The X51v looks exactly like its predecessor, and most of its hardware is the same, too: a top-of-the-line 624-MHz Intel PXA270 processor, Intel's 2700G 3D graphics accelerator, a VGA screen, built-in Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, and Secure Digital and CompactFlash expansion slots.
Usable Flash memory storage on the X50v was limited to 128MB, but the X51v offers a maximum of 256MB. In addition, the X51v includes a massive software bundle of games and applications: nine games, including full versions of 3D mini-golf and car-rally games, as well as demos of other games. Other interesting bundled applications include a full version of the Battery Pack Lite utility toolbar and demos of Resco's File Explorer utility, SPB Finance, and Westtek's ClearVue document-reading suite.
The X51v has the same excellent gaming performance, sharp screen, and networking capabilities as its predecessor. Its built-in Wi-Fi networking works fine and now supports WPA security, though it's a little awkward to set up. Bluetooth is definitely for syncing, not for audio/video transmission or even file transfer.
Changes in performance stem from both OS and hardware changes. Windows Mobile 5.0 marks a dramatic change in how Pocket PCs address memory. Formerly, Pocket PCs split their RAM between space used to run programs and space used to store files. Flash memory served as a backup for larger or less frequently used files. This makes for a fast, responsive system, but takes its toll in battery life, as RAM needs a continuous trickle of energy to keep its data intact. Pocket PC owners therefore found (and continue to find) that once their battery ran out of juice, all their data and programs stored in RAM evaporated.
The Axim X51v has taken a new tack: It uses RAM exclusively for running programs and stores all programs and data in flash. This has greatly extended the product's battery life and means that data stays intact when the battery goes dead. But flash memory is slower than RAM, so activities that move a lot of data between storage flash and operational RAM— opening files or rebooting the device, for example—become slower on devices running the new OS.
Microsoft Word document rendering takes the biggest hit, because the new Word Mobile processes invisible formatting codes that the old Pocket Word ignored. We saw opening times on large Word documents jump from 3 seconds to 18 seconds or more, though navigating through the documents was very fast once they were open.
Video frame rates for locally stored DivX-formatted files in the Core Media Player were about 7 percent faster on the X50v than on the X51v, but playback of files stored on SD cards was about 3 percent faster on the X51v than on the X50v. Notably, playback of the same file from an SD card was about 9 percent faster than from internal flash memory on the X51v. This shows the impact of the new file system, but it is not nearly as dramatic as with Microsoft Word documents.
The new device struggled on SPB Benchmark's memory and file system tests (see results below). File writes to the default storage directory took three times as long as they did on the X50v, and reads took nearly eight times as long, because on older devices those reads and writes go to RAM, whereas on the X51v they go to flash memory. But SPB's memory copy test produced the same results on the two devices, because this test addresses RAM on both PDAs.We didn't notice any difference between the two devices in hand-timed trials with ClearVue PDF, Pocket Excel/Excel Mobile, or Pocket Internet Explorer/IE Mobile, or in the 3D games that came with both devices. And the X51v's video frame rates are still well above the 30 frames per second that the human eye can detect.
In exchange for a little patience, you get more power and better battery life. Where the old Pocket PC office applications only supported very basic formatting, the new Pocket Office is pretty good at reproducing more complex formatting in Office documents, such as for tables in Word, bulleted and numbered lists, and embedded images. There's also a PowerPoint viewer, which Microsoft didn't include before. Other minor but welcome improvements include a progress bar in Pocket Internet Explorer and support of Hotmail accounts in the e-mail application.
The X51v achieved more than 4.5 hours of battery life with wireless on—about an hour and a half longer than what we achieved with the X50v, although still well below the life of many other Pocket PCs, such as the 5 hours 46 minutes we got on the massive HP iPAQ hx4700. If we disabled the stepping down of processor speed and played a video in a loop, we got a little less than three hours, about half an hour longer than on the X50v under the same conditions.
The Axim X51v gives up a little speed to give you more data security, more battery life, and a better bundle of applications, all for the same price as the older Axim X50v. Even with hardware similar to that of the X50v, this device remains cutting-edge, with the most powerful processor, best screen, and best gaming performance available. We think that's a good deal, so we'll recommend it as the leading Pocket PC PDA of the moment.
SPEC DATA :
- Type: Pocket PC
- Screen Size: 3.7 inches
- Operating System: Windows Mobile 5.0
- Processor Class: Intel PXA270
- Processor Speed: 609.4 MHz
- RAM: 256 MB
- Networking Options: 802.11b
- Flash Memory Type: CompactFlash
- Bluetooth: Yes
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