New Dell Q's

[Myrddin]

here sit I with my now aged ipaq 5455, pondering...

Do I get the 300mhz Dell or the 600mhz?
Both have dual wireless and everything I need. As far as I can see, the only difference is the processor.

Do I need the extra 300mhz? Would 300mhz be enough (I currently have 400... although its a pxa250)...

I use my device for ebooks, occasional (~1 hr a day) music, lots of gaming (Tower Mogul, Snails and Bejeweled mainly - ~2hr a day) and wifi sniffing and surfing (up to 4hrs a day). I would invest in an extra battery.

My question is should I get the 300 or the 600mhz one? From reviews it seems that the 600mhz one has significantly lower battery life. Will the 300 be able to handle what I need? Obviously it will, but do I need the 600mhz to future proof myself?

Thanks, and help! :D

[Kowalski]

i think that most of us dont need that much proccessor power!
i use my device for internet surfing, pim and ebooks and since i have more than enough cpu speed, power consumption comes a bigger issue than speed.
plus test results show that 300 mHz version has enough power compared to other devices

[Kacey Green]

All of the X-Scale processors have the ability to scale down their speed and powerconsumption, when full speed isn't needed.

[Janak Parekh]

All of the X-Scale processors have the ability to scale down their speed and powerconsumption, when full speed isn't needed.
Although not necessarily automatically, I believe -- you have to use 3rd-party products with some of them. Nevertheless, the XScales are pretty good at automatically consuming less power when you aren't doing much.

--janak

[Kacey Green]

AFAIK, Rex doesn't change speed, when ideling. But it does consume less power, I'm assuming this due to the OS/Drivers/CPU/etc. doing power savings during idle, but with Rex's Model it's been proven that running the CPU slower does actually use more power in most situations so if it speedstep is an xscale feature HP disabled it for this model.

[David Prahl]

here sit I with my now aged ipaq 5455

8O It's a dark day in geekdom when such a sweet device is considered old. I guess I won't mention my 18-month old Axim X5... :lol:

[imagine]

The new bulverde processors have SpeedStep which is supposed to scale down the clock speed depending on applications, conditions, etc... That is why, when and if I do get the X30, I will not immediately invest in a 1800 mAh battery since battery consumption should be alright...kind of like the Asus a716 battery (1500mAh which lasts up to 19 hours because of a very similar feature with a different name.)

[dh]

here sit I with my now aged ipaq 5455

8O It's a dark day in geekdom when such a sweet device is considered old. I guess I won't mention my 18-month old Axim X5... :lol:
It shows how good the Dell design was in the first place. I also used mine for about eighteen months. For the last six months or so I really wanted to get something new and exciting, but I saw nothing that was enough of an improvment to make me spend the money.

I'm still sad that Dell never made the X7 that was originally talked about. The X5 form factor, with built in wireless, lots of memory and VGA would have been a winner.

[Janak Parekh]

I'm still sad that Dell never made the X7 that was originally talked about. The X5 form factor, with built in wireless, lots of memory and VGA would have been a winner.
Of course, there's no guarantee that the rumored X7 was using the X5's formfactor in the first place. ;) I guess Dell decided that the perception of "bigness" of the X5 hurt it. Of course, the e805 isn't particularly smaller than the X5 in the first place, but the screen captures people before they notice that. :P

--janak

[Kowalski]

Of course, the e805 isn't particularly smaller than the X5 in the first place, but the screen captures people before they notice that.
yes this is true but the new a730 has the screen with almost the same quality but in smaller package

[milkman dan]

I have to agree with janak on the x5 looking "big". I don't understand how going from a 5455 to a 312 MHz x30 would make the 5455 "old". Aside from the bluetooth, the only real differences are a smaller battery, slower CPU (maybe better, haven't seen them benched side by side), and WME2003SE :? Why not hold off for a while and wait for the new line of VGA pdas to come out?

[Stephen Beesley]

here sit I with my now aged ipaq 5455

8O It's a dark day in geekdom when such a sweet device is considered old. I guess I won't mention my 18-month old Axim X5... :lol:

In that case I had better hide my nearly 3 year old Jornada....

[epdm]

Besides is the +600MHz version actually twice as fast as the 300Mhz version? It should! If the increase is no more than 10 or 20% then that +600MHz is no more than just an advertising stunt.

In fact I still haven't seen real evidence of a significant performance increase of Intels Latest XScale. As if Intel is blowing more wind like they do with their desktop CPU's.

In fact I've seen performance figures where a Samsung at 266MHz is equal in performance than a 300MHz XScale.I'd rather want a Samsung ARM running at +400MHz then a intel Bulls**t...euh Bullvedere at 520Mhz (Or 624Mhz for that matter).

Post edited by Moderator SJC for language.

[Kowalski]

you are absolutely right.
the same aplies to the desktop cpus.
i use an AMD 2500+ barthon cpu which is running 1.83 GHz but compared to my friends computer which has 1.8 P4 the difference is sooo huge!

[nategesner]

I was extremely impressed by the new Dell models (and their price) until I found out the screens are still 320x240. Does that make any sense, when WM2003SE is geared toward the higher resolution? I would gladly buy the X30 right now at an additional $100 if it had the new resolution.

I'm pretty sure the speed increase is significant, but my HP 2215 is already fast enough for everything I do, so speed isn't much of a factor. There are some other features I like about the X30, but not enough to make me jump ship. Looks like I'll have to see what HP offers up this summer.

[Stephen Beesley]

I was extremely impressed by the new Dell models (and their price) until I found out the screens are still 320x240. Does that make any sense, when WM2003SE is geared toward the higher resolution? I would gladly buy the X30 right now at an additional $100 if it had the new resolution.

...


Dell is not alone in sticking to the QVGA resolution on WM2003 SE devices. After all there are going to be a whole bunch of new HP devices of which only one (the 4700) will be VGA. I am guessing (and only guessing) that the cost of a VGA screen is the big issue - maybe the manufactures figure that there just are not enough potential buyers out there to justify switching more of their product line to VGA at this stage.

For me though I think the one thing that will keep me away from the x30 (despite the good price) is the external wifi antenna.

[milkman dan]

the problem is that LCD's dotpitch is the deciding point on what resolution the device can take. So, to make a VGA screen the size of a QVGA screen, they would have to lower the dot pitch half the size, which probably isn't cheap. Once OLED hits PDA's, they should all be VGA as OLED can hit a buch lower DPI for some reason, apparently lower then CRT monitors even! On a good note, OLED has made its way into new digital cameras, and into a few celphones sofar, so it should be right around the corner :D

[nategesner]

Dell is not alone in sticking to the QVGA resolution on WM2003 SE devices. After all there are going to be a whole bunch of new HP devices of which only one (the 4700) will be VGA. I am guessing (and only guessing) that the cost of a VGA screen is the big issue - maybe the manufactures figure that there just are not enough potential buyers out there to justify switching more of their product line to VGA at this stage.

That begs the question: if only a couple models are going to feature VGA, why would Microsoft release a new OS? Particularly when the major feature of the new OS is orientation swapping and VGA support? I personally don't believe they would design a new OS unless it is needed by the next batch of systems.

As for the cost of a VGA screen, that can be passed on to the customer. If I'm not mistaken, there's a VGA model or two already on the market, so it can be done. For someone with a large share of the market, such as HP or Dell, it should be easier.

I just know I won't be upgrading until someone can give me a 22XX-like model with VGA and a faster processor.

[Stephen Beesley]

Dell is not alone in sticking to the QVGA resolution on WM2003 SE devices. After all there are going to be a whole bunch of new HP devices of which only one (the 4700) will be VGA. I am guessing (and only guessing) that the cost of a VGA screen is the big issue - maybe the manufactures figure that there just are not enough potential buyers out there to justify switching more of their product line to VGA at this stage.

That begs the question: if only a couple models are going to feature VGA, why would Microsoft release a new OS? Particularly when the major feature of the new OS is orientation swapping and VGA support? I personally don't believe they would design a new OS unless it is needed by the next batch of systems.

As for the cost of a VGA screen, that can be passed on to the customer. If I'm not mistaken, there's a VGA model or two already on the market, so it can be done. For someone with a large share of the market, such as HP or Dell, it should be easier.

I just know I won't be upgrading until someone can give me a 22XX-like model with VGA and a faster processor.

Of course the cost can be passed onto the customer - but is that something the manufacturer wants to risk. The market for the most expensive PDAs is probably far less than that for the cheaper end and I any manufacture probably wants to spread out it's price points so as to appeal to as many potential customers as possible. Like most technology I am sure that the VGA screen price point will decrease over time and probably fairly quickly, but it does seem that the first batch of WM2003 SE devices will be dominated by QVGA screens.

[milkman dan]

mmm, a 2200 with 624mhz cpu and a vga screen *creams pants* throw in built in wifi and thats about the sexyest PDA I could imagine :D

[epdm]

mmm, a 2200 with 624mhz cpu and a vga screen *creams pants* throw in built in wifi and thats about the sexyest PDA I could imagine :D

It will if it also had nice dark blue colour case, 8-way D-pad, scroller and that hold-button to block all the keys (great when playing MP3's).

oh dear, that allmost sounds like a Toshiba E830 :-)

Regards,

Manu T