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Greetings,
I have an update for this old thread. Two things have been corrected since I wrote my original complaint back in September of 03. Dell came out with an Audio driver update that claimed, “This patch fixes issues with audio on the x5 with Windows Mobile 2003”. I can’t tell much of a difference after the update. My X5 still clicks, pop’s and crackles every time I try to multitask at all. Even when making volume adjustments. I did find however that once the volume was set properly and the X5 was used strictly for audio playback things seemed to work OK. The second change was that AudiblePlayer (The software that get's loaded on the PDA) was upgraded from version 3.5 to 4.0. I’m not sure when the Audible software was upgraded. When I first started having these problems Audible said “We are in the process of upgrading the software”. I asked how I would know when it was released and they replied “We will notify you by e-mail”. I never got an e-mail but a friend told me 4.0 was released.
With the news these two upgrades I decided to put down my now trusty iPod and try Audible.com on my Pocket PC once more. I excitedly downloaded the Audio driver patch from Dell and installed that first. After a soft reset I was ready to install AudiblePlayer for PocketPC. The first attempt to get the software loaded crashed my laptop AND the X5. The second attempt crashed ONLY the X5. And the third attempt disabled the mouse on the PC and I had to reboot. But hey, both the PC and PDA have Microsoft operating systems on them so this routine is acceptable, right? Finally thing appear to be up and running. Now it’s time to transfer some audible content. Hey! What happened to my SD card? The option to download to the SD card was gone. Main memory was the only thing on the pull down. Sooooooo... A soft reset for the X5 and another reboot for the PC. Same problem. Sensing my building frustration I decided to step away and grab an adult beverage from the fridge. After a few sips and a deep breath I tried again. But wait, the SD card was showing up now! Strange! See that, going to the fridge for a beer was a good idea huh? I should have tried that after the first lockup! OK, where was I. Oh yea, I transferred a wall street journal edition and one audio book to the X5. I opened Audible Player on the X5. The new interface looks exactly as the earlier version. With the exception of the clicks, pop’s and crackles I mentioned earlier the player seems to working better then before. One of my big problems with the previous version was that if you bumped the scroll lever the player would fast forward out of control. Version 4.0 fixes this. The scroll lever is now tied in with the volume control. Now if the scroll lever gets bumped the volume just goes up or down instead of losing you place in the book. I can live with that.
Some of the other things that were corrected are:
- The “Playback position bug”. This addresses the problem some users were experiencing with the player loosing bookmarks.
- The last title listened to is remembered when returning to the application.
- The time to start the Audio program has been reduced.
- Full support for 5-way Navigation button.
- Audio file list is presented alphabetically.
- Improved power management.
- Faster transfer speed.
Well it looks like Audible is headed in the right direction. Although not perfect I see this release as a great improvement over the last pile of bugs they released. The jury is still out on weather I go back to the X5 or stick with the iPod for my Audible.com / commuting needs.
Decisions, decisions….
Cio,
Tom
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