To add to my ever growing list of tech. gadgets and to help me become a more organised person (oh yeah, as well as the certain “cool” factor), I purchased a Dell Axim X51v PDA last Thursday. It arrived the following Monday after being shipped Express UPS postage from the United States.
Behold - Dell Axim X51v in all its glory
The specifications of the Axim X51v (my model) are:
- 624 MHz Intel X-Scale processor
- 64 MB SDRAM
- 256 MB Flash Memory (File Storage)
- Built in 802.11b wireless ethernet
- Built in Bluetooth
- Compact Flash and SD card slots
- Windows Mobile 5.0
I’ve had a bit of a play around with Pocket PC applications too. It’s interesting to note you can actually get games such as Age of Empires 1, Worms World Party, my long time favourite and addictive game bejeweled and a whole bunch of other known PC titles. I’ve played around with Age of Empires and Worms World Party so far and I’m pretty impressed at the performance.
Back to the applications side of things, I’ve got a copy of Skype installed so I can make calls anywhere there is Wifi access, NoviiRemote which makes use of the infrared port on the PDA so I can control devices such as TVs and set top boxes, Opera to browse the web (much better than the compact version of IE that comes with WM 5.0), Virtual Earth mobile as to access Google Earth/Maps and WiFiFoFum2 which is basically a wireless network scanner for all of the wardriving I do. The PDA also comes standard with a Terminal Services Client, mobile versions of Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Outlook and MSN Messenger.
What I’ve found interesting is the lack of quality in Microsoft’s ActiveSync. The product just isn’t up to the quality I’d expect. Hopefully with Vista and the new Mobile Device Center things will change - I’ll have to try it out and see how it looks at a later stage.
In between assignment work I’ve also been playing around with the .NET Compact Framework in VisualStudio which can be used to develop applications for Pocket PCs. I’ve come up with varying results and have intentions of building a paint/notes application where you can draw over the network to other PDAs or a server application which instantly saves the drawings and generates an RSS feed of them which you can subscribe to.
It’s a very cool little device.
Back to assignment work now I guess.
Comments
Bobby (November 4th, 2006, 3:28 pm)
:O WOW! Wish I had one. *starts saving*
As for the programming… is there anything you cant do?
Chris Boulton (November 4th, 2006, 4:58 pm)
Anybody can do anything if they have the will to learn.
Underlord (November 4th, 2006, 4:59 pm)
Freecell rocks.
Michele (November 4th, 2006, 8:32 pm)
I’ve never really understood PDAs: I’d get one (because it’s kinda cool
), but I’m quite sure I wouldn’t know what to do with it. 
I can only see myself using it for Skype, but in Italy it’s not very easy to find open WiFis…
Anyway, have fun with it! And maybe post some tips and tricks so that I might convince myself and get one…
Chris Boulton (November 4th, 2006, 8:50 pm)
Hey Michele!
I’ll be sure to try and post some tips and tricks as I am going through - it’s a learning process for me as well.
I also tried the demo of “Missing Sync for Windows Mobile”, the 3rd party product to connect the PDA to OS X (The mini is in the background of the photo ;)). I must say, for an OS X program the UI and functionality leave a fair bit to be desired. It also had difficulties connecting via Bluetooth - but it finally did.
Just to add something sucky about the PDA, ever since Active Sync 4.0, MS removed the functionality to sync over a wireless network. Now, all PDAs running Windows Mobile 5 are required to use Active Sync 4 - which sucks because now I can’t do syncing from anywhere in the house (unless you use say Bluetooth with its limited range). People have come up with workarounds such as using the VPN syncing locally but I haven’t been able to get it to work myself.
sock (November 4th, 2006, 10:30 pm)
Hm, your PDA’s CPU is 9 MHz short of being as fast as my PC’s…
Opera ftw!
Jeff (November 7th, 2006, 11:05 am)
How much did you pay for it?
wj (November 8th, 2006, 11:09 am)
You forgot it sports a 640×480 display!
(I’ve got an Axim X50v)
Chris Boulton (November 8th, 2006, 11:00 pm)
wj is a little Axim kiddy too?!
So yeah, my Axim did something weird the other day - the Dell WLAN utility wouldn’t turn the wifi connection on (button still kept saying Turn On and status was “WLAN Off”). The status on the today screen would show as disconnected too. Funny thing is on a fresh soft-boot the wifi would work but the status would still say disconnected - the only way I’ve fixed it was by doing a hard-reset.
Dodgy.