I just got an X51 to replace my week old X50. While there are a few things I like better about the X51, when compared to my X50, I'm quite disappointed in the X51. I am not a PocketPC expert, so if I'm missing something, please clue me in, but this has been my experience so far.
1. Stock X51 (no programs) is about half the speed of my fully loaded X50. There's a significant delay in opening menus and apps. Once you do any skinning (WisBar, etc.), then the delay is excruciating. What gives?
2. X51 comes with only 2 discoverable BT profiles (OBEX and Serial port), whereas the X50 comes with 5 (OBEX, Serial, File transfer, DUN, Network access). EDIT: The X51 does have DUN, but only when activated through the Connections settings. DUN is not discoverable. Where's File Transfer???????
3. X51 doesn't have the Bluetooth Manager making BT setups very difficult unless you have a PhD in Bluetooth (of course, there's only 2 profiles to setup anyways!).
4. What's up with the HUGE and very ugly Calendar and Contacts buttons (and other app specific buttons) at the bottom of the screen. And there doesn't seem to be a way to remove or style them. Why have them there if the Calendar and Contacts are ALREADY on your Today screen anyway? IE now requires you to select the HUGE MENU button to do anything, whereas before Home, Refresh, Favorites, View, Tools, and Back occupied the same space and could be accessed in one click instead of 2 or 3. Word offers two very deep menus whereas the X50 offered 5 very easy menus. In the calendar, you must cycle through the views, instead of just clicking the one you want. I foresee a class action lawsuit against MS for causing repetetive stress injury from all of us Axim users having to click so much. ;-)
5. ActiveSync 4 required Outlook to be the default e-mail program. If you use Thunderbird, etc., then you cannot sync notes, calendar, e-mail, or tasks.
6. OK and X still don't close apps (easily fixed with a task manager). Half of the time the options are confirmed with the OK button (top right) and half the time with the big ugly buttons at the bottom and some of the time this is done with buttons that appear just above the bottom bar (unless your keyboard is open and then they are covered). How about some consistency here?
7. When docked and connected, the X51 insists on starting up every few minutes.
8. No internet through BT when connected to ActiveSync. This means no BT internet -period- because the Network Access BT Profile isn't supported.
9. No WIFI syncing.
10. No file transfer through BT except through ActiveSync (which times out after 1 minute of inactivity). Again, where's the File Transfer BT profile?
11. The WiFi signal meter never reports a signal. It occasionally shows one bar when I set it between the antenna of my router.
Unless I can get at least a handful of these things resolved, I'll probably be returning my new X51 instead of my X50, instead of the opposite as I had anticipated.
All of the software issues will likely be the same on an upgraded X50. And not all of the things listed aren't bugs (though many appear to be) - some are just personal preference issues, oversights by MS, and my humble opinion.
The whole idea of using the softkeys at the bottom designed for smartphones w/o a touchscreen on a PDA with a touchscreen is stupid, IMHO. It makes sense on a phone, with the limited input options, and the general availability of buttons to push to actuate the functions. However, the GUI designer seemed to forget that on a PDA, the touchscreen is the primary input rather than the buttons, and menus can thus be easily implemented ...
i don't know...i really like my x51v...it's fast, vga is BEAUTIFUL. i love the screen, it's really sensitive which is a good thing. both my sony sj20 and my rx3115 had less sensitive screens and i wouldn't be able to use my fingers on them. but the x51v is great.
"11. The WiFi signal meter never reports a signal. It occasionally shows one bar when I set it between the antenna of my router."
the signal meter works fine for me.
personally, i like how they made the two buttons on the bottom which helps me use the device single handedly.
i don't mind using outlook....
i don't know, i really like the x51v apart from a couple of incompatibility problems.
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The point of the softkeys is to allow one-handed operations. Granted, they may be more useful if there were dedicated buttons, but one can map two existing buttons to them. When I get my x50v upgraded, I will have my buttons mapped as such:
[start] [left soft] [right soft] [rotate screen]
Of course, unlike smartphones software, many applications will still be very one-handed resistant.
As far as speed goes. Do you have it set to run at 624 or slower speed.
I have both my X50 and X51 set at Maximum Performance (520MHz). The difference isn't huge, as the X50 performs very well, but it the X51 is noticeably slower, especially in opening menus and apps. Once apps are open, they seem to run the same or perhaps slightly faster.
The main reason for the slowness in opening apps is due to the use of flash ROM as your primary storage device instead of RAM. Other than the chip being larger, I believe that it has the same specs as the x50v, which accounts for the speed difference. Hopefully in future models, all the PPC manufacturers will develop a faster flash chip.
As for other speed differences, I haven't noticed any slowdowns with WA2 (and I was using the pre-WM5 version up until I finished it yesterday). Granted, the start menu will be slow due to the reasons I stated above.
I have both my X50 and X51 set at Maximum Performance (520MHz). The difference isn't huge, as the X50 performs very well, but it the X51 is noticeably slower, especially in opening menus and apps. Once apps are open, they seem to run the same or perhaps slightly faster.
try to avoid large skin files and sounds with WA2. thats the best you can do at the moment.
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To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 10 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
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I've already mapped my x50v for single-handed operation. I use double launcher which lets me map up to 24 programs to the 6 hardware buttons. I'll have to get used to things once I lose two of my hardware buttons to the soft keys :(
I really hope someone finds out a way to get rid of the soft keys.
doesnt sound very good ... i wonder if the x50/v will have the same problems once "upgraded" to WM5
It will have the same "problems". All he just above said is relative to the OS. He is going to return his X51v because the X50v was a better machine. my question is... is he planning to upgrade the X50v to WM5?
I have both my X50 and X51 set at Maximum Performance (520MHz). The difference isn't huge, as the X50 performs very well, but it the X51 is noticeably slower, especially in opening menus and apps. Once apps are open, they seem to run the same or perhaps slightly faster.
You can't compare the speed of processes in RAM with the speed of processes in ROM. Guys these have been explained a lot of time in a lot of places. ROM is slower than RAM.
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