Can’t stress the reading e-books-surfing-the-web big display ‘advantage’ enough! Its heaven. I find I’m spending more and more time surfing the web from the X7501’s great screen (using vuflow). In some ways surfing the web on the X7501 is easier than on a desktop. No really. I’m reading email, and making purchases on the web now.

I even put my keyboard back on (at least for a while) not as a keyboard but as a tilt tool for vuflow, though vuflow would be nicer if you could tilt back the screen and have the view go down instead of up.

Not wanting to disuade any Axim users, but speaking as a prior Axim user, in my opinion, getting usability out of the X7501 (aside from the wonderful, stupendous screen related aps), will take a bit of work AND MORE MONEY. :)

Think about it, as was stated in this review, to get the Advantage X7501 to work properly as a phone you really need a bluetooth headset. True enough. This is only the tip of the iceberg so to speak. (Though it is fair to point out that the Axim does not have phone capability at all).

Good cases seem to cost more for the Advantage/Athena too (well its a bigger device). The cases to-date are all landscape mode oriented, so what I’m trying to say is that you won’t be able to buy a mid level solid portrait Sena style case and hang the leather flap over your belt like some of you likely do with your Axims, and chug in cheap earphones, Viola. Instead you’ll have to go higher end and buy a Piel Frama in order to get a similarly good case and then you’ll likely have to turn around and find some kind of bluetooth solution for the earphones because the landscape orientation means you can’t tuck the flap of your case in your belt easily and most cases aren’t coming with beltclips.

Instead of doing all the hot-swapping of cards an Axim user does as naturally as breathing in order to transfer big files, you’ll need to buy a program that turns the X7501’s hard drive into a usb drive.

Then there’s the 4-1 cable (well we had to buy that VGA cable for the Axim too, didn’t we?)

So yeah. Plan to spend some money over the haul. The comment regarding the laptop in the previous post is well thought out. However, as for me, I’ll never be tied to a backpack and power cords again and for some reason I was always busting the screen/spilling softdrinks on those laptops. No thanks. I’m into my 3rd generation window’s mobile device now–and my first one still works.

Give me higher end–and though I’m poor–I’m also single :) and I’ll shell out the bucks. The Advantage X7501 is definately high-end. It’s a proper upgrade from the Axim X51v in my opinion. You Axim X51v owners out there, are you really surprised that such a device costs 2-3 times more than the Axim? With almost twice as big of a screen, gps, 2-3 times as much battery life and a phone tacked on? And I have to admit it too–a much stabler platform? I’m always hard resetting my Axim X51v.

The Axim in its day was the hotrod of the pda’s–very tempermental, fast, way ahead of its time and the top converged device on the market–You had to tweak it and tweak it. And in fairness Dell got its fair share of criticism because of it. The Advantage is just as fast, (well it better be a couple of years later) but stabler, with a way better battery life and higher end–more like a luxury car than a hot rod. But though it is styled as a ‘mini-laptop’, with a laptop price, its a converged device–with more convergence than the Axim. Its not a laptop. So yeah, for me the Advantage 7501 is well worth the money.