Ok folks, here's my Axim Adventure.
On December 23rd, 2002. I made the decision to order the Dell Axim for my new PocketPC. Price and features were the reasons that drew me to my final decision. I wasn't going to buy another pocketpc and thought I could last a little longer with my Amigo PD600C unit. But I had multiple problems with batteries and intermitten hard resets with it that I was forced to look at another unit. When you're an 8 generation pda user, it's hard to kick the habit.
My confirmation from Dell came the same day as the order, then came the ETA email stating that the Axim will arrive on January 10th 2003. Ah well, I can wait.
New Years eve, we were going to spend it with my brother and his family. On the way out the door (5:30pm) my son noticed that a man was coming towards our house, it was the Purolator guy. I didn't know at first what he was delivering but it then clicked in. "No way" I said to my wife, it can't be.... yes, it was, my Axim had arrived, 10 days early! I thought to myself, great New Years eve present.
Of course, I took the Axim to my bros, I couldn't wait, plugged the Axim in before dinner and let it sit for about 4 hours. Took it off the cradle and started playing with it. It was awesome!
Problem #1: I did noticed one thing on my Axim, there was a white dot about an inch from the bottom in the middle of the screen, looked like a burnt pixel. *sigh, just my luck. Other then the white dot, which was hardly noticeable by my wife and brother there was nothing wrong with the Axim. I'm really really fussy about things like this, sometimes I think I'm have symptoms of the Obessissive Compulsive disorder.
I called Dell on January 2, 2003, Dell told me that this is not normal, apologized and a new one would be sent out.
January 3, 2003 - Purolator guy pulled up around 4:15pm with my replacement, couldn't wait, pull it out, charged it and did my restore. Everything worked fine.
Problem #2: After playing with my new unit, I noticed another problem, for some reason, on the top right corner of my Axim screen, it was less sensitive on the touch screen. I have to press a bit harder to get the screen to recognize. Called Dell, they ask if I can live with it then keep it, if not they will send out another replacement, guess what I asked for?
picky person that I am. Again, the Dell operated beautifully if not for this minor problem.
January 7, 2003 - Purolator guy showed up with new unit, not bad, I called the day before, again, one day delivery. Same thing, open, charged and play.
Problem #3: Ok, this time before I even turn it on, i noticed 2 things. 1. the dpad was off to the left side, sometimes when I press up, it sticks to the frame. Second, the Contacts button was down lower then the rest and slanted the slightest bit. It worked, just have to press a bit harder then the other buttons. Not acceptable in my opinion. Called Dell again, same procedure except this time, Dell had said that because of inventory shortage, this replacement would take a bit longer to arrive. Not a big deal, my Axim worked, just those silly little cosmetic problems.
January 23, 2003 - this one took over 2 weeks to arrive. Again, no big deal, I had a "working" Axim. Ok..open it, charged it, played with it. This one was good so far, not cosmetic problems, unit worked perfect.
Problem #4: After about 2 weeks of using this, I noticed something really strange. I didn't really noticed it until I read some thread in this forum about the horizontal scan lines that appear when you move the Axim. It's barely noticeable but again, for me, it's an annoyance. I'm picky, what can I say.
February 18, 2003 - Purolator guy came with my replacement, this one only took about 4 days to get here. Again, no prob, I had a working unit, just minor cosmetics. I'm charging this unit now and restoring the information back. So far, this new unit has no flaws that I could immediately see. The touch screen is perfect and the buttons are perfect. Crossing my fingers this time
Conclusion:
You're probably wondering why I kept exchanging it for a new one, most ppl would of given up by the third time. Well, a few reasons. My first 2 reasons, features and price. Dell's service was the other, their turn around for all my "defective" units were amazing with the exception of the one that took over 2 weeks. Again, not a big deal. For all the times that I had problems with my Dell were mostly cosmetic. You're probably thinking the "make" quality of the Axim's are inferior to their competition. I'm sure you're right in some respect. I have $600-$800 pocketpc's that were flimsy so I don't think it's just that. Don't forget, you are paying for a pocketpc that's pack with features for almost half the price of the competition.
IMHO, I think overall, the Dell is a solid unit. It feels good in my hands, the problems again I had were very minor and usually cosmetics. I don't think it would be fair to right off the Dells because of these small problems. As I said before, I am very very very maticulous when it comes to electronics, I like things to be perfect. I'm one of those guys that pick the bottom of the pile when shopping so that is is "untouched", i know...it's a nasty habit.
Then again, there are people here that has had NO problems with their unit. So it's hard to say. I've had an @migo, Ipaq, HP and Toshiba, none of these companies had the same type of "replacement" service that Dell had.
btw, I'm in Canada.
