It's Official - Dell Axim X5 Available November 18

[Cornerstone]

These new Dell Pocket PCs are very interesting to me because of the integrate CF and SD, extended battery, and their price point. This makes portable GPS for golf and hiking a viable option.

I have a 3600 Ipaq and was thinking about buying a dual CF Nexipack sleeve to hold my CF GPS and maps, but at $150, it is a little spendy. Let's see... a dual CF sleeve on an aging plaform that only works on an Ipaq, or for $50 more, a new Dell with better battery and better screen....

My question is now, which Dell to get? I have heard that the 300 mhz processors actually appear to run slower than the old 206 mhz Strong arms. Is that the case? And also, does the extra 32 mb ram drain the battery quicker, and would it better to have the 64 mb ram for GPS software applications?

Any thoughts?

[Cornerstone]

These new Dell Pocket PCs are very interesting to me because of the integrate CF and SD, extended battery, and their price point. This makes portable GPS for golf and hiking a viable option.

I have a 3600 Ipaq and was thinking about buying a dual CF Nexipack sleeve to hold my CF GPS and maps, but at $150, it is a little spendy. Let's see... a dual CF sleeve on an aging plaform that only works on an Ipaq, or for $50 more, a new Dell with better battery and better screen....

My question is now, which Dell to get? I have heard that the 300 mhz processors actually appear to run slower than the old 206 mhz Strong arms. Is that the case? And also, does the extra 32 mb ram drain the battery quicker, and would it better to have the 64 mb ram for GPS software applications?

Any thoughts?

[ThomasC22]

Originally Posted by Foo Fighter

140,000 in 5-6 weeks? Not likely. Dell seem to expect this product to sell based solely on the merits of price. Boy are they in for a surprise.

I wouldn't count them out just yet...the problem for me has always been this: I've always wanted to deploy PDAs in my organization but I didn't want to deploy Palms (very hard to program) and I needed to keep the pricepoint down.

Further I needed a cheap warranty, for myself the CarePaq was fine but when you start talking in the hundreds things get a little expensive.

This gives me everything I want, cheap price, cheap warranty, reasonably decent device. Bottom line is that I'm going to buy one of november 18th and if it does all that it says it does then I'll be ordering 130 by the end of the year, and I'm a small company (actually medium sized by Dell's standards) so imagine what big corporations are going to be ordering.

[ThomasC22]

Originally Posted by Cornerstone

My question is now, which Dell to get? I have heard that the 300 mhz processors actually appear to run slower than the old 206 mhz Strong arms. Is that the case? And also, does the extra 32 mb ram drain the battery quicker, and would it better to have the 64 mb ram for GPS software applications?

Any thoughts?

More internal memory is always better, especially if you're loading maps and/or voice GPS software into your device.

I can't see much of a reason for buying the $199 device unless the extra $100 is a real hardship for you. The cradle alone is probably worth it (word is the low end device won't come with a cradle). The processor speed isn't going to make much difference one way or the other, any report that the 300mhz processor is slower than the 206mhz Strongarm is probably more hyperbole than actual fact being not many people have gotten their hands on a 300mhz xscale device and those who did were usually those in the media that were trying to play up the "xscale scandle" at the time.

[Merlion]

Originally Posted by ThomasC22

I wouldn't count them out just yet...the problem for me has always been this: I've always wanted to deploy PDAs in my organization but I didn't want to deploy Palms (very hard to program) and I needed to keep the pricepoint down.

Further I needed a cheap warranty, for myself the CarePaq was fine but when you start talking in the hundreds things get a little expensive.

This gives me everything I want, cheap price, cheap warranty, reasonably decent device. Bottom line is that I'm going to buy one of november 18th and if it does all that it says it does then I'll be ordering 130 by the end of the year, and I'm a small company (actually medium sized by Dell's standards) so imagine what big corporations are going to be ordering.

According to Microsoft, in a white paper they released a couple of yrs ago, they said that the success of a PPC depends mainly on corporate sales. Consumer sales' success will improve the image of a product, which will help it being adopted in the corporate arena, but corporate sales is where it's at. So they intend to build the PPC platform enterprise friendly.

If MS's right, Dell's pricing & warrantee* seemed to be on the right track. If their products did what they're supposed to do, & they're reliable, there're good reasons for corporations to go for them, which will ensure their success.
Your comments seemed to suggest that companies are indeed eyeing the new Dell PPCs, & considering adopting them.

* Dell's warrantee: "Dell will include next business day advance exchange with one day turnaround as part of the basic price and a second year upgrade for $75 while Compaq charges $50 for the first year and $100 for the second."