Scylla

Ehien,

I feel your pain, dude.

I've been a Dell customer for five years - 2 Dimension desktops and one Inspiron notebook. Oh, and my Axim. The products have all been super. Well, actually the Inspiron was real buggy, but the service was fast and good. Desktops never gave me a bit of trouble. Both still running well. Monitor on one started going and they replaced it faster than I ever imagined. And my Axim is really great too. I did have a screen failure and got a refurb replacement, but it runs great too.

But the service has definitely slipped down toward the bottom of the heap. All the more distressing because it used to be so darn good. I don't mind overseas tech support. TrendMicro is in the Philipines and are as good as any I've used. Namo Interactive is in So. Korea and also topnotch. Dell must have really gone cheap on their overseas help because they are not very conversant in other languages (well, at least not in English), but worse is their product knowledge. Terrible!

In the past year I've done the unthinkable: bought a Compaq notebook and an HP Media Center destop. Used to laugh at people who bought those and then tried to get support. Now I buy from CompUSA and buy their extended service - it's been pretty good so far, and I can take a short drive and talk to them in person if I need to. Dell still has the better products, but without the support I feel stranded.

As for the WM 2003 upgrade, the technical problems were to be expected - all new operating systems from MS get off to rough starts. I can't put all the blame for the initial problems on Dell. But Dell did fail in communicating the issues and resolutions. They understandably couldn't immediately state what was wrong, what would fix it, and how soon. But their extended silence on whether there even was any issue was ill-advised. It seems to have alienated most Axim owners.

I was using PPC 2002 and it was working just fine, so I didn't have any big problem waiting out the fix. My order in June was postponed four times, with the last saying it would ship on Oct. 16. Then I suddenly received it two or three days later. I didn't install it right away, but once it seemed that the upgrade was good, I installed it and it's doing OK. Some small annoyances, but it is a little faster. Supposedly more stable, but 2002 wasn't really hurting me. Wanting to start using connections was what made me want to upgrade; 2003 is much better in that respect.

Now I didn't mind the wait since 2002 was working for me. I may not have been as patient if I was sitting on a non- or limited functioning Axim with the buggy WM 2003.

But, hey - the PPC isn't a must-have. My car? Need it desperately! My PCs? Same thing - they're my livelihood. The Axim is handy and useful, but not having it doesn't bring any part of my life to a stop! I know you WANT it NOW, but don't sweat it so much; it'll be OK when you get your upgrade and you'll have a product that works every bit as good, if not better, than an iPaq or Toshiba. Sony has a great product also, but at twice the price. And if you visit the Microsoft PocketPC newsgroup on Usenet you'll see that iPaq owners seem to be having more than their fair share of problems with their units and with WM 2003!

So hang in there! Sound easy, but I can tell your patience is running out. If you had been around in the early days of VIC 20s and Radio Shack TRS's, you'd realize that this is easy! (Really dating myself here!!!)

Good luck! Stick with it! You'll really like it when it's all together!

By the way, your minivan sounds pretty awesome! When you get it, if you're still here with us, you'll have to post some pics of it. We'll all be appropriately envious!!

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Jim McGowan