The Basics (continued):
The star of the show is pictured in the image below. The Dell Axim X5 may no longer be the latest and greatest PDA on the market, but the looks are modern and the features are quick enough and powerful enough to be taken serious. As shown below, the X5 has been customized with the "Fire" theme.
The silver housing of the Axim X5 features a 3.5" 240x320 touch screen display, situated just below a small power button and just above the main control buttons. A thumb pad style control button is centered between buttons dedicated to launching the Calendar, Contacts, E-mail, and Home pages (form left to right). The silver hemisphere in the lower right corner is the grill for the built in speaker.
The USB cradle is shown in the set of images below, and the chromed finish is one of the first things you notice. The small dome has a notch in the front for charging the fully assembled Axim X5, while the slot in the back allows a spare battery to be charged separately. The USB cable adds to the appeal as it is quite thick and long enough to be used comfortably with most desktop setups.
 
The carrying case provided is a fairly decent variety of synthetic leather with elastic sides that allow it to hold the X5 securely. The back features a plastic knob that receives a swiveling belt clip. Once assembled, the PDA and case are held securely to the belt clip, but a quick press of the button allows it to be released for use.
 
The below left image shows a Compact Flash and a Secure Digital flash memory card partially inserted into the available slots. As seen in the below right image, once fully inserted the cards are flush with the housing and virtually disappear.
 
The storage capacity can be greatly increased through the use of both of these slots, and as shown it has been upped by 528MB. In addition to adding storage, these slots can be used to add other functions, such as WiFi or GPS, both of which may prove useful on the Axim X5.
Key Screens:
As provided, the Dell Axim X5 runs Microsoft's Pocket PC 2002 operating system. Until recently, Dell provided an upgrade CD to the 2003 version, but now it needs to be sourced elsewhere. There are dozens of screens in Pocket PC 2002 that we could analyze, but we will take at a select few that may be of interest.
The below left image shows the System Information screen, which confirms that the processor is an Intel XScale running at 400 MHz, and that it has 64MB of RAM and 48MB of ROM. The ROM version, A04, indicates that this is running Pocket PC 2002, and a system with Pocket PC 2003 would display A05 on this line.
 
The screen shown in the above right image allows for the temporary re-assignment of the onboard memory. In general, the system manages this, but if you know you need to shift some space to a program from that available for storage, you can do so here.
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