Dell broke the price barrier on color PDAs this week with their announcement Monday of the Axim X5 PocketPC 2002-based PDA which starts at US$199 after a US$50 mail-in rebate.
The Axim X5 PDA is no slouch either, shipping with a 300MHz Intel X-Scale processor; 32MB RAM; a 3.5-inch QVGA 16-bit TFT color display; a removable battery; and both Compact Flash Type II and Secure Digital (SD)/MultiMedia Memory card slots. The second model is the Axim A5 which adds a 400MHz chip and 64MB RAM, 48MB ROM and a cradle for US$299.
Dell sweetened the pot even further this week by emailing a 10 percent off coupon to previous Dell customers effectively reducing the price of the Axis X5 to US$175.
In response, HP on Monday released two new Pocket PC devices – the low end ($299) IPAQ h1910 and the iPAQ h5450, a high-end device that integrates biometrics security, WLAN network access (802.11b) and Bluetooth wireless capabilities.
The main problem with these units is that PocketPC 2002 doesn’t integrate with the Mac OS making them an island for Mac users. Strike them off your holiday shopping list and splurge on the Palm Tungsten T or the Sony Clie NX70V instead.
