A very nice PPC

Author's Rating:

Pros: Ease of use, Internal backup battery, new OS.

Cons: not a pc

The Bottom Line: 
I think I would recomend it to anyone who wants a PPC. Easy enough to use, powerful enough for power users and everyone in between.

Author's Review
I bought my Axim about 3 months ago, upgrading from my Axim X5 which I bought when they first came out. I use my Axim for reading e-books, playing games, taking pictures with the Veo picture attachment, keeping track of appointments, surfing the web if my computer is unavailable for some reason and word processing when I am away from my keyboard. I wanted the best ppc I could get anyway though, because I know as soon as I compromise on any feature, I will end up wanting or needing it. I learned that when I bought my first computer years ago.

I really liked my X5 but there were certain things I could never get it to do that it was supposed to do. I gave up on these features after several hours of supremely unhelpful customer support from Dell and a great deal of frustration. The new features in the Axim X30 (which was sold as a X3i then) seem to have fixed these issues and added a great deal of speed and functionality.

The Axim I bought came with a charging cradle, the various cords, a standard battery and a program cd which contained a few full programs and a whole lot more in the way of trial versions. One thing I noticed right off was that this Axim, unlike its predecessor, did not include Microsoft reader which was a small inconvenience but easily fixed by a visit to the website. To make up for that, they did include the ppc version of msn messenger. Also, the travel sync cord cannot simply plug into the Axim like it did with its previous version. Another piece was required, but included. I have to ask myself, what is the deal with all the multi part cords? Even my Dell laptop has a 2 piece cord, but anyway I am getting off the subject.

I bought to go with the Axim, the Veo traveler camera, a rhino skin hard case, an extra battery with double the power of the standard battery, a keyboard and some screen protectors. I was super glad I had bought the extra battery as the power goes fast, especially if you as using the wireless. I highly recommend screen protectors and the super sized battery to anyone buying the new Axims. They are worth it.

The new Axims are much smaller in size than the clunky X5s but I think I liked the shape of the X5s better. The middle button is a bit stiff at first but it gets better. I do like the button arrangement. One of the other things they have changed is you no longer need a back up battery. It is internal and recharges when you recharge the Axim, if needed, and can sustain the memory for up to a half hour. (Of course you can’t use it during this time). Having experienced the frustration of losing everything on my ppc a few times I find this feature to be very helpful.

For a ppc this unit is super fast and easy to use. The processor is actually faster than my daughters laptop (an old dinosaur that has a p3 450) at 624 mHz and 64 mb of ram is nice. I miss the compact flash slot but I admit the no worries wireless more than makes up for it.

For my purposes this pocket pc is perfect. There are a few little things here and there that could be better but only if you compare it to a full sized pc. For what it actually is, I think it is the best on the market.