Whenever Dell releases a cool new product, it always seems to miss the Hong Kong market. Dell's first personal digital assistant, the Axim X5 came out a year ago but, while it did turn up in several small computer stores, it was never officially released here. So it was nice to see Dell choose Hong Kong for the release of its latest PDA, the Axim X3i.
More stylishly designed than its predecessor, the X3i manages to squeeze more features into a smaller casing, though not without making some compromises.
The first, and biggest in my book is that the X3i is designed to offer both Wi-fi and Bluetooth. The two standards are both marked on the unit's aerial, though Dell decided to drop the Bluetooth option at the last minute. Now Wi-fi alone will be adequate for many users, but I see many people every day using PDAs on the train, and no doubt most of them would like to access the internet via a Bluetooth link to their phones.
The device runs on an Intel XScale 400-megahertz processor, which is becoming the standard for Pocket PCs. It has 64 megabytes of Ram, which is less than HP or Toshiba offer in their high-end models, but then, this device is cheaper. However, there is a Secure Digital slot for additional memory, and the X3i comes with a free 128MB SD Card. With SD on-board, the lack of a Compact Flash slot is less of an issue.
The display is a respectable 65,536 colour, 3.5-inch TFT screen, displaying at an acceptable 240x320 pixels.
For audio, the Axim offers voice recording and playback on its built-in microphone speaker, but has outputs for stereo mike and headphones if you want near-PC quality.