any purpose.
Battery life is not as bad as I had anticipated for an 1100ma battery driving all that graphical paraphenalia. I get a day's usage with plenty to spare from a single charge, but I don't use it to surf the net or to play graphics intensive games. It is quite frugal listening to MP3s or reading ebooks but the drainage goes up a bit if you use the wifi too much. I am pleased to have my second battery on standby. I understand that the X51v has greatly improved the hours it gets out of the same battery.
I will deal with using the PDA as a data projection engine in another review.
In conclusion I would rate this as the best PDA I have ever owned. It packs every desirable feature into a surprisingly small space. It looks good and has a brilliant screen. With a better stylus, larger controls, and better battery life it would be perfect.
Update added February 17 2006:
I upgraded this PDA to Windows Mobile 5 using the upgrade package available from Dell. The upgrade is easy to do with clear straightforward instructions. There are some advantages to Windows Mobile 5 over Windows mobile 2003 2nd edition. These are:
-A few small cosmetic changes to the the interface
-The ability to easily lock and unlock the device to prevent accidental key presses.
-Greatly improved handling of memory. Programs are much more efficiently loaded into ROM and much more useable RAM is left for processing once all your apps are safely on board.
-A new GPS utility that in theory allows for ease and flexibility in the use of GPS programs
-Built in ability to view Powerpoint files
-Much improved version of Word
-A revamped media player
On the other hand there are some very serious drawbacks:
- The Axim X50V runs MUCH slower under Windows mobile 5 than under Windows 2003
- There seems to be some difficulty reading my CF card. This shows particularly when accessing ebooks with Microsoft Reader and the Olive Tree Bible Reader program
- Windows Mobile 5 seems to be less stable and requires frequent soft resets. I have also had to do one hard reset
- I can't get the GPS functioning properly. Most of my GPS programs can't access the CF GPS unit at all, and one can do it only with some difficulty. Using GPS invariably leads to a soft reset.
- The VGA output through the optional display bundle which worked perfectly under Mobile 2003 gives a distorted picture under Mobile 5, making it pretty much useless.
- The PDA is more battery hungry on Windows Mobile 5. Memory cards seem to drain the thing even when the PDA is turned off. If left with less than half battery power for a day or so there is a real possibility of finding your battery drained completely with subsequent data loss.
-The Calender application has been simplified and made more difficult to use. Changing views needs several taps through a menu now, instead of the simpler Icon access of WM 2003
I have restored Windows Mobile 2003 to my Axim. I would strongly advise against the upgrade to Windows Mobile 5 on the Axim X50V, although I understand Mobile 5 works OK on the X51V and on other devices
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 499 Recommended for: Business Executives - Powerful and Professional
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