SmartAlec

I purchased 2 dell axim 5 400 mhz PDA's. Right out of the box one of them had better screen brightness on full brightness setting than the other. Lets say the brighter one was 100% then the other one was about 95%. I of course kept the brighter one for myself and gave the other one to my girlfriend (who didn't complain). Then the troubles started on the one I kept for myself. Lockups and program crashes requiring reboots. Then all the area codes in my contact list mysteriously changed by themselves...requiring a great deal of manual labor to rectify. Then whenever I tried to load a word or excell file onto the axim the active sync would disconnect halfway through the download. I couldn't properly load my files onto to the PDA. I contacted customer support and they immedatley recommended replacing the unit. In 2 weeks a new replacement arrived. I took it out of the box and put in a freshly charged battery (I previously ordered the larger spare battery) and put it beside my problemmatic PDA. To my surprise the screen brightness on the new replacement PDA was about 80% compared to the problematic PDA. I went into settings / brightness and made sure they were both on maximum bright setting. I swapped batteries to be sure that had no effect (both batteries were charged 100%. No change, the replacement PDA was still only 80% AS BRIGHT AS THE PROBLEMATIC PDA. I stood ten feet away from my girlfriend and held both PDA's up and asked her which was brighter. She immediatley pointed to the problemmatic PDA. To illistrate the difference I put them side by side and lowered the screen brightness on the problematic PDA untill it matched the replacement PDA's full max brightness. This occured TWO FULL NOTCHES BELOW FULL BRIGHTNESS!! The replacement pda appeared to be factory fresh, all packaging was sealed properly. I called the customer service line and said I was not going to accept a sub-standard replacement for my problematic Axim 5 and they agreed to have me ship the replacement back (it is still a lot of trouble to configure and load a new unit and I didn't need the extra trouble. I asked Dell if they had any complaints or trouble with screen brightness concerns. They of course said no. I can only conclude that if YOU CAN NOT COMPARE THE SCREEN WITH ANOTHER IDENTICAL PDA HOW WOULD YOU KNOW YOURS IS LACKING IN FULL BRIGHTNESS??? Caveat Emptor...Buyer Beware. I have the greatest respect for Dell customer service as they are working with me to the best of their ability to rectify my problem, however when I suggested that they test the replacement PDA to see the poor screen brightness and to be sure they DO NOT ship me a similar POOR brightness PDA, customer service did not seem to think that would be possible (too many departments and too much beaurocracy) Sigh, if I could only walk into their store and say "Here, see what I mean". This is the drawback to mail order...I will post the conclusion as it happens.

Chuck

I read somwhere if you use a usb hub instead of directly connecting to the pc. it would solve a known problem. but lately I connected without the hub and it still worked fine. just dont know.
:crooked:

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lindsj

SmartAlec,

maybe the enhanced screeen brightness was the root of the problems you were having.....

anyway, I hope you have the best of luck with your 3rd Ax.

JakeRich

Personally, I wouldn't want my screen any brighter. I turn it down most of the way, anyway. Not only is it easier on my eyes, it's easier on the battery, too.

As for the other problems, most of them sound like Microsoft, not Dell issues. Activesync is known to be.., let's be generous and say "problematic." You didn't mention if there was any third party software installed, but as the base PocketPC is a Microsoft product, a reboot is a pretty frequent event. Fortunately it's usually benign to do that, and it's pretty quick, but it does happen and you just get used to it. Soft resets pretty soon become commonplace and part of doing business.

GL with the exchanges.