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12-31-02, 02:28 AM

The article is his opinion, but it seems like at times when he criticizes the Dell Axim or Microsoft's Pocketpc, he is lying to himself. For example:

"Dell has done a fine job of bringing the Pocket PC platform to a consumer-friendly price, but otherwise the Axim isn't that special. "

Not only is the price point very special, but it has a lot more features than the other PDA's that came out with the newer Xscale processors. Expandability and battery life are excellent, and seem to be much better than other PDA's. If Compaq did not come out with their new PDA, I think the Axim's screen would be the best one on a PDA. Dell included the best features from past PDA's like a recorder button, audio out jack, a jog dial, and other features that some of the newer pda models forget to add. This is special because they thought of everything they could possibly do for the price point, in my opinion. If this PDA was $500, I think it would still be an amazing PDA.

"I'd rather see Dell apply its cost-cutting talents to the Palm side of the business, where it will find a better operating system, greater liberty to fine-tune it and more potential customers."

If they have the time and the money maybe they should, but calling the Palm OS a better operating system is not correct in my opinion. Can the Palm OS multitask? Play MP3's and video formats without the need of purchasing additional software? Those are pretty darn nice features that most people expect in the 21st century from their OS. I do think the Palm OS does a damn nice and efficient job at what it has been designed to do, but it has not been designed to do as much as the Pocket PC. The Palm OS and the Pocket PC is almost like comparing the MAC OS and Windows. It totally depends on the person using it. I prefer the Pocket PC because it has more features. The interface is familiar for me because I use Windows 2000.

"Pocket PC amounts to a catalogue of user-interface defects that conspire to waste your time in a thousand little ways: the two-second wait to wake the Axim, the need to tap the Edit menu (which isn't actually a menu) to revise most items, the spinning-beach-ball cursor that regularly surfaces, the Programs screen that fails to list many installed programs, and so on."

There is a two second wait time, I will give you that. Didn't notice it until you mentioned it. The edit menu gives you the "greater liberty to fine-tune" the program like you said the Pocket PC lacks. The spinning ball tells you when things are loading instead of having the laggy response times which happens on Palm OS Pda's when they need to load or process data. The programs screen doesnt list all of the programs because the programmer that programmed whatever peice of software you are trying to run didn't set that up. That hasn't happened to you on the Palm before? I had to run helper programs such as pocket c to run the programs that werent listed on the Palm's program menu.

"And all of these obvious bugs have been present for more than a year without any fixes from Microsoft. "

Not obvious to me. Where are those bugs?

I would take the Dell Axim for any other Palm PDA currently on the market.

12-31-02, 02:28 AM	#2 (permalink)
Fatjack Guest Posts: n/a	The article is his opinion, but it seems like at times when he criticizes the Dell Axim or Microsoft's Pocketpc, he is lying to himself. For example: "Dell has done a fine job of bringing the Pocket PC platform to a consumer-friendly price, but otherwise the Axim isn't that special. " Not only is the price point very special, but it has a lot more features than the other PDA's that came out with the newer Xscale processors. Expandability and battery life are excellent, and seem to be much better than other PDA's. If Compaq did not come out with their new PDA, I think the Axim's screen would be the best one on a PDA. Dell included the best features from past PDA's like a recorder button, audio out jack, a jog dial, and other features that some of the newer pda models forget to add. This is special because they thought of everything they could possibly do for the price point, in my opinion. If this PDA was $500, I think it would still be an amazing PDA. "I'd rather see Dell apply its cost-cutting talents to the Palm side of the business, where it will find a better operating system, greater liberty to fine-tune it and more potential customers." If they have the time and the money maybe they should, but calling the Palm OS a better operating system is not correct in my opinion. Can the Palm OS multitask? Play MP3's and video formats without the need of purchasing additional software? Those are pretty darn nice features that most people expect in the 21st century from their OS. I do think the Palm OS does a damn nice and efficient job at what it has been designed to do, but it has not been designed to do as much as the Pocket PC. The Palm OS and the Pocket PC is almost like comparing the MAC OS and Windows. It totally depends on the person using it. I prefer the Pocket PC because it has more features. The interface is familiar for me because I use Windows 2000. "Pocket PC amounts to a catalogue of user-interface defects that conspire to waste your time in a thousand little ways: the two-second wait to wake the Axim, the need to tap the Edit menu (which isn't actually a menu) to revise most items, the spinning-beach-ball cursor that regularly surfaces, the Programs screen that fails to list many installed programs, and so on." There is a two second wait time, I will give you that. Didn't notice it until you mentioned it. The edit menu gives you the "greater liberty to fine-tune" the program like you said the Pocket PC lacks. The spinning ball tells you when things are loading instead of having the laggy response times which happens on Palm OS Pda's when they need to load or process data. The programs screen doesnt list all of the programs because the programmer that programmed whatever peice of software you are trying to run didn't set that up. That hasn't happened to you on the Palm before? I had to run helper programs such as pocket c to run the programs that werent listed on the Palm's program menu. "And all of these obvious bugs have been present for more than a year without any fixes from Microsoft. " Not obvious to me. Where are those bugs? I would take the Dell Axim for any other Palm PDA currently on the market.