REVIEW - x50v budget VGA out cable

DeMoBLiTzer · 06-16-05, 10:07 AM

UPDATE:
If you experience any broken pictures... etc on the review here, alternatively you can read the full review I've compiled on my own webspace here. Please post/PM me in the forums here (& not on my site in the given link) if you have any more questions regarding the VGA cable. Thank you.

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Well, this is my first post in the forum. :) Though I am very much a "guest" most of the time in the forum, I guess hey why not contribution a little to the axim community:

Review of budget x50v VGA out cable (PX50VA) from PC-mobile

As we all know, one of the main features the x50v has is the ability to output video (or mirror) its display onto computer monitors or projectors. Perfect for students like me offering presentations at school or projects. However, thats one of the main problems we dell consumers outside USA face- lack of accessory variety. Living in Singapore, literally all dell hardware here are limited to what Dell, Asia pacific (DELL AP) have to offer. As quoted by a Dell AP staff on the phone, "sorry, we do not stock the vga cable for Singaporean customers & it is so for all the Asia Pacific countries we are responsible for. However if you have relatives or friends staying in the states, you can get them to purchase it & ship it to you."

Darn! No presentations for me? so as I thought.

Then theres always the site pc-mobile offering third party alternatives. It came as a surprise- I didn't expect them to come out with x50v accessories as they usually specialise in handphones. Pc-mobile is a hong kong company, popular for notoriously adding a 3.5mm audio jack to almost any mobile handsfree in the market so that high quality headphones can be used for music instead, which I too, ultilise. (& a guess this site is widely discussed about by forum members here too)

Upon order, Airmail delivery took about 4 working days. The VGA cable is on the left, the cable on the right is an additional retractable USB sync cable I purchased with the intent for use on my axim as a PnP storage device for storing homework & stuffs.

Price factor
PC-mobile is retailing their version of the VGA adapter for $28.50USD compared to dell's official VGA cable for 79 bucks, a steal? maybe.

Built
The unit is relatively solid & well constructed, the male port which plugs into your axim is made from a very smooth light plastic (not rubberised like the dell's official plugs) and the metal connectors make a small rattle when shaked, giving it a kinda hollow feel, but otherwise ok.
(various photos pictured together with USB sync cable)

The retractable USB sync cable (PRX50) & VGA cable pictured togther.

Like dell's cable theres a seperate power plug where you can use to power your device during a presentation. Its a 5.4+v type port, so it charges your Axim even when its ON during your presentations.

Testing/video quality
Upon hooking up to my viewsonic VE155b test monitor, of course without using any third party software with mirror mode on (portrait) the monitor displays the PPC 640x480 screen centered on the monitor.

Adobe acrobat reader 2.0

One thing to note is that your PDA will run VERY SLOW with mirror mode on. Text input have delayed input response, together with menus. You need not have the vga cable plugged to experience it, just turn on mirror mode in your x50v settings for the feel.. laggy!

So this pretty much limits the x50v to basic PIM & the running of programs utilising very little processor load. No large screen gaming or doddling dudes!

DeMoBLiTzer · 06-16-05, 10:07 AM

Conduits Pocket slides/Pocket slideshow
The highlight of VGA out is presentations right? here how it looks like in portrait mode:

Strangely though, both pocket slides & slideshow are unable to detect any output in "settings", limiting me to a mere vga res out on the monitor.

However, with third party programs such as clearvue, you can range the output from 800x600 to even 1024x768.

Maybe someone who used the dell cable with clearvue can shed a light on this case. Can the cable be detected on your side too? I believe it should be the same (not detecable) as the cable serves to only transmit vga data to your monitor. Detection for Pocket slides, etc if I am not wrong is only for use with programs such as margi-presenter-to-go or generic VGA out cards which uses the flash slot instead where hardware detection is eminent for function.

BetaPlayer 0.096
Playing a test Xvid video at 30fps (400x300), strangely with intel 2700G decoder enabled, live video is only shown on the monitor, nothing on the x50v's screen. There is an obvious visible drop in frame rate, otherwise still watchable video. Selecting Xscale decoder option, yields opposite results. However, selecting the "Raw frame buffer" option allows me to play video on both screens, but with great reduction in frame rate & occasional freezes/jumps on the video.

You can download a test video I took (save target as, about 2.3Mb Xvid compression) in raw buffer mode. Though its captured at 15fps on my powershot, but you can more of less see the differences in PDA & monitor frame rates & the noticable long pause somewhere in the middle of the video.

Landscape Mode
This is when your monitor recognise the output from your PDA is reverting its display to 4:3 landscape VGA, thus utilising all the monitor screen estate:

Initially the picture displayed in the screen sticks out of the edges of the monitor with some of the right edges covered, this is so if vga cables/pins are of lower quality & they would distort/shew images formed on the screen. But as it turned out to be, my monitor image is just mis-aligned & an auto-adjust on the monitor pops the whole display back on center, showing all edges. Not a problem.

The missing PDA video playback is the same for Windows media player as well, only video is played on the monitor, but with relatively smooth playback. Guess processor load is too much to even render video on the PDA screen.

Powerpoint slides look excellent in landscape mode, though still in VGA-res output mode. As shown on this test powerpoint presentation file I cooked up in 5 seconds...

Adobe acrobat reader 2.0 in landscape mode

Battery Life
I guess that due to similarities & make of the pc-mobile's & dell official cable, battery life differences between them would be negligible in this case, even if you consider different quality cables & materials used. Battery life is tested to be approx 2 1/2hours on the 2200mah battery I am using from 100% charge to the appearance of the "main battery very low" message (4%)

Conclusiom
The plus point of purchasing dell's official buddle is the inclusion of clearview software, which allows you to output video at desired resolutions. Thats a software plus, hardware wise both products are very similar, with reference to this review. I guess price is the main selling point of the pc-mobile cable, being about 3 times cheaper. Furthermore I am sure there are other cheaper & alternative softwares to clearvue, which in turn allows any x50v user to unitise the power of vga output at a great bargain.

Hope you like the review.

Regards Shaun

psionandy · 06-16-05, 10:15 AM

Good review. I have the Dell cable and hardware wise it looks very similar. The clearvue software can also be bought separately should you wish to do that. It does allow the viewing of Microsoft office and PDF files at higher resolutions.

I don't think there are any other programs that can do this but feel free to prove me wrong.

Conduits also have a beta plugin for pocketslides that does allow higher resolutions although i have never used it.

I also disagree with the linked review which says it's impossible to do anything with the unit when mirror mode is turned on due to poor performance, I can and do. In fact when i was testing on a vga monitor i was seriously considering getting a BT keyboard and mouse and using it like a mini PC

Cracker of a first post though :approve:

06-16-05, 12:09 PM

Isnt there supposed to be a way to turn off the screen of the X50 to make the monitor more responsive?

06-16-05, 10:07 PM

Great review, and welcome!

Jukov · 06-16-05, 10:40 PM

Freakin' kool

06-17-05, 02:14 AM

Yeah, good review! :approve:

WLP · 06-17-05, 02:29 AM

Cool, throw those big PC away now! or give it to me haha.

DeMoBLiTzer · 06-17-05, 02:58 AM

Originally Posted by awdark

Isnt there supposed to be a way to turn off the screen of the X50 to make the monitor more responsive?

Yes, I guess there are programs out there which allows you to turn off the PDA screen & such. Such functions exist for more mainstream music players we see, like pocket player & pocket music.

However I think that function only serves to conserve battery right? If I am not wrong the processor will still draw images to the screen, thus using processor load as well. Its like, running your desktop computer on with your monitor off (i.e your graphic card is still working/outputing video) only its not displayed.

Mmm for specific programs which turns off the screen + render/drawing completely, that would be kinda neat. Had anyone seen such a program/ulti?

Jukov · 06-17-05, 03:31 AM

Originally Posted by awdark

Isnt there supposed to be a way to turn off the screen of the X50 to make the monitor more responsive?

Would Powercheck help??

biohzrd · 06-17-05, 04:42 AM

Originally Posted by DeMoBLiTzer

Yes, I guess there are programs out there which allows you to turn off the PDA screen & such. Such functions exist for more mainstream music players we see, like pocket player & pocket music.

However I think that function only serves to conserve battery right? If I am not wrong the processor will still draw images to the screen, thus using processor load as well. Its like, running your desktop computer on with your monitor off (i.e your graphic card is still working/outputing video) only its not displayed.

Mmm for specific programs which turns off the screen + render/drawing completely, that would be kinda neat. Had anyone seen such a program/ulti?

OK, when you go into Settings to turn ON mirror mode, you will see a nice little note that explains how to turn the Axim's screen off. It explains that you need to press power + the voice (i'm 80% sure it's the voice button) button, and it will only output to the monitor. YES, turning off the axim's screen during mirror mode does increase performance, immensely.

I played quite a few 3d games on a monitor at work (during lunch, of COURSE), and found that the FPS was wayyy too low with the axim's screen AND the monitor. Any other questions i'll gladly answer regaurding the video out, as i've used it for presentations and pretty much every possible way on a monitor.
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-edit- and no, you do not have to purchase another program to turn off the screen, in case I wasn't too clear.

biohzrd · 06-17-05, 04:44 AM

DeMoBLiTzer

all of your images are Red X's for me. any ideas?

DeMoBLiTzer · 06-17-05, 07:16 AM

Nope the images are appearing are on my side, maybe theres currently too much load on my server. Try refreshing.

CRXGSR · 06-17-05, 10:21 PM

They're working for me.

I think mod should make this a sticky, or PM Chris to put it in the Review Sections so we can always find it.

p1cturehause · 07-13-05, 11:22 AM

hi I'm new to this Vga out idea. what software and settings do i need to install to Start trying all the Stuff descibed this review?