Pocket PC 2003 Delayed

[xbalance]

I got an email from Dell notifying me that my Pocket PC 2003 software would not ship until 9/10/03 (not late July as promised). I ordered the software on 6/24. I realize this is because of the quality issue, but I'm the only one who has posted this so far, has anyone else gotten this notification?

[jasonc]

Yeah, I got an automated phone call from them telling me the same thing. Seems like a long time to wait....

[Kati Compton]

I believe this is because they're trying to solve some problems they've been having... (http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=15139&start=0)

[SlimDady]

Well try to take advantage of the situation.. ask for a refund of your shipping cost for thr troubles or some sorda repayment

[Nausicaa]

I just recieved my Dell Axim as a gift yesterday (July 23rd). I assume it was ordered in early July. Could someone please tell me if I am running on Mobile 2003? Is there a way I can see what OS this is?

[Pat Logsdon]

I'd bet that you have PPC 2002. You can check by going to Start > Settings > System > About. Version 3.0.xxxxx is PPC 2002. Anything higher is going to be PPC 2003.

[Nausicaa]

Yikes, I've got version 4.20.1081! So mine's not running as fast as it should be, eh? Funny, I think it runs really fast! I guess one game ran pretty slow (Leo's Flight Simulator), but another flight sim with nicer graphics ran fine, so it must just be poor coding. Is this problem going to even affect 3D game performance?

Oh yeah, Chopper Alley ran pretty poorly too.

[tccox]

Interesting, I just got my shipment delayed e-mail from Dell. They told me on or before August 22, 2003.

[dartman]

Mine said August 22 as well.

Notice came today.

dart

[Kevin C. Tofel]

Yup...me too. Part of the e-mail text:

"We have reviewed your order. Although we had anticipated being able to ship your order sooner, we are experiencing an unexpected delay and will not be able to ship this order and any associated orders until on or before 8/22/2003."

:cry:

KCT

[takotchi]

Why are some people getting messages with dates like August 22nd? I mean, even that is rediculous, but I ordered my CD as soon as possible, I think the night WM2k3 was announced or the day after... whenever it was first available... and I get a date of 9/4/2003.

HOW can a problem this huge get by any competent, sane beta tester? Did they even test this at all? If the problem with 2003 is this obvious, I just can't understand how this even came to be in the first place.

You get what you pay for, I guess... cheap-butt Dell screws me again... why, oh why do I give them second, third, fourth chances? :devilboy:

[sracer]

sorry takotchi, you get no sympathy from me. :) At least you have a working Axim and are faced with the minor inconvenience of not having the upgrade now.

I'm one who was stuck with an Axim w/PPC2K3. Dell did absolutely nothing to help me out. So I had no choice but to return it for a refund before my 30 days expired.

I had no choice but to order an iPAQ 2215... the closest thing to an Axim in terms of functionality and price. (the iPAQ is $80 more than I paid for the Axim, but it will be worth it not to have to deal with Dell's Customer Care again. )

[PetiteFlower]

No choice? HA! Patience is always a choice.

Is it not better to wait for a functional version of the upgrade then to get a broken version sooner? Ask the people putting illegal versions of the upgrade on their 5400 series IPAQs.

[takotchi]

Well, I wanted to get the upgrade by the time I started college and reset it and install the upgrade and get all my "stuff" set up the way I wanted in time for that... I guess that only takes a few hours to get right, but it's extremely annoying nonetheless.

I think both the problems are bad; people who ordered the upgrade and people who bought ones with 2003 already on it. The whole issue should have never happened in the first place, being incredibly obvious as it is.

I'm not bitching because of just this, really, but as a result of how Dell tends to be... kind of "chintzy", low quality, inconvenient (except when making purchases, of course).

They could at least give us a $5 discount or a coupon or something for our grief. :roll:

[Kevin C. Tofel]

I think both the problems are bad; people who ordered the upgrade and people who bought ones with 2003 already on it. The whole issue should have never happened in the first place, being incredibly obvious as it is.

I'm not bitching because of just this, really, but as a result of how Dell tends to be... kind of "chintzy", low quality, inconvenient (except when making purchases, of course).

They could at least give us a $5 discount or a coupon or something for our grief. :roll:

I understand where you're coming from....I'm one of the folks who ordered the upgrade right away. With all due respect however, I'm not sure I agree with your comment about 'the whole issue should have never happened in the first place'. I manage quality assurance teams whose sole purpose is to find defects so they get fixed before going into production. From my experience, 100% is a goal, but rarely a reality.

Keep in mind that Dell has very quickly (relatively to it's competitors) entered a specialty PC market and garnered a nice share of that market in a short time. The other OEM's have more experience with Microsoft's PPC upgrades, in fact, some don't have the upgrade at all!

Trust me, I'm likely as frustrated as you and the other Axim owners. However, given the circumstances as a new player in the market, I'm willing to chalk it up to experience for Dell and see that they fix the problem right while keeping open and honest communications with their customers. I don't see Dell as 'chintzy' or 'low quality'....in fact, historically, they are quite the opposite if you look at independent reviews.

Let's see how much longer it takes them to get it right and what (if anything) they do to offset this inconvenience to the customers that helped put them on the PPC map.....

:rock on dude!:

KCT

[sracer]

- I understand where you're coming from....I'm one of the folks who ordered the upgrade right away. With all due respect however, I'm not sure I agree with your comment about 'the whole issue should have never happened in the first place'. I manage quality assurance teams whose sole purpose is to find defects so they get fixed before going into production. From my experience, 100% is a goal, but rarely a reality.

That is understandable. I too am in the industry so I too am familiar with how things work. However I think you are overlooking one simple fact... the problem with the Axims running PPC2003 is universal and immediate that anyone who used it for more than a few minutes would've spotted it.

If it were some obscure glitch that only appeared under certain circumstances, then the points you raise would be valid. There just isn't any good reason why this wasn't caught before those units shipped...and that is why I firmly believe that it was an "executive decision" to ship the Axims knowing that they had this problem.

[sracer]

No choice? HA! Patience is always a choice.

Is it not better to wait for a functional version of the upgrade then to get a broken version sooner? Ask the people putting illegal versions of the upgrade on their 5400 series IPAQs.

No, it is not better to wait. Dell offers a 30 day money-back guarantee. If you're not satisfied, you can return it within 30 days for a full refund. Dell did not provide a fix for this blatantly troublesome device, so I exercised my option of returning it.

Dell has not given me any reason to believe that they will be pro-active in this situation. Dell has never formally come forward and acknowledged the problem... if a person doesn't have the fix in their hand prior to their 30 days expiring, how can they make an informed decision about how the Axim will perform? It is possible that when the fix is released, that the performance will be better, but not comparable to other 2003 devices.

Every time I called Customer Care, they told me that there are no problems with WM2003 and that they have not received any complaints about it either. When I asked them to register my complaint as WM2003-related, they refused. (The perfect way to maintain their position of no registered complaints) I have no confidence that Dell will put the customer first...

The issue of illegal versions is irrelevant...

[PetiteFlower]

Obviously you don't read the front page of this site.

At any rate, think what you like. Me, I love my Axim and the 2210 seems to have its own share of problems. When the fixed upgrade comes out, I'll think about ordering it. Till then I'll enjoy my PPC 2002 device and be happy I'm not an "early adopter" :)

[sracer]

Obviously you don't read the front page of this site.

At any rate, think what you like. Me, I love my Axim and the 2210 seems to have its own share of problems. When the fixed upgrade comes out, I'll think about ordering it. Till then I'll enjoy my PPC 2002 device and be happy I'm not an "early adopter" :)

...and that explains your lack of sympathy for those of us who ordered Axim Advanceds with PPC2002, but received Axim Advanceds loaded with PPC2003.

As for those "share of 2210 problems" a closer inspection will show that virtually all of the verifiable, repeatable problems are with the PPC2003 code itself... which is something that MS will need to address and will also plague those "fixed" Axims.

[takotchi]

sracer already said it... but the thing is, the problem is just so obvious to everybody that bought a new Axim. I haven't seen the problem first-hand, but from what I read... you just can't miss it, it's practically unusable in it's current state.

About Dell's quality... I've had a Dell desktop, notebook, this PDA, and at my (former) high school, there were two rooms full of Dell desktops, and a bunch of Dell notebooks just like mine. Only the PDA, so far, has been of acceptable quality hardware-wise. The rest were all cheap plastic peices of junk.

However, the Axim has been good as far as build quality, though I had the iPAQ 3630 before that (uggh); but as usual with Dell, support kind of sucks. Don't bother trying to get somebody that can speak English well enough that you can understand them; they all seem to be Indian or something like that. Plus, try to find accessories... not in stores, and not on their site. Where are the keyboards, serial cradle, or extended battery? Not there. Now add this crap about WM2k3 on the new Axims and the severe delay of the upgrade for we current owners.

They have our money already, they really don't care about supporting or shipping a puny $30 upgrade CD, and only a few big internet news sites publishing the story would get them off their butt to fix this problem.

Then again, I've never seen better, maybe this is as good as it gets. :(

[dh]

Just as a thought, if someone has a 2003 Axim and is unhappy, could they replace the ROM with PPC2002 using one of the ROM upgrades on Dell's website?

I've not used an '03 Axim so I don't know how serious the problems are (I was under the impression it was just a lack of speed improvement over PPC2002) but if these devices can be converted easily to the '02 ROM that might be a good solution until Dell fixes the problem.

[sracer]

dh, that was the first thing that some of us thought about when we first encountered the problem. Unfortunately Dell's upgrade installer checks for the level already on the Axim and is programmed to only update based on very specific versions.. the 2003 version isn't one of them.