An old but good PDA: Dell Axim X51v

My Dell Axim X30 PDA finally died after 5 years of faithful service. So I picked up another PDA from eBay: a Dell Axim X51v. This was the PDA I lusted for back in 2005 when it was $500; these days, you can pick one up nearly new for $220.

And this time around I got a proper case (Sena) and a good screen protector (BoxWave Crystal—though I hear these scratch easily; the matte BoxWave Anti-Glare may be better).


Like it’s 2005: The Dell Axim X51v with Windows Mobile 5 (A12 ROM).

So I stayed up until 4am on Friday night installing software on the PDA:

1. Any necessary OS patches (for Windows Mobile 5 there are a lot)
2. Calculator (Calc98, free)
3. Photo viewer (Resco Picture Viewer, on Dell CD)
4. Shutdown dialog (psShutXP, free)
5. Wikipedia (860MB, free)
6. Text editor (Flinkware’s Made, free)
7. Loan calculator (MortgageCalc, free)
8. Timer/stopwatch (Simple Timers, free)
9. Screen dimmer (Screen Switch, free)
10. .cab file installer (CabInstl, free)
11. Temp-file cleaner (ClearTemp, free)
12. Launcher (iLauncher, $15)
13. Screen-capture utility (CapSure, free)
14. Video player (TCPMP with Flash plugin, free)
15. MP3 player (GSPlayer, free)
16. Unit-conversion calculator (ConverterCE, free)
17. PDF reader (Adobe Reader, free)
18. Ebook readers (Haali Reader, free; Microsoft Reader, free)
19. Password manager (KeePass, free)
20. File manager (Total Commander, free—check out its "virtual 2 window mode")
21. Notes (Tombo 1.17, free)
22. PIM (Pocket Informant, $20—already purchased for my old PDA)

Stuff I was tempted to buy, but didn’t:

1. Memory optimizer (MemMaid, $25—people find they don’t use it much)
2. System utilities (SKTools, $20)
3. Alternative keyboard (Fitaly, $30—I don’t think I type on it often enough to justify it. I may change my mind later.)
4. Backup (Sprite, $30—I used the trial to do a backup of the fresh system; if I need to do another backup, I’ll go ahead and purchase this.)