1. Compared to the Fujitsu-Siemens Pocket Loox 718 / 720, the major advantage of the hx4700 is the sheer existence of a WM5 / WM6 / WM6.1 upgrade. On top of that, the larger screen, the quality magnesium casing and the faster CPU with a graphics co-processor greatly helping in playing back MPEG4 Part 2 (a.k.a. ASP / DivX / XviD) videos, on the long run, made it the winner (while this wasn't certain back in 2004-2005; the author of this article has also chosen, back then, the Loox 720 over the hx4700). Of course, it has had major problems compared to the Loox: the touchpad, initially, the higher price, the very low speaker volume (while the Loox has been one of the loudest ever PDA’s around), the lack of a camera (even if the one in the 720 isn’t anything to write home about, quality-wise) and the lack of USB host support. These problems, however, are easily mitigated by the really excellent WM6.1 upgrades released in the last few months. As the Loox isn’t upgradable to WM5, several current software titles (like Esmertec Jbed to run MIDlets like Opera Mini) just can’t be run on it.
2. It’s too better than the Dell Axim x50v/x51v. The Dell has vastly inferior battery life, much-much worse screen almost useless in Landscape for many users because of the major polarization issues, the plastic, thick body and the x50v WM5 upgrade having major compaction issues (as was the case with pre-WM6.1 hx4700 upgrades, though). The only real advantage, in addition to the louder buzzer, th emore gaming-friendly D-pad controller and (at least in the U.S.) lower price of the Dell is the Intel 2700G support, offering both excellent 3D hardware acceleration and great help in playing back ASP videos.

As promised in my previous article, I’ve taken a deep look at the latest Windows Mobile 6.1 upgrades for the Dell Axim x51v, HP iPAQ hx4700, HTC Universal and HTC Wizard. All the reviewed ROM versions are based on Windows Mobile 5.2.19209 (Build 19209.1.0.2). I run some VERY thorough SDHC conformance tests because, unfortunately, most (as far as the reviewed models are concerned, all – note that, in this regard, I haven’t tested the Universal) plain WM5 / WM6 devices can NOT be easily made SDHC-compliant. This means you MUST upgrade these devices to some of the newer ROMs (including the ones I’ve reviewed) in order to gain SDHC support. Note that I’ve devoted a separate section (at the end) to my test results showing the results of my trying to “hack” the non-WM6.1 ROM-based devices to accept SDHC cards with the latest hacks available.

After publishing my tutorial on the, then-current version 0.04 of Kokak’s excellent Pocket PC port of Doom offering 2700G (3D acceleration) support, DoomGLES/PPC, a lot has happened. The 0.5 series of DoomGLES offers a lot of goodies you MUST check out if and only if you have a Dell Axim x50v or x51v equipped with an Intel 2700G 3D accelerator by default. (Unfortunately, the brand new O2 XDA Flame, the, currently, only other Pocket PC to sport a 3D accelerator, doesn't run DoomGLES.)

Note that the changes & new features are NO longer implemented in the version meant to play the shareware version of Doom I. This means the latter can’t play back music and doesn’t offer for example Portrait screen orientation support.

(Doom 2 main screen in Portrait mode on my Dell Axim x51v)

Unfortunately, unlike with the shareware version (which comes with a pre-converted WAD file), you must manually convert your WAD files to both get a playable version and also to extract music. As this question generally causes a LOT of headache to Pocket PC users (some PocketGamer.org forum members even use the line “trying to convert wads for DoomGL” as their “favorite game”), I’ve decided to devote a full tutorial to the question. In the following two sections, I elaborate on this.

The first step is essential – without this, you won’t be able to make anything run. The second is optional and will only be needed if you would also like to listen to the original music while playing.

Converting WAD files

To convert the WAD files of your games, extract the main DoomGL ES file (with the current, 0.56 version, it’s DoomGLESB056.zip) and go to the Converter subdirectory of it. Copy doom.wad (and/or doom2.wad) in the same directory and start either DoomConvert.bat or Doom2Convert.bat, depending on whether you want to convert Doom I or Doom II. After some dozens of minutes (on my 3.2 GHz P4, it took almost an hour to convert Doom I and almost 1.5 hours to convert Doom II) of converting (during which the converter application will open a LOT of DOS batch windows), a newly created, OpenGLES directory will contain the converted data. You will need to copy the contents of this directory to your Pocket PC.

Converting music

Ever wanted to play Sony Playstation games on your Pocket PC? Ever heard of FPSEce, the only, high-quality and last but not least, FREE PlayStation emulator for the Pocket PC? I have some great news for you: after a LONG waiting, the new version is out - now, with (in Portrait mode only) VGA & some 2700G (Linear Frame Buffering to decrease the CPU load) support!

Dell, manufacturer of the Dell Axim Pocket PC series, has just released a minor upgrade for the x51(v) series. It’s available here for download.

http://www.aximsite.com/boards/showthread.php?t=140665

Bought my shiny, new Plantronics Pulsar 590A some hours ago, and, apart from finishing my latest Web browser-related article, I've jumped at it right away.

My initial impressions (after some hours of playing with the device):

When the first WM5 devices hit the shelves, people found them very slow to boot in compared to even the (compared to PPC2k/ PPC2k2 devices, which booted in after a reset almost instantenously) already "slow" WM2003/WM2003SE devices.

Fortunately, the situation has, in cases, dramatically changed with the later released ROM upgrades, which is best seen on the example of the HTC Wizard. All the measurements have been made on freshly hard reset devices without installing anything and just measuring the time it takes from resetting the device to opening the Start menu.

In the microsoft.public.pocketpc newsgroup, I’ve promised to look into the problem of the Dell Axim X50(v)/ X51(v) cradles frying up motherboards you can read more of here (a highly recommended thread – you may want to read at least the first post in there. Note that there are a lot of posts in there that are uncertain; therefore, it’s better to read my article first. In here, I tried to clean up and summarize everything worth knowing.). Note that there are two other, but older and less specific threads discussing the same question here and here. Note that there is another sticky AximSite thread here on a similar matter. It, however, only discusses third-party sync/charge cables and NOT the standard cradle coming with the PDA. Therefore, I only recommend the last thread if you’d like to purchase a third-party cable. If you don't, you won't need to read it.

First, all the (to my knowledge - if you have a newer cradle revision, let me know) three cradle revisions (the initial A00, A01, which started to ship around December 2004 and A02, which started to ship in July/August 2005) seem to have this problem – again, even the last (and, to my knowledge, still current) A02. (As far as the latest, A02 revision is concerned, see d00567’s posts on 09-25-05 and 09-26-05 here).

Dell states it’s a manufacturing defect. It’s pretty sad to see their quality control does not check for this problem.

Now, after publishing my roundup of capturing the screen of Pocket PC’s where I’ve also elaborated on the chances of capturing the screen of HTC Camera, I’ve received a question regarding doing the same with the great multimedia / video player TCPMP on Dell Axim x50v/x51v devices.

On these devices, by default, TCPMP playing videos can not be captured – the active video area shows the same symptoms as that of HTC Camera (that is, nothing can be seen on the capture, let it be captur

I’ve constantly been receiving requests (see for example this thread) to publish more and more power consumption measurements of current Pocket PC devices. Here you are :)

First, please read at least this article (if you haven’t already done so) to understand what this article is all about. I also highly recommend the other articles I’ve linked in from the Recommended links section.

Finnish Fathammer, developer of really nice titles like Toy Golf (review here; generic article on Pocket PC golf games here) has just released a Windows XP version of their vertical shoot’m up AngelFish for free.

I’ve reviewed the Pocket PC version of AngelFish and compared to the alternate titles for example here. I haven’t been particularly happy with the Pocket PC version because

1. it’s the only vertical scroller shooter on the Pocket PC that can not be controlled with the stylus, only with the D-pad
2. the graphics of the enemies, the explosions is far-far inferior to that of SkyForce (Reloaded)
3. the overall game experience is far worse than even non-top vertical shoot’m ups (for example, even the free GikaDiver (reviewed in the Roundup of All Pocket PC Games Part I) is much nicer to play because of the stylus support and the much more action)

Th PC version is the exact replica of that of the Pocket PC. That is, it can only be controlled by the cursor block on your PC and only has a 320*240 window (or uses this resolution in full screen mode - good old MCGA days -even if it was 320*200 only ;) ). However, for free, why not get it? ;) (Also make sure NOT to download it with a download accelerator - it caused me a CRC error in the ZIP file.)

(Note that this game is in no way the best free desktop Windows scrolling shooter. Check out Xenon 2000: Project PCF if you want to play a really-really good, commercial quality, freely available shooter! Note that I've also elaborated on this title in my above-linked PocketMatrix review.)

Now, for the second, even more important part:

2. 2700G-enabled (Dell Axim x50v/ x51v-specific) version of Stuntcar Extreme tested and compared to GeoRallyEX by IonFX

Now that I’ve started judging the Smartphone & Pocket PC Magazine Best Software Awards 2006 titles (including Stuntcar Extreme), I’ve thoroughly tested the 3D acceleration-enabled, already X-FORGE 2-powered version of Stuntcar Extreme, the company’s most widely known, excellent racing title (which is, incidentally, sold for 7 euros only in Europe right now, bundled with another, great 3D-accelerated game Enigmo).

http://www.smartphonemag.com/blogs/index.php?blog=3&p=1078&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1

Upon greatly expanding the Dell Axim x50v/x51v VGA output article published yesterday with, among other things, country-specific Dell availability / ordering info, I’ve run into something that may really appeal to European Dell Axim x50v/x51v users that don’t refuse playing some really nice 3D-enabled games.

The Dell Axim x50v and x51v models have a really decent feature: an Intel 2700G Graphics Processing Unit (GPU), which not only means great 3D (gaming, modeling) and 2D (pixel smoothing, video playback), but also VGA output capabilities.

Note that you can’t directly have analogue (composite / RGB / S-Video) output, as opposed to, say, consumer video and digital cameras or the latest multimedia smartphones like the Nokia N93 (latest reports here). You must buy a, mostly, pretty expensive separate VGA -> analogue converter if you want such functionality. Also note that you can't have DVI output either. The latter isn't a big problem though - there are cheap converters and all projectors/monitors with DVI input have VGA input too.

Also note that in this article I only discuss the most optimal x50v/x51v-based solution. If speed isn't that important and/or you can also use a notebook/desktop computer, some kind of TCP/IP connection or you are willing to buy a CF/SD VGA out card to display the screen of your PDA, you may also want to read this, this and this.

Unfortunately, Dell doesn’t ship a VGA output cable with these two PDA's – you must purchase it separately (this is in stark contrast with Nokia’s approach with their latest flagship phone, the N93, where the analogue RCA output cable is bundled with the phone – see the above-linked N93 report for some sample shots of all this.)

Right now, there are three VGA out connectors for the Dell Axim x50v/x51v. In this roundup, I elaborate on all of them.

First, the most widely known one is Dell’s own

http://www.softick.com/pocket-pc/cardexport2/

Earlier today, I've reported about the new, German x51(v) AKU2 upgrade.

In the meantime, I've checked Dell's driver / upgrade download page and found out that all the localized (Italian, Spanish etc.) ROM upgrades have been released, not just the German one.

For example, the Spanish version is

http://support.euro.dell.com/support/downloads/download.aspx?c=de&cs=dedhs1&l=de&s=dhs&releaseid=R129882&SystemID=PDA_AXIM_X51&os=PPM&osl=GE&deviceid=7643&devlib=0&typecnt=1&vercnt=5&formatcnt=1&libid=7&fileid=173097

http://www.sunbug.net/products/emul/PocketGBA.html

http://www.omnigsoft.com/products/2005/SpeedCity/SpeedCity.html