Entered CNET Catalog: 08/31/2005
SKU: 221-9720
Manufacturer: Dell, Inc.
Manufacturer description
The Dell Axim X51 is the ultimate handheld device that delivers style and outstanding features at an affordable price.Product summary
The good: The sleek Dell Axim X51 series boasts Windows Mobile 5, integrated Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, dual expansion slots, and a user-replaceable battery.
The bad: With its less-than-stellar battery life, the Dell Axim X51 didn't perform up to our expectations.
The bottom line: The Dell Axim X51 series offers a nice combination of features, but we were disappointed by the subpar battery life.
Editors' review
- Editors' Choice: No
- Reviewed on: 11/16/2005
The star attraction on the Dell Axim X51 is undoubtedly its 3.7-inch VGA screen. Thanks to a 640x480-pixel resolution and a 16-bit-color output, you'll enjoy sharp text and images, and there's continued support for landscape and portrait modes. Below the display are your standard shortcut keys to Calendar, Contacts, Inbox, and Home, plus a four-way navigation toggle with a center Select button. Although we criticized the Axim X50 for its diminutive toggle, by now we're used to it, yet we still caution users with bigger fingers. A speaker, a power button, and a status LED line the top edge of the PDA's face.
It's easy to access many of the Dell X51v's features with a click of a button. Aside from the aforementioned shortcut keys on the front, there are two buttons on the left spine that activate the voice recorder and wireless connection. There's also a hold button, which is always appreciated, since it prevents any unnecessary battery drain if the device is accidentally turned on. On the top of the Axim X51v, you'll find a 3.5mm jack that accepts Walkman-style headphones, dual CompactFlash and SD expansion slots, and the stylus. The handheld's battery is user-replaceable, and you can swap out cells by unlocking the sliding battery-release lever on the back.
Dell provides all the basics to get you started. Accessories in the box include a soft protective case, a desktop-synchronization cradle, a power adapter, and a companion CD. The cradle has an extra slot for charging a second battery, which is nice. A high-capacity cell is available for $99 and promises to double battery life. Other optional accessories are available, such as a GPS navigation system (Bluetooth or wired), a Bluetooth keyboard ($99.95), and a presentation bundle ($49).
The Dell Axim X51v's biggest makeover is in the features department. Some elements remain the same, though, such as the 624MHz Intel XScale PXA270 processor and the Intel 2700G graphics engine. Also, there's still 16MB of dedicated video memory and 64MB of SDRAM, but the really good news is that Dell bumped up the flash ROM from 128MB to 256MB, 192MB of which is user-accessible. This, coupled with the dual expansion slots, amount to ample storage space. Another thing that helps is the addition of the Windows Mobile 5 operating system. The new OS has built-in support for persistent storage, so when the battery drains completely, your data remains intact.With Windows Mobile 5, Microsoft also swapped out Pocket Word and Pocket Excel in favor of a new Office Mobile Suite that includes Word Mobile, Excel Mobile, and PowerPoint Mobile. Yes--PowerPoint. Although you can't edit slides, you now can view presentations right on your PDA. We gave it a whirl, and we were impressed not only with the ability to watch slide shows but also with the various options. You can skip directly to specific slides, change the orientation, and choose playback options, such as loop, turn off/on animation, and zoom in/out. The last option is particularly handy, since a thumbnail of the slide is presented in the lower-right corner of your screen. What's more, you can choose particular spots on the page to zoom or automatically go back to the full slide. Unfortunately, these tasks seemed to take a lot out of the Axim X51v, as there was a noticeable delay in response time (see Performance). As for the other applications, Word Mobile now supports documents with embedded images and tables, plus Excel Mobile handles charts. We put these applications to test, and while the experience was not ideal, given the size of a PDA's screen, we were able to open and view tables and charts in all our documents.
On hand to sync your PDA with your PC is the updated ActiveSync 4. It allows for easier and faster synchronization, but be sure to pay attention during the installation process. You first must install ActiveSync 4 from the companion CD before ever connecting the Dell Axim X51v to your PC; otherwise, the wrong driver will load, and your computer will not detect the PDA. Also, there have been a number of reported problems with ActiveSync 4, such as partial synchronization and dropped data transfers--Microsoft will issue an update in late November to resolve the problems. In the meantime, you can find troubleshooting tips and more information on Microsoft's Web site.
If you're wondering about the Dell Axim X51v's multimedia capabilities, here's the dish. The Pocket PC still features Windows Media Player 10 Mobile, so you can listen to your favorite WMA, MP3, and WMV music files and view album art. Plus, Windows Media Rights Management 10 gives you access to audio and video content from subscription services, such as MSN Music, Musicmatch, Napster, and Wal-Mart Music Downloads.
The Dell Axim X51v comes with built-in Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, which can run simultaneously. As mentioned before, you turn on the wireless radio with the shortcut key on the left spine, but you are now required to press the button twice--once to turn it on and once to confirm your selection. The status LED will blink blue and green to let you know wireless is on, as will two icons--signal bars and the Bluetooth logo--that appear in the lower-right corner. The Axim X51v comes with the Bluetooth 1.2 stack, so now there's support for more multimedia accessories, such as stereo Bluetooth headphones. You can check your Wi-Fi configuration, network strength, and more via Dell's WLAN Utility.
While the Dell Axim X50v didn't impress with its lackluster software bundle, the X51v is a completely different story. The companion CD comes with a plethora of useful and fun applications, including Battery Pack Lite, Calligrapher, Resco File Explorer and Picture Viewer, and eWallet. We particularly liked Battery Pack Lite, which installs a handy toolbar across the top of your PDA's screen and displays your battery life, memory status (internal and expansion card), and screen brightness. It's nice to have all this information immediately accessible, rather than having to go through various menus. The X51v also continues the tradition of being packaged with a gaming bundle; titles include Geo Rally EX and Toy Golf.
Overall, we were disappointed by the Dell Axim X51v's performance. It scored below our expectations in CNET Labs' tests, but that said, we're finding this to be a common problem with all the new Windows Mobile 5 PDAs. This may be in due part to the more demanding operating system and unchanged processor speeds from previous models. The PDA responded sluggishly to taps of the stylus and lagged when multiple applications were running in the background.Also, while the new and improved battery-management feature of Windows Mobile 5 supposedly lengthens the battery life, this wasn't the case for the Dell X51v. Playing a looped video clip with all wireless off and the backlight set to high, the X51v lasted only a little more than 4 hours, which isn't bad but is definitely not spectacular either. By comparison, the Dell Axim X50 and the HP iPaq hx4700 lasted an hour longer. However, since our tests are designed to drain the battery in the most intensive way, this score translates to about 7 or 8 hours of real-life usage.
The news isn't all bad. The Dell Axim X51v offers a great 3D look with beautiful icons, menus, and buttons. Plus, it offers great wireless performance. Its built-in Wi-Fi and Bluetooth worked flawlessly in our tests, and we were able to connect access points and Bluetooth-enabled devices with ease.
Performance analysis written by CNET Labs project leader Dong Van Ngo.
User opinions
Select a User Opinion to view: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34out of 34 user reviews
No company support
Pros: I used it for a while after buying it back in 2006 or so and it worked fine.
Cons: I think I bought it around 2007. It is now 2011 and I tried to resurrected from storage. When I put it in storage 2 years ago, it was working. I bought a new battery, charge it and now, it will not turn on. When I went to the Dell website, an old forum sa
out of 34 user reviews
The best handheld...hands down...
Pros: Too many to list...Windows Mobile5, Skype compatiable, GPS, tons of add-ons
Cons: Dell is Axing the AXIM...Support ending soon
out of 34 user reviews
Really very poor - lets Dell down badly
Pros: Lots of features, resonable price
Cons: Wifi poor, Active Sync unreliable, battery life c.1 hour, Slow startup
Out of the box the WIFI was almost unworkable and the O/S had a bug which resulted in CF cards slowing or hanging the machine altogether. The PDA often hung up and would take up to 5 minutes to boot. With intensive use the standard battery lasts an hour or so.
Over the last 18 months I have installed various patches, event notification fixes and so on. This has meant re-installing everything innumerable times.
The current situation is that I have a machine that is rather slow, flaky when presented when I try to change WIFI hosts and which has lousy battery live. (about an hour when used with WIFI, or for continuous use with Tom Tom and a bluetooth GPS).
The best bit about the X51V is the screen, and with the supplied terminal services client I can run a workable remote session to one of our servers. This way I can use internet and email in a much more workable manner than with the supplied client software.
As others have commented Dell’s support is very poor. There is no way that this should have been sold as it was supplied, I can’t believe Dell could have been un-aware of the issues with the product they were shipping.
This thing can’t take all the blame, but it is indicative of why my company no longer buy Dell and I no longer advise my clients to go the Dell route.
out of 34 user reviews
Gave it a fair try, but was not impressed
Pros: Nice display, seems to be well-built
Cons: Software integration
I found the device easy to use and quick to learn thanks to the Windows interface. But that's where the praise ends, I'm afraid.
I primarily use a handheld for PDA functions as well as for Microsoft Money and a few Excel spreadsheets. I'm not here to bash the Windows Mobile OS or Dell, I just wanted to share my experience and explain why this device simply doesn't suit my needs (I have since gone back to the Palm OS - Tungsten E2 - which I LOVE).
1. Tasks that were updated on the Axim often times did not synchronize with Outlook on the desktop.
2. I didn't care for the fact that the ActiveSync automatically re-synchronizes on its own as long as the Axim is connected. If there is a way to disable the automatic activesync, I didn't find it.
3. With the Pocket version of Money, you can't modify an existing transaction. I also read (not confirmed, though) that Money 2007 would not be supported on the Windows Mobile platform.
4. The most frustrating issue was with the Excel spreadsheets. I maintain a simple spreadsheet on my computer for my monthly budget - nothing fancy, or so I thought. Apparently, the Pocket version of Excel does not support headers and footers, so when I synchronized with the Axim, the headers and footers were stripped out of the desktop file. In addition, the font mysteriously changed from black to white, so none of the text was visible on the handheld.
Granted, there are probably workarounds for these problems, but since these are the primary functions I use, they were not acceptable. None of these problems exist with the Palm OS. I was totally shocked with the Excel issue since it is a Microsoft product on both platforms. But the Documents To Go software that came bundled with the Palm works far better and seamlessly than the Excel on the Axim.
So, I hope this helps anyone who uses a PDA for similar functions. I would like to replace my handheld and cell phone with a Smartphone, but I most definitely will not be doing so with a Windows Mobile device.
out of 34 user reviews
Piece of crap. Got it 6 months ago, Returned once. Has never worked.
Pros: Hmmmm...can't think of anything
Cons: Charger, battery, memory consumption, cusotmer service
out of 34 user reviews
excellent PDA
Pros: WM 5.0 and wireless connectivity very good
Cons: battery life not too good
out of 34 user reviews
Worst PDA I've Ever Had
Pros: None that I can see
Cons: Big, Clunky, Slow, Horrible Bluetooth, Mult Resets, Tech Support is Clueless
First of all, the unit is huge by today's standards (my Ipaq 4100, which is three years older is nearly half the size and twice as sleek). Second, the new OS is slow as sh*t. It takes forever to boot up and nearly as long to launch an application. To me, this slow boot time destroys its functionality as a PDA. Heck, I may as well be using my laptop (at least that boots up in a moments notice when on standby). The OS is also unstable (80% of the time you can't turn it on unless you do a soft reset.. which doubles the boot time). A way around this is to activate bluetooth (for some reason it turns on if bluetooth was left active before it is turned off). However, the unit will often disable bluetooth on its own and you'll find yourself stuck having to reset in order to turn on the PDA.
Avoiding a power-on reset, is the only functionality the bluetooth stack seems to have. On my prior PDA, the bluetooth functionality allowed me to send and receive contacts with my cell phone, dial the contact number through bluetooth to my cell phone (which was priceless when driving as I wouldn’t have to key in the phone number to make the call), use my headset with the device, and use my wireless bluetooth keyboard. The Axim's bluetooth stack will use a wireless keyboard, but offer no other functionality.
This is definitely a step backward for me. My prior PDA (which is 3 years older) is more advanced than this piece of garbage (and cost less than half as much).
I never liked Dell's products or support, but took a chance after reading reviews like the one posted, only to firmly regret my decision.
I called Dell's tech support to find out if they are ever going to offer usable bluetooth, only to find that they didn't have a clue as to what I was talking about and instructed me to reload my the ROM OS (which would have been a major project with no difference in performance as Dell has yet to write a OS ROM upgrade with the usable bluetooth stack).
Since getting this unit, my productivity has taken a free fall to the bottom. These days I find myself using my older IPAQ 4100 and using the Dell only for hooking to my GPS.
I'm not crazy about HP either, but you are crazy if you buy a Pocket PC made from Dell rather than HP.
Oh, one more thing. If you’re lucky enough to turn on the unit without doing a soft reset, the first thing that comes up 50% of the time is an error informing you that the battery door is open (even though it is closed and secure). Once this error comes up, the PDA powers down and you must reset it anyway... DONT GET THIS PEICE OF JUNK!
out of 34 user reviews
Good Costumer
Pros: Great screen really fast Processor and adjustable ,Great Laptop replacement For business
Cons: Nothing That product is a piece of art !!!! Beginner must Read correctly before using that product !!!
out of 34 user reviews
Don't buy this product. Dell really fell flat on this product.
Pros: Good PDA in functionality as PDA only.
Cons: Blue tooth connection to its own GPS is bad
out of 34 user reviews
Released Too Early. Not worth the $$$ at all!
Pros: VGA screen +Battery life and that's it!!
Cons: The worst bluetooth support ever!!!!!! and more!! Buggy
handhelds. I had the Axim x30 (624mhz) and sold it in order to buy the x51v, I sincerly regret doing this because i think the x51v is a downgrade as far as performance and ease of use. The x51v has all sorts of buggy issues with it, dissapearing CF card, White screen of death when turning on, EXTREMELY LIMITED BLUETOOTH SERVICES!!! and the Dell techs on the phone are complete retards and are no help at ALL!!!! The Dell tech support personell know very little about the products that they are supposed to be experts on. The techs just read flow charts. Dell is quite aware of all of the problems with their best handheld and have done almost nothing to fix the problems with this overly buggy device. That is except to continue selling them to misinformed consumers. Screw you Dell, you have lost me as a customer for good.
out of 34 user reviews
Much more suficticated than Palm and has excellent wifi
Pros: x51v has great graphics and sound quality, fast internet
Cons: batterylife-improved if you buy the higher compacity battery
out of 34 user reviews
nice machine
Pros: fast and nice screen
Cons: questionable Dell support 1 yr down the road
out of 34 user reviews
I love this thing!!!
Pros: Most sleek, high performance PDA out there
Cons: Somewhat short battery life, but mainly only with using internet.
out of 34 user reviews
Nice screen, simply to use, prephaps too simple. Not thoughfully designed.
Pros: Simple buttons layout. Wifi & Bluetooth, solid performance.
Cons: Bluetooth Headset cannot be used. Low features. Always have problems.
***Dell's customer service is very good, however, if there is no problems with their product, I don't have to get service support!
out of 34 user reviews
DO NOT BUY ONE !
Pros: tech support I suppose
Cons: Just plain junk
The main alarm cranks out a whopping 2 decibles! You will never hear it if you have a hard case and it is in your pocket or in a mildly noisy environment.
Dell boasts that it has a 520MHz processor and blah blah blah with the RAM and Flash RAM and blah blah blah it is suppose to be fast or something. Here is my take on that one. My Palm m515 (6 years old) blows the x51 out of the water in speed.
Yes yes, I downloaded all the updates and RAM updates, etc. and let me just tell you, you can't polish a turd! I am now trying to buy a good used x50 that uses Pocket PC 2003 OS. Being that this is the exact same unit as the x51 (dell will tell you different) but without the problems, or so says my cohorts that own the x50.
If you buy one, prepare to be frustrated, pissed off, and the feeling of being had. You could not give me a x51. It would make a better bath tub boat for a 2 year old!
Kudos Dell for tricking public into believing that this is a powerful desirable product.
out of 34 user reviews
The only thing worse than its battery life is its tech support
Pros: Nice display
Cons: Bad battery life, very buggy software, extremely slow
Avoid the Axims the software is bad, the battery is horrible, and the support is worse than you can imagine.
out of 34 user reviews
an amazing pda
Pros: cheap, all the good features of a pda
Cons: low resolution screen, wifi can be a littly laggy sometimes
like tcpmp
out of 34 user reviews
Slower than my X5
Pros: Beautiful screen
Cons: Slow, unpredictable, frequent lock-ups
It is an understatement to say I was disappointed. I returned the x51v and went back to my x5. I still want to replace it, but am unlikely to buy another dell.
out of 34 user reviews
Good hardware; hate the software- going back to Palm
Pros: Looks great, lots of great features
Cons: Windows Mobile is terrible
out of 34 user reviews
Piece of Crap
Pros: Nice Shiny Display
Cons: Battery life, stability, speed, performance, etc , etc
The battery life is abysmal. Charged it up, turned it off, flew cross-country to California, turned it on and there was 10% battery life left. What's up with that?
Also, I have to perform a "hard reboot" nearly every time I turn it on. Major pain in the buttocks!
I bought the fastest processor offered, and the speed is horrible. It takes 1 minute to load my epocrates application.
ActiveSync - works about 33% of the time.
The WiFi comes on randomly and saps your battery - even when the device is turned off and the "button lock" is activated.
DO NOT BUY THIS PRODUCT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
If you want mine, I'll pay you to take it off my hands!
out of 34 user reviews
Awesome PDA -
Pros: Compact, Powerful, Two (2) Card Slots, Great Community
Cons: Battery Life could be Better, Weak Support
out of 34 user reviews
One pain after another
Pros: Fast internet access
Cons: Too many bugs
out of 34 user reviews
much less then I expected...a step back
Pros: good color & screen, nice design
Cons: battery life, quality of unit, wireless capability
out of 34 user reviews
Geez, Was I a Sucker or What!
Pros: Pretty screen.
Cons: Frequent crashes, incompatibilities, heavy,
out of 34 user reviews
Deserves a better rating than what is given here.
Pros: Good Display, quick processor, I'm a medical student & I use it for drug databases like epocrates. Also, it helps keep me organized.
Cons: With a 600 megahertz processor it would be nice to upgrade from windows mobile 5.0 to a full xp version.
out of 34 user reviews
I Never Had A Pocket PC
Pros: Nice little thing
Cons: havn't found anything yet
out of 34 user reviews
A really great product
Pros: Great video
Cons: Keeps losing connection with stored programs on CF card
The Resco utilities package also keeps turning on the Activesync, which causes the Axim to turn on by itself, and run the battery down.
out of 34 user reviews
Dell Axim x51
Pros: Good Video, Audio and Gaming, Battery Works great
Cons: The USB Travel Cable
out of 34 user reviews
Go with another Brand than Dell
Pros: After this experience no 'Pro's'
Cons: Defective product and poor Dell service.
out of 34 user reviews
Go with another Brand than Dell
Pros: After this experience no 'Pro's'
Cons: Defective product and poor Dell service.
out of 34 user reviews
A truly usable Windows PDA
Pros: Persistent memory is a God sent, long over due. Now PDA is really a handheld PC.
Cons: Still crashes quite a bit, mainly caused by third party programs, should improve overtime.
In any measure, this is a major improvement over the old OS and should be considered by everyone that really wants to use PDA for serious stuff on the go.
Oh, I forgot to mention that the Switcher Bar is an excellent utility and can be easily placed on the top of Today screen by cut and paste of the program to the start up folder. Once done, all programs can be terminated in one touch. This makes X51 almost as usable as a Windows 98 PC and it's tiny enough to fit in my pocket. Love it!
I gave it an 8 because it is still not very stable and it still cannot edit PowerPoint files. Also reading a technical paper in PDF is still a pain. Hopefully Adobe will have a better version for WM5 soon.
out of 34 user reviews
Good Product Not ready for Prime Time
Pros: Excellent Web Surfing, Good user interface, Nice sound system
Cons: Difficult to Sync with laptop
I would suggest buying this product in a few months once the software bugs are worked out. Right now, you might end up wasting 3-4 days trying to get it to work.
out of 34 user reviews
Good Product Poor Support
Pros: Solid PocketPC
Cons: Lack of Support
My first complaint is that my product did not come with a power cord. Instead of calling customer service, and probably not getting one for a couple of weeks, I used one from my old iBook (which works wonderfully).
My next complaint is the ActiveSync. For some reason (after about 4 hours) I couldn't get the PDA and my PC to talk. I called tech support (who spoke broken English) and after almost 30 minutues Iwas asked about a .dll file which was needed in my System 32 directory. For some reason I did not have this file and when I looked it up on the Internet it showed that this file is specifically associated with ActiveSync. After 4 hours, and about 10 reinstalls, not once did the software install the **needed** file specifically for ActiveSync. I found the file online and got it up and running within 5 minutes.
This is more of a Microsoft complaint and not so much Dell.
PROS: The newer OS is much improved (I use Word and Excel quite a bit).
CONS: Would like better support from Microsoft regarding their software and tech support employees that speaks understandable English. Quality control to ensure that all components are packaged with the product.
out of 34 user reviews
This device improves your life!
Pros: All features of top model except higher speed and VGA display
Cons: No scroll knob so it's not as easy to use with 1 hand
The OS is closely tied to the MS Windows and MS Office suite. So if you use Windows machines and Microsoft Products like 99% of the computer users, this PDA is like an extension of power from your software. I think all computer users in the world should have one of these. Especially since it’s so inexpensive compared to other brands retail.
The Wi-Fi is good for updating mobile news type content, like Advant-Go (i.e. weather, headlines, etc.) wherever you can tap a free hot-spot or ehem...someone's "open network", which are all over the place in a dense metro area. Best of all Advant-Go gives you limited FREE membership. You only pay if you want more megs of download. You also can move files around with your connection if you have a wireless network.
You can record sound too as part of your “audio notes”.
Bottom line is that this tool will enhance your productivity greatly. If you want to be more effective in life, whether it's occupational or personal, even for your hobbies, you need this device. We waste so much time due to forgetfulness. Like…I never went to the supermarket twice for the same thing since I used PDA’s. This even amazes friends and children because you can play games on it! I've never thought that people would get so much enjoyment out of Bubble Breaker! IMHO, the whole world should have PDA's. It would make life so much easier for all of us.
One thing I’d like to point out is that if you have a desktop firewall, you might need to configure it to allow the PDA to sync. Unlike Activesync 3.8, this 4.0 operates with some networking principles apparently. I had to call Dell support to find this out so hopefully reading this will save you the trouble…and Dell the money so they keep products cheap for us.
http://www.aximsite.com/boards/showthread.php?t=112638
Before you exchange your PDA 5 times, and call Dell support 10 times, read this. This appeared to help my PDA (presently Windows Moblie 5.0 version A05) and supposedly, is the general solution to power problems like that described by all the people here who couldn't get theirs to work. This writing is as-of A05...which seems to have not fixed it yet. The problem lies in the PDA's "internal Activesync" and has to be modified to avoid the power/crash problems. Hope this helps.
