Dell Axim X5 400 MHz Pocket PC

To start out, the Dell Axim X 5 is fantastic! 90% of the negative reviews for it have to be from people who shouldn’t have gotten a pocket pc in the first place. I ordered my X5 on a Thursday, and received it the following Tuesday with regular ground shipping. After charging it for the required four hours before turning it on, I had it up and running and synced with my desktop without any problems. I’ve been using it for a week now and am loving it.
The display is bright and easy to read, the battery life is everything it’s supposed to be and I’ve been perfectly happy with the included software. I’m actually writing this review on my X5 using pocket word!
The touchscreen feels sturdy, yet requires only a gentle tap to make an entry. I find the screen easy to look at, and usually keep the brightness level set at 50%. In direct sunlight the colors on the screen do appear washed out though.
I can’t say whether or not Dell customer service is any good or not, but then I don’t know that I’ve ever had a good experience with any companies customer service. I was impressed with how quickly I received my ppc, and how quick and easy it was to start working with it.
I’ve run several high-end multimedia programs on it without any hitches, and highly recommend downloading the free divxmvp program for running videos.
In CNET’s review, they complained about the protector case which comes with it being too large to fit in your pocket. The thing is, it’s not made to be put in your pocket while in the case, it’s a hip case with a sturdy, removable belt clip that holds my Axim securely and protects it from even moderate bumps, as I’m an engineer who has to do a lot of climbing in and around a lot of equipment.
The X5′s shape makes it a pleasure to hold, being slightly tapered at the bottom makes it feel more natural in my hand than a unit which is completely squared off. The rubber grips along the sides of the unit makes it feel very secure while holding it.
On the downside though, I can say that the X5′s navigator button is mushy as others have reported, making it nearly useless for gaming. The sound quality from the single speaker on the face of the unit is only adequate, but what can you expect from a mono speaker? The unit does include a standard 1/4 inch stereo headphone jack which provides excellent sound even with a pair of cheap headphones.
The record button on the left side of the Axim is very tiny, and has to be pushed in with the corner of my thumbnail, which is very hard to do, especially while moving or driving. I suppose on the plus side it does make it virtually impossible to accidentally press the record button.
I’ve found it a little difficult to slip the unit into the syncing/charging cradle, the receptacle on the bottom of the unit doesn’t quite line up as well as it should with it’s male counterpart in the cradle, making me nervous that I could accidentally damage it.
The included documentation, while adequate does seem sparse, mostly consisting of warnings about what not to do with the unit. More tips about what could be done with it would have been nice.
Overall though, the X5 is a great value for the price, which was $269 including shipping and handling direct from Dell. I wouldn’t get rid of it for anything and can’t wait to start getting some of the great accessories available for it. I highly recommend this pocket-pc to anyone in search of powerful windows computing in a compact package.

Compaq iPAQ 3650 Color Pocket PC

I got an iPAQ about 3 weeks ago. So far I’m very impressed with it, and starting to replace the 2″ thick “Brain book” I was carrying with me. The unit’s capabilites are very impressive — I use it for

- Schedule planner (synch with home and work)

- Read email, including Word and Excel attachments

- Address/ contacts data

- Notes (including free hand simple drawings)

- Business applications (mainly spreadsheet)

- MP3 player

- Personal pictures (JPGs) although this is a small screen

- Ebook reader using Project Gutenberg text files.

I have not owned a PDA before, and was not impressed by friends’ Palms since they appeared to be just electronic address and calendars. This is *quite* a bit more…

Good Points -

- Excellent screen — very bright and colorful (although other people have reported dust under the screen, I have not found any)

- Word and Excel. In my professional life I live on these. I have several self written Excel spreadsheet on the iPAQ which aid me greatly in daily working enviroments. And it’s really impressive to see a client’s reaction when I pull out the iPAQ and do a company valuation or financial model spreadsheet on my PDA. These are “Pocket” versions of Word and Excel, so they don’t have the full features of the desktop versions, but for something I can put in my shirt pocket and take with me, they are quite functional.

- Ezpandability. I picked up the Compact Flash sleeve and now have a machine with essentially 100 MB RAM, using a 64 MB CF card. Using a spare card I can swap out 64 MB of data at a time — mp3s for music or data for work. This has replaced me carrying a 100 MB zip disk around.

- Power. I’ve run test MPEG video clips on this in full color and sound. 200 MHz is more than my last generation desktop’s processor power.

- Excellent handwriting recognition without needing to learn a new language. Still not as easy as just writing and took me a day to get used to, but for taking meeting notes etc it is very good.

- Versatility. Excel, word, email, mp3, games, ebooks, voice recorder, jpg viewer — I’m very impressed to get this in one device. Some of the wireless connectivity options through the expansion sleeves (CF or PCMIA wireless modem and through the installed Internet Explorer) look very impressive, although I have not tried them yet.

Could be Improved — Most of these are quibbles or personal preference…

- Connectivity. I use the provided USB cradle at home and aserial cable at work. I had to buy the serial cable for the workmachine (no USB port) and I think Compaq should have provided it.Autosynch works pretty well, but I have had some duplicate meetingsshow up on my schedule. Part of that I think, it that I am learningto use it, and switching between Outlook at home and MS Exchange atwork. Other people have reported connectivity problems that I havenot encountered.

- Battery. The unit has an internal wired inbattery which is rechargable from either the cradle or an externalpower adapter. I would have preferred a replaceable (and rechargable)battery just in case. I get from 4-6 hours of standard usage out ofthe battery now.

- Software availability. There are severalhundreds of programs availabe and more being added each week — but Iwould like to see more available including standard business products.In particular, I am *VERY* surprized there isn’t a pocket version ofPowerpoint — although I understand one is near release.

-Earphone volume is loud with earbuds, so I run it at near minimumvolume.

- Case or cover for the iPAQ. Compaq provides a smallsimple case, and aftermarket vendors have others available. I’m usinga surplus HP65 calculator case which works very well. I would havepreferred a snazzy case from Compaq to show off the machine — butthat is my personal preference.

All in all, I am *very* impressedwith this machine. There are things that could be better, but overallit is very good. People who have seen this being used by myself droolover it…

Peek Pronto Mobile Messaging Device with Lifetime Service Included (Grey)

My Peek and the fine folks at Peek-they call themselves Peeksters-have introduced a whole new side of the Internet to me which is revealing and disturbing all at the same time. I, as well as everyone else on the planet, have long suspected what highway robbers the major wireless carriers are and this was only truly understood by me when I first started to work with my Peek.

A text message is just an e-mail that is limited to 140 characters. You can send a text to your daughter or your husband or anyone by simply typing in their 10 digit telephone number in the to: box of your gmail or yahoo or hotmail account and pressing send. Chances are that you are now sitting at your computer: try it right now to your own cell phone. If your carrier is in compliance (and most but not all are) you will at this moment be freed from the hokey, shadowy, slimy world that are the wireless companies.

This is the premise that the folks at Peek have based their business model upon. They are the counter culture mobile e-mail and text message based company. But there is a price that you as a consumer must pay. If you own an iPhone or a Blackberry then you must play the Internet game under their rules and pay them money to do so at a hefty price.

With Peek the price to play the Internet is minimal but the learning curve to use text based e-mail can be a bit steep. Need to know movie showtimes, or traffic issues, or directions, or the weather picture off the satellite, or sports scores, or breaking news? You can do all of that in e-mail. You can even, in a very limited but useful way, surf the internet with e-mail, but you need to learn the language. You need to know what words to send to what addresses and once you accomplish that the Peek can do the absolute critical things that you really need in a mobile device.

The folks at Peek pride themselves in the fact that their gadget is bone simple, and it is. Your grandma can use a Peek in about two minutes. But you, the clever, savvy consumer, can take that simple gadget and turn it into a highly sophisticated information and communication device. All you need to do is learn the language of e-mail.

Buy this lifetime deal. It will start to pay you back in less than a year. You will be freed. You will never go back.

Palm Z22 Handheld

Please note that I have given the Z22 five stars taking into account the relative value of the price and features. Obviously this is a low-end device, so it is rated accordingly.

I bought one of these for my mother, who is still using a heavily erased and crossed-out address book and paper calendar. She has been reticent to move to electronic organizers, and I eventually decided to get this one for her partly because of the following features:
1) it has NVFS, which means that when my mother invariably forgets to charge it she will not lose all of her information.
2) it is small, light, easy to use and has a color screen.
3) it is a palm, which i’ve used for years and can easily show her some helpful usage tips.

One feature that I didn’t know the Z22 had, and have found to be the real ‘hook’ as far as my mother is concerned is the ability to add images to contacts. Now my mother has pictures of each of her children and grandchildren, which are linked to their contact info. For her, that was the clincher. I think she will finally now give up her address book.

The Z22 has a great form factor, and it resembles the ipod in appearance and size – but the Palm is lighter. The screen isn’t hi res, so don’t expect hi definition with your photos – but it gets the job done. And the processor is certainly speedy enough.

One other nice touch is that a screen protector is included in the package – which I put on first thing. The software is pretty basic, and it includes a silly game called Crazy Daisy which will not likely get any usage.

There is one thing that I found frustrating, but it has to do with the packaging. They must be using a heavier gauge plastic for these packages, because it took me ten minutes to carefully cut through and open it without damaging the contents. Be sure you have a heavy duty exacto knife handy or a very large pair of shears.