Dell’s entry to the handheld market

I’ve never owned a PDA before. In fact, a year ago I’d never even considered getting one. Then I figured, why pay close 1000€ for a laptop computer, when I can do some of the same things with a 300€ handheld? Granted, laptops are much more versatile and have much bigger screen (not to mention a full-sized keyboard too) but when my use consists mainly of calendar and occasional writing, no point in paying for all the extra when I already have a full-fledged desktop computer.

So I begun the quest to find a suitable PDA. Unlike in USA, handhelds aren’t dirt cheap here. When you can get some models at $200 there, in Europe the prices start near 300€. As in USA, Dell offers the most affordable models here too, so my choice was the Axim X5. Like myself, Dell is a newcomer to the PDA market with Axim being their very first model. There are two versions available, the Basic one and the Advanced model. Essentially they’re the same device, but the Advanced model has a 400Mhz processor and 64MB of memory while the figures for Basic are 300Mhz & 32MB. Due to my limited budget, I went with the basic model which cost me a little over 300€. Ironically, the Advanced model retails for nearly the same price in USA as the Basic does in Europe…

Besides it’s low price, the Axim had two strong points over the competition. The first one was Microsoft Mobile 2003, Microsoft’s latest operating system for handhelds. Dell’s handhelds were shipped with it, while other companies’ products still came with Pocket PC 2002 version at the time. Another strong factor were the 2 memory card slots. While Axim doesn’t have built-in WLAN or Bluetooth (No wonder, considering low price tag), it has both Secure Digital and Compact Flash expansion slots. This is nice, since most handhelds only have a SD or a CF-slot. You can either use both for extra memory or save the CF-slot for nifty peripherals, such as WLAN card for wireless networking. SD-slot is for memory only as Axim X5 doesn’t support SDIO. Not a big loss since SD expansions are ridiculously expensive when compared to Compact Flash ones.

Like in all PDAs, navigation mostly done using stylus (fancy name for the pen-like object you poke the touchscreen with). I have no experience with other kinds of stylus but I’d say the Dell one is quite good. It’s perhaps a little thin, but once you get used to it, there’s no problems. Other companies may have better models available (don’t know really, newbie here), but I was satisfied with this one. In addition to stylus, Axim X5 also has a navigator button and four additional buttons in front. The navigator button is similar to directional pads in game controllers and suits well for gaming, although it tends to be a bit inaccurate at times.

What’s a PDA good for?

Many things. Writing, calendar, personal finances, notes, playing music and video, gaming, etc. It’s even a decent web browser, although Pocket Internet Explorer lacks many features desktop browsers have. The small screen is a drawback though, but wouldn’t be much of a problem if the browser could be viewed horizontally.

Axim X5 uses the Microsoft Mobile 2003 operating system, so those familiar with Windows should have no problems getting used to the system. For some reason the taskbar has been moved to the upper part of the screen instead of being at the bottom of the screen like in Windows.

Writing is pretty smooth, although typing speed is far from full-sized keyboards. There are various typing options. You can either use on-screen keyboard (buttons pushed with stylus) or by block or letter recognizer, for example. Mini-keyboards are also for sale for those who wish to have an external one.

Gaming is one of Axim’s strong points. In addition to all games designed for Pocket PC’s there are plenty of emulators available. Commodore 64, NES, SNES, Game Boy and so on. This guarantees that there’s not going to be a shortage on titles anytime soon.

Having the Axim a media player works well. Obviously the initial 32MB of memory isn’t a good idea to store audio or video, but after buying a memory card things change. Microsoft Mobile 2003 comes with Windows Media Player 9 installed, but other players are available too, like WinamPAQ which is a WinAmp lookalike for Pocket Pc’s. Watching videos is definitely possible, but considering that the screen’s size is only 240×320 pixels – and color depth is around 65 000 colors – don’t expect videos to be desktop quality.

Aside from being a nice toy, I’ve found the Axim quite useful. Good amount of my writing is now done with PDA (This article too, in fact), and the calendar is great. After finding a free HTML editor, I’ve even been able to edit my web pages on the road. Another cool feature is that since my digital camera uses SD memory cards as well I can snap a couple of pictures, put the memory card to Axim after that and view the images I just took on the PDA! How’s that for versatility?