Whenever the latest ROM came out from Dell I would always upgrade and never once did I have any problems. Now I know from being an avid reader here that there were always a number of people who had problems and I always felt sorry for them because I knew it could very easily happen to me. I never felt they were wrong for complaining just because I did not have the same issue.
Now the WM5 upgrade for me was painless but I found the new OS and AS4 not to my "liking" and decided to downgrade my Axim back to WM2003. That is my choice and it is painfully obvious I am not the only one out there.
What troubles me is there are some posters here and other web sites that seem to say they are "tired" of all the complaints and whining. My general impression from these posters is that somehow our problems are not MSFT's fault, but OUR fault. That we should have known that "such and such" a feature was removed or that "such and such" software would no longer work.
I used to work with a bunch of Microsoft apologists and I know it does neither us, the customer, nor MSFT any good to deflect criticism and outright anger into the "its your fault stupid" party line. If you look at some of my other posts you will see I am very critical of MSFT but not in the typical religious sense (like some Linux/Mac/Palm/Unix people I know). I am critical because I think MSFT writes bad software when they no longer have competition in a certain area (ie. they have pummeled the competition and no longer need to make it better). I am beginning to believe it is now happening in the PPC arena as well.
When an upgrade fails our expectations we should make a noise, not sit back and say, "gee... well maybe the next upgrade will be better...". It reminds me of the Dilbert cartoon where their new target customer is one too shy to return their defective product.
So for those tired of the WM 5.0 criticism I am terribly sorry if I or someone else pains you but understand that strong outspoken criticism is a necessary evil in a market driven economy. Or would you prefer a command economy instead?
Thank you so much for your candid posting. I was begining to feel bad for voice my concerns about the x51v and wm5. But I agree with you 100% about competition and I just came over from the palm camp because of this issue (palm 500m 515 and t3)
The X51v is a great piece of hardware and wm5 may be a great piece of software but the bugs gotta go to be able to make that judgement.
a truly inovative company would apprieciate our feedback and address it, I only hope that they are monitoring sites like this. And if others can't stand us voicing our opinions, while logging defects they should frequent other sites like the ones written by manufacturers. :approve:
dennisma makes an excellent point, but I think that my main problem with the many of complaints about x51/wm5 is that the anger is misdirected. I've seen tons of complaints about Dell when the main offender seems to be MS since they're the ones who made the os and they are the ones that Dell has to work with to get updates out. Can Dell fix the problems right now on their own? Absolutely, but they actually have to wait for permission (and the digital stamp of approval on the software) from MS before they're allowed to release anything, although many of the complaintants I've responded to said that they had never bothered to contact Dell to let them know that there was a problem. The second point that bothers me is hardware complaints which should rightfully be directed at HTC. Did Dell agree to release product "x" when they knew about certain problems? Yes, but what choice did they really have when they, like many other companies, have to keep on the cutting edge to keep razor thin profit margins going while relying on other companies to supply them with product. Some of the blame does fall on Dell's shoulders, but what really concerns me is that their entire business can be threatened by the companies that supply Dell's product and give them a good faith guarantee that said product will not only work, but work well enough to warrant Dell placing their name on the product.
I really worry for the future quality of all handheld devices with MS and HTC at the wheel. What also concerns me is MS and HTC's power specifically, to make or break the companies that rebrand devices and use MS software. And every major company does this.
I own an x51v and have been extremely happy with it, but I do see some of the issues that others have run into on my unit as well, just like I saw some issues on the x50v I had when it first came out. I'm an early adopter so I expect a certain amount of problems with what I buy, but I also expect them to be fixed relatively quickly. From everything I've seen from Dell in the past, I believe they're working furiously to get the issues resolved, but I have to wonder how much MS, HTC and users that come here first to complain before putting in a problem report are slowing them down.
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Agreed - the market should make its dissatisfaction known when a product doesn't come up to snuff. Agree that a market-driven economy should work that way.
The sad thing about this, however, is knowing that Dell and MS are willing to release a product that is obviously so buggy. Pocket PC's are relativelynew to the market but they have been out long enough at this point to have become relatively stable. By the time WM2003SE was out it appears that the platform had really become quite stable. I'm glad I didn't jump on the upgrade bandwagon ... it's nice to have a device that just works when I need it.
The really sad thing about this is that it isn't just Dell and M$. The company I work for has much the same problem. We are pressured to get product out the door so the salesmen can have something that they have already sold! It's becoming less and less about producing real solutions and more and more about selling something to make the BMW payment with.
As a software developer of some 30 years I am constantly in a struggle with the "powers that be" over the concept of craftsmanship versus their insatious desire have more stuff to sell. The really silly thing about it is the management TALKS about "quality" but they want it NOW.
Remember the old adage? You can have it [good, fast, cheap] - pick any TWO. Apparently Dell and M$ decided on the last 2 this time.
I do think dell is at fault for misrepresenting the product. On the site its says its bluetooth 1.2 compatible...no astrick to show excluded it profiles. In fact scourage the website you will not find the information. Even dells sales people have been verbalizing this lie. If you ask them if the x51v supports headset profiles they will say ofcourse. This is untrue(not bc of a bug or user error) but bc it was never able to do it (wm5 can support it but the dell wm5 has all the registry and needed files deleted). In fact if you look at the bt test performed so that it can have the bt logo on it you will see it has no such profile support. Verizon got sued for less than this blatent lie.
I do think dell is at fault for misrepresenting the product. On the site its says its bluetooth 1.2 compatible...no astrick to show excluded it profiles. In fact scourage the website you will not find the information. Even dells sales people have been verbalizing this lie. If you ask them if the x51v supports headset profiles they will say ofcourse.
This is what I'm talking about. I have to wonder how much even Dell knows about this product since they had NOTHING to do with designing it. HTC designed the entire x51/x50 series inside and out and asked Dell if they wanted to buy the right to rebrand it. I really have a hard time blaming Dell since I doubt that they've even been allowed to look inside the pda. If you ever have a problem and they send you a replacment, the return label for the busted unit has you sending it directly back to HTC, not Dell. It seems like HTC won't let Dell know about hardware problems and MS won't tell them about software problems, yet it's Dell that's expected to take the brunt of the blame because they're the ones the customers can see. I like Dell, but I don't know if they can survive many more of their bad business deals.
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I agree and mentioned that very point, I went to the microsoft site to look for a place to complain but guess what they dont have one I am a member of a wm5 forum but microsoft probably never even looks at it
I completely disagree. To say that Dell should not take the blame because "it was not allowed to look inside the PDA" is incorrect. On the contrary, Dell shoulders the vast majority of the responsibility. Dell is responsible for ensuring that the product made for them is a quality product and whether or not it was directly made by Dell is not the point.
If you hired a contractor to do any large project and they subcontract part of the work out who do you end up blaming if the subcontractor screws up? Not the sub but the prime contractor because in the end, that is who you made the agreement with. Right?
I bought the PDA from Dell. I bought the upgrade from Dell. It has Dell's name on the PPC's and on the upgrade CD's. Consumers are going to blame Dell and rightly so... because in the end it is Dell's responsibility to make sure what they sell to us works.
Don't get me wrong, I really really love working with Dell compared to the other companies that have made me angry over the years. I don't have any ill will towards Dell at all, even in light of these upgrade problems. Now Apple, Toshiba or MSFT... well... that is different.
Originally Posted by motionmind
This is what I'm talking about. I have to wonder how much even Dell knows about this product since they had NOTHING to do with designing it. HTC designed the entire x51/x50 series inside and out and asked Dell if they wanted to buy the right to rebrand it. I really have a hard time blaming Dell since I doubt that they've even been allowed to look inside the pda. If you ever have a problem and they send you a replacment, the return label for the busted unit has you sending it directly back to HTC, not Dell. It seems like HTC won't let Dell know about hardware problems and MS won't tell them about software problems, yet it's Dell that's expected to take the brunt of the blame because they're the ones the customers can see. I like Dell, but I don't know if they can survive many more of their bad business deals.
Furthermore It doesn't matter who made it. If you are selling it, it better do what you say it does. Now if you infer it can do something but it really can't thats your own fault, but if they sell it to you saying it can do such and such and it can't then thats very much their fault. Lets say ford buys a transmission from company A. When ford sells the car to you they are offering you a workable car..its part of the agreement. If all the cars they sell fail bc of the transmission..ford cant just shrug and say oh its company As fault dont sue us. Ford will get sued(if they dont correct the problem) and surely lose(actually they would settle outside of court cuz they know they will lose). Stop making excuses for dell, it is fraudulant to sell something that doesnt meet the specs listed by retailer, it is the same if i paid them with a fraudulent check. So be fair, would you take my side if i wrote dell bad checks...no. Well dont take their side when they lie as well.
Lol...that's the second time I've seen a car analogy used in this exact discussion and it's still far too simplistic to apply. Dennisma makes an excellent point with the contractor analogy though. The only problem is that the contractor can sue the sucontractor and go get another one to finish the job. Dell has no such luxuries here. If they sued...their supply line immediately dries up and there's no one else to turn to to make the product for them and they certainly can't do it themselves. I do harbor a good bit of anger at Dell for not doing a better job at checking out their supplier's claims since it is their neck on the line (though some of my anger at this moment is from having to do a hard reset after installing a piece of beta software that took out my PDA :)) and their company's financial status has been in question of late, while HTC and MS can laugh at claims of shoddy products and still make money. Personally I'd like to see them all stand up and apologize and maybe hand out fixes and perhaps some rebate coupons :).
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