Thursday, December 12, 2002
Mercury News | 12/12/2002 | Mike Langberg: Dell makes strong PDA debut with Axim
Posted by Ed Hansberry in "THE COMPETITION" @ 01:30 PM
It is possible for a Palm fan to post an objective review of a Pocket PC, and Mike Langberg seems to have overcome the fear of being ostracized by his peers and done just that with the Dell Axim X5.
"Dell Computer has made a brilliant debut in the crowded field of personal digital assistants with its fully featured and very affordable Axim X5 running Microsoft's PocketPC software. The Axim is such a good deal that it changes my world view: I'm now prepared, for the first time, to recommend first-time PDA buyers consider PocketPC as a reasonable alternative to the well-established Palm software."
He goes on to do comparisons of the Axim to the M130, Zire, various Clies, a Treo and other Pocket PCs in features, usability and price. It is still clear that for Microsoft to win over many Palm enthusiasts, they have to figure out what "simple interface" means without destroying the rich feature set the Pocket PC has. Oh the complexity of being able to assign multiple categories to a contact and having a file system that means you don't have to know or care if your data or app is on a storage card or in RAM. :roll:
"I remain a big fan of Palm's software. For ease of use and fast response, PDAs running the Palm operating system continue to outperform PocketPC, especially at basic tasks such as calendar and address book. The Palm side of the PDA divide also continues to offer the lowest entry price for buyers on a budget, with the monochrome Palm Zire at $99 and the monochrome Sony Clié PEG-SL10 at $149. I never recommended a PocketPC before because PDAs running the software were so expensive and slow. Now that Dell has removed those objections, I regard PocketPC as a worthy contender -- especially for those who want to work with Word or Excel documents, or who run their lives entirely through Microsoft's Outlook. All PocketPCs are designed to synchronize with Outlook, so any data you enter in Outlook on your computer automatically flows to your PDA, and vice versa. I borrowed the $199 Axim and found just about every facet sparkled." :)
"Dell Computer has made a brilliant debut in the crowded field of personal digital assistants with its fully featured and very affordable Axim X5 running Microsoft's PocketPC software. The Axim is such a good deal that it changes my world view: I'm now prepared, for the first time, to recommend first-time PDA buyers consider PocketPC as a reasonable alternative to the well-established Palm software."
He goes on to do comparisons of the Axim to the M130, Zire, various Clies, a Treo and other Pocket PCs in features, usability and price. It is still clear that for Microsoft to win over many Palm enthusiasts, they have to figure out what "simple interface" means without destroying the rich feature set the Pocket PC has. Oh the complexity of being able to assign multiple categories to a contact and having a file system that means you don't have to know or care if your data or app is on a storage card or in RAM. :roll:
"I remain a big fan of Palm's software. For ease of use and fast response, PDAs running the Palm operating system continue to outperform PocketPC, especially at basic tasks such as calendar and address book. The Palm side of the PDA divide also continues to offer the lowest entry price for buyers on a budget, with the monochrome Palm Zire at $99 and the monochrome Sony Clié PEG-SL10 at $149. I never recommended a PocketPC before because PDAs running the software were so expensive and slow. Now that Dell has removed those objections, I regard PocketPC as a worthy contender -- especially for those who want to work with Word or Excel documents, or who run their lives entirely through Microsoft's Outlook. All PocketPCs are designed to synchronize with Outlook, so any data you enter in Outlook on your computer automatically flows to your PDA, and vice versa. I borrowed the $199 Axim and found just about every facet sparkled." :)
