X50 WM5 patch - Could Dell's delayed release be wisdom?
hi all,
Since Dell released the Axim X51 they have released 5 update ROM's, to A06 I beleive, however they have only released one ROM on the X50. Could it be that the original X50 ROM was a port some X51 ROM (as we know the hardware is very similar), and Dell are simply waiting until they are satisfied with the X51 ROM before going to the effort of porting it to the X50 again? If this were the case then they would be giving X50 WM5 users the stability of the X51, at least eventually anyway.
What do you think, is it possible, or are the X50 and X51 ROM too distinct to be related?
Since Dell released the Axim X51 they have released 5 update ROM's, to A06 I beleive, however they have only released one ROM on the X50. Could it be that the original X50 ROM was a port some X51 ROM (as we know the hardware is very similar), and Dell are simply waiting until they are satisfied with the X51 ROM before going to the effort of porting it to the X50 again? If this were the case then they would be giving X50 WM5 users the stability of the X51, at least eventually anyway.
What do you think, is it possible, or are the X50 and X51 ROM too distinct to be related?
X50v is an end-of-life product, will only be supported for hardware failure until all the extra warranties that were sold have expired. I doubt they are even working on an update, no profit to Dell, and it may force some people to upgrade to the x51v.
Since Dell released the Axim X51 they have released 5 update ROM's, to A06 I beleive, however they have only released one ROM on the X50. Could it be that the original X50 ROM was a port some X51 ROM (as we know the hardware is very similar), and Dell are simply waiting until they are satisfied with the X51 ROM before going to the effort of porting it to the X50 again? If this were the case then they would be giving X50 WM5 users the stability of the X51, at least eventually anyway.
What do you think, is it possible, or are the X50 and X51 ROM too distinct to be related?
I thought that exact thing for a while, but after looking deeper into the differences in the devices I no longer think that's correct. I'm even more convinced after hearing that the same problems are happening on the iPaqs that have been upgraded to WM5.
The major problem with the x50 is in the type of ROM memory it uses. It isn't designed for what WM5 does with it, so there's a bunch of utilities that run in the background to help bridge the gap. This in turn makes the device slow to a crawl, and I do not think that this will be fixed. The best thing Dell could do right now is to give refunds to those who bought the upgrade, and give those who received the upgrade for free a low-cost option to upgrade to a x51 (though not everyone would want this, the x50 running WM2003 is still better at some tasks).
__________________ Dell Support Rep on 1/12/06: Only a small number of users are having issues (WM5 on x50v)... Dell will be releasing (update for x50v) but it will not be soon.
The major problem with the x50 is in the type of ROM memory it uses. It isn't designed for what WM5 does with it, so there's a bunch of utilities that run in the background to help bridge the gap. This in turn makes the device slow to a crawl, and I do not think that this will be fixed.
So the ROM memory is fundamentally different from that in the X51? I never knew that, interesting.
Nevertheless there must be startling similarities between the architecture of the X51 and X50 and although they are not identical Dell could save a lot of time by doing a port of the ROM, if it is possible. I guess it might be possible to see signs of a port by comparing the original X51 ROM with the X50 ROM, using a bitwise comparison or more complicated method, but I think this would probably still be inconclusive
no because the major x50 problem doesn't exist on the x51....
(but also is present on the 4700)
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Not sure I would believe that. they continued to put updates out for the x5 long after they quit selling it and the x50 was already out.
and m$ still sends out updates for win 95.... so its not like either company would just kill tech support..... but, dude... if you still use ur x5, i think its time to give up... and get a new one
Yes, if you read the WM MSDN blog...it seems that compaction is a wm5.0 wide thing...every WM5 system has it.
Older systems which had NOR (aka ROM that reads fast writes slow) didn't have problems with wm2003...since ROM was simply used to read system files, and most users only kept essential programs & small files (PIM and such were in RAM) on built-in storage. So MS didn't put in compaction.
Now, since WM5, nearly everything is on ROM...means that defragmenting the ROM is essential. That's where compaction kicks in, and that's why every manufacturer is using NAND (write fast read slow).
It takes up to 2 seconds to compact a block on NOR, a few milliseconds to do that on NAND.
Do the multiplication.
IMO, Dell could fix some problems, but compaction and such core problems aren't really 100% dell's fault. WM5 was not designed to be purely installed on NOR.
So therefore, no-one's going to deal with that. Why do that when you could sell more x51's?
and m$ still sends out updates for win 95.... so its not like either company would just kill tech support..... but, dude... if you still use ur x5, i think its time to give up... and get a new one
Wife has the x5. She was using my old Casio E115 but it looks like it finally gave it up the other day. So instead of trying to sell the x it is now back in use.
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X50 WM5 patch - Could Dell's delayed release be wisdom?
