April 20th, 2003                      Subject: Dell Axim

    Pocket PCs have always been high priced and not worth spending 500+ dollars on. Now Dell has set out to make the Pocket PC affordable and expandable at the same time. The Axim X5 is Dells first move in to the PDA market. They have introduced 2 models. The Axim X5 and the Axim X5 Advanced. Both feature a Intel Xscale processor but the Advance has a 400Mhz chip and the Basic has a 300Mhz chip. Also the Advance offers 16Mb more ROM and 32 Mb more ram for a total of 48Mb rom 64Mb ram. The advance also comes with a cradle instead of a sync cable. The Advance costs $349.99 and the basic a low $249.99. Dell also has run a rebate a sale or special offer on the Axims ever since it was released about every 2 weeks. I ended up with an Axim X5 Advanced for 275.00 because they were offering a $50 rebate and $25 credit if you signed up for a dell preferred customer credit account. Always look for free shipping and other little offers from Dell because they can make things much cheaper. So the price of the Basic Axim and the advance are VERY cheep considering the options and power they both offer. Performance wise the Axim advance which I own and have tested offers great no skipping video play back. That's how much power the advance has.

    Speaking of power the Axims both last on average 2-3 hours +/- depending on if you are plugging in a network adapter and the screen brightness. So the battery life is fairly long. The only thing that many users may get frustrated with is the flat stylus. The stylus is ok as long as you get a good grip on it and in a position that's comfortable. The Axim it self has rubber sides for easy holding and the fact the Axim is just little bigger than most new PDAs makes it better for people with big hands. The Axims also offer a compact flash slot and a secure digital card slot. The CF slot can be used for a bluetooth card, NIC, or extra storage. The SD slot is not I/O so it wont alow the use of SD bluetooth or NICs but rather only storage cards. The use of a NIC in the CF slot will lead to a shorter battery life,

Over all the Dell axim is best in class and has the best price to go with it. Though the Axim is slightly larger than other newer slimer PDAs its not that big of a deal. Overall the Axim gets a 9 out of 10 because the axim is solid but with a little more work the Axim can de throne the iPAQ and be the 10 PDA.

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