Anybody still making VGA PDA's???

mmelgar · 06-05-07, 03:44 PM

With Dell's exit from thismarket I've started looking around for my future PDA. I use my axim for so many tings I can't imagine living without it some day. All the "smart phones" are extremely inadequate by comparison. The screens are not as bright and screen real estate is usually sacrificed to include a keyboard which I have no need for. MAny of the phones are also "locked" by the phone company limiting their fuinctionality. Palms PDA's all have inferior screens also. The Iphone is of no use to me since it does not allow the installation of third party software that I need to use.

It looks like HP has stopped making the 4700, and the Loox and Asus models seem to no longer be available either as far as I can tell.

Is this market dead or is there a company out there that is still making PDA's with VGA screens? I may just have to stock up on a few used X50's on ebay to keep in storage for the day my current one dies.

Thanks

mmelgar · 06-06-07, 02:36 PM

After getting no responses here I did a lot of searching ( who needs to work anyway?) and found one interesting prospect. The O2 xda Flame. If its been posted here before I appologize, but its the closest thing to the axim that I've found. It is a conversion device with a built in phone, 2 MP camera and 2GB of built in ROM. The one shortcoming is the lack of a CF slot and the use of a Micro SD slot instead of the more universal SD. Its also a little bigger and not quite as stylish as the axim, but you can't have everything.

Anyone have any thoughts on this as an acceptable replacment when our Axims finally give up the ghost?

Lomius · 06-06-07, 02:45 PM

The XDA exec is an awesome almost laptop like version of the x51v. I traded in my x51 and Samsung blackjack for the XDA exec and now wonder why I didnt trade it for this before. Oh yeah the PRICE when it first came out it was about 1k. Now you can find a brand new one on ebay for about 350 or so. It has WM6 on it now and operates EXACTLY like the X51V which I had for 2 years or so. it is 640x480 and has a comparable 520mhz xscale processor which runs great. I HATE the fact that most modern PocketPcs even by large companies are still using the sh@#ty god awful slow 220Mhz arm processors even on 640x480 devices effectively making gaming impossible...

The ETEN Glofish is absolutely gorgeous and has similar specs but no keyboard and the price is still up there 800-900$ YIKES.

Oh and both these phones can be unlocked for ANY sim carrier around the world.

I hope this helps. and wow I havent posted in this forum for over a year. HI!

rlarson_mn · 06-06-07, 02:46 PM

The HTC Touch is an interesting development also.

http://www.brighthand.com/default.asp?newsID=13082

Lomius · 06-06-07, 02:48 PM

BTW I mean the XDA EXEC NOT I repeat NOT the XDA ATOM EXEC 2 VERY different devices. I.E. search "XDA EXEC" on google or for that matter Qtek 9000 I-mate Jasjar, and HTC Universal are ALL the exact same device just different brandings.

06-06-07, 04:30 PM

Originally Posted by rlarson_mn

The HTC Touch is an interesting development also.

http://www.brighthand.com/default.asp?newsID=13082

Sadly, not VGA

macdog303 · 06-06-07, 05:13 PM

I would just stick to the x51v or x50v or just go for the laptop

mmelgar · 06-06-07, 06:47 PM

Originally Posted by macdog303

I would just stick to the x51v or x50v or just go for the laptop

Laptops are out of the question. They don't fit in your pocket, and I use this thing everywhere.

1) Epocrates software - drug database which I use at work all day
2) GPS - I use this pretty frequently in the car
3) MP3 player - daily use
4) Video player - to catch up on TV shows, keep movies with me on long trips
5) Podcast player - both audio and video podcasts
6) Picture viewer - mostly to share vacation photos with family and friends ( it was a great thing to have along at a recent college reunion)
7) Internet Browsing
8) Email when away from home
9) Keep PDF files of important medical articles close at hand
10) Numerous games for those times when we're stuck smewhere and the kids are getting bored
11) ebooks - I hadn't had a chance to read a novel in about 10 years until I got this thing. Now I've read about 2 dozen books a year and the whole library is always in my pocket.

I'm sure I'm leaving something out ( Oh yeah, contacts, callender Yadah, yadha), but my axim seems to be on almost as often as not. A laptop may be more powerful, but if its not with you it isn't much use.

I would love to keep my X50v, but now that they are out of production its only a matter of time before mine breaks ( i'm already on my second after my first crashed to the ground and shattered the digitizer. Replaced the digitizer myself and the second one cracked in my pocket) and it may be difficult to replace or buy parts for. The purpose of my original post was to see if there was anything out there that was comparable when that day inevitably comes. At least there seem to be some things that are close if not equal.

Long live our Axims!

06-06-07, 08:51 PM

I did get an O2 Flame and so far I love it. It seems to be what you are looking for but does carry a large price tag. It is about the same size as the x50v/x51v but feels a lot better in the hand. If you can afford it, go for it since it seems like you do get a lot of use from your pda.

Andy

SKwan · 06-07-07, 03:17 AM

Originally Posted by kor

I did get an O2 Flame and so far I love it. It seems to be what you are looking for but does carry a large price tag. It is about the same size as the x50v/x51v but feels a lot better in the hand. If you can afford it, go for it since it seems like you do get a lot of use from your pda.

Andy

Other than O2 Frame, we can consider Dopod U1000.

Dopod U1000:*buy an Dopod U1000 unlocked phone, Dopod U1000 accessories - cases, stlyus, sync, cradles

purcy · 06-07-07, 07:33 AM

Originally Posted by mmelgar

4) Video player - to catch up on TV shows, keep movies with me on long trips

Wow, and I thought I used my x51v a lot! May I please ask, how do you catch up on TV shows, I am very interested in this; also how do you format your movies? Thank you

psionandy · 06-07-07, 07:41 AM

Here's a useful list of what you can buy in the UK...

mmelgar · 06-07-07, 10:19 AM

Originally Posted by purcy

Wow, and I thought I used my x51v a lot! May I please ask, how do you catch up on TV shows, I am very interested in this; also how do you format your movies? Thank you

Tv shows can be transfered in 2 ways. I TiVo a lot of shows. You can then use Tivo to go to transfer shows to your computer and convert them using various programs ( I use Cucusoft because it can also convert to MPEG 4 for the kids ipods) to a format that you can use on your axim. I use Cucusoft to copy and compress all my movies to MPEG 4 also. You can also find places on the internet to download episodes of most shows already formatted for your device. Itunes has some but a google search will help you find torrent sites that have many others.

I use Coreplayer to watch videos on my axim since it will play MPEG4 ( H.264 )files. This way I don't have to have one set of videos for the video ipods in the house and another set for my Axim. Wndows media player won't play these files but core player will.

purcy · 06-07-07, 10:27 AM

thank you so much for the info. I already have and love TCPMP and have been using the PocketDivX encoder to transfer my .vid into .avi. I'll try to Google for some sites to catch some TV shows. Thanks!

NamelessPlayer · 06-07-07, 03:57 PM

There's the Sharp EM-ONE packing a PXA270, WVGA(800x480)screen, and an nVIDIA GoForce 5500 GPU, as well as 128 MB of RAM, 512 MB of NVRAM, WM5, a camera, a thumbboard(it's about time I find a decent X50v/X51v replacement with one!), HSDPA, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and a miniSD slot(not quite as preferable as full-size SD or SDHC, but at least it's not microSD).

I want to run Quake III CE on that thing, mostly to see how much of an improvement the GoForce 5500 is in OpenGL-ES apps. It just might be playable this time around.

Too bad that it runs for 800+ US$ and has a Japanese ROM, making it pretty much unusable for those of us in the Western hemisphere.

The O2 XDA Flame was already mentioned, and it would be almost ideal were it not for its crippled phone capability in the States(no 850 MHz GSM, and no EGPRS), microSD(there's more than enough room for a SDHC slot on that thing!), and its lack of a slide-out thumbboard(I don't like handwriting recognition or virtual keyboards all that much).

I have yet to find any other comparable devices beside those two...unless you can find another one with at least a VGA screen and a PowerVR SGX-or-GoForce-5500-based GPU.