gdurkee

Hi:

I'd really appreciate anyone's thoughts and experience here.

I'm looking at buying a refurbished Axim 50 or even 30 from Dell. I'd be using it in the field and want to hook it up to a GPS and need the GPS to be battery operated and, preferably, with a fairly long battery life. I'm also hoping to use the Axim with ESRI's ARCPad for data mapping (I assume that'll work on either model??).

And, I'm quite happy to connect the GPS by a cable instead of Bluetooth. So, if I connect by cable, will almost any GPS work? I've currently got my Garmin 12 hooked to a Handspring Visor by a specially made cable and it's working fine, but I can't run the software I need on it. (But maybe there's less power drain on the GPS with Bluetooth??)

If I need a more specialized GPS, what is recommended that has a fairly good (or even replaceable!) battery?? I'm less interested in using it to navigate on the highways and don't even really need to load maps, though it would be a nice perk.

Also, what are people's thoughts on the X50 or the X30 and are they reasonably sturdy? My Palm has held up well in field conditions even though it seems pretty flimsy. What are the Axims like?

Many thanks!

George