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[bionic77]

My sisters just got me a Dell Axim x50v for my gradation present. It seems pretty cool but I have no idea what I should do with this thing.

Can I watch Divx moves on this thing and if yes do I need to reencode them? What is a good program to encode dvds and divx files to watch on the PDA screen? Will it look good?

Any other programs that my fellow GAFFERs can suggest?

This thing takes both CF and SD cards. I am probably going with SD so I can use the CF slot for an accessary if I want to later one. Does the speed of SD cards matter? If not I will just get the cheapest 1GB card I can find on Newegg.

Finally, for experienced PDA users what exactly do you use these things for? Is it mainly for portable entertainment and to keep track of your appointments and contacts? I have pretty much used my phone to keep track of those things and right now I don't see why I should switch other than it syncs with my pc (but I hate outlook ).

Any other suggestions would be most appreciated.

 

[SKluck]

Betaplayer is the program you need. Plays everything, including divx.

Use Auto Gordian Knot to convert DVDs to PDA friendly divx. Try to use full frame versions though, because you really do lose a lot of screen space to widescreen movies.

I bought a 2GB CF card in feb when I got my x50v. $110 after rebate. Dell.com 2GB CF cards for like $80 now. 2GB SD for $90. Crazy deals. Don't get a microdrive, they suck batteries like mad.

Get a true VGA program like OzVGA. It forces programs to use vga. Aximsite.com is your friend, especially the forums. Also make good use of Avantgo, they give you 2MB free space, one of the best uses for your PDA.

To be honest its probably the biggest waste of $600 :lol. I only paid $400 for the Axim, but the card and case pad another $200. Mostly I use it for accessing GAF and gamefaqs while I'm on the couch or playing games :lol. Don't expect the best browsing on it though, anything that uses shockwave, you'll be fucked.

I use it as a music player a lot too, of all things. Best uses are probably movies or tv on it, and browsing. Unfortunately my work's wifi uses encryption so I can't access it, but if you've got hotspots by your frequent hangouts, you are set.

A pretty cool thing to do is get a tv card for your computer, and broadcast it over the internet so your axim can pick up a stream of the tv show. You can even use terminal services to control your pc with your axim and change the channel :lol.

Also make sure you have the newest ROM, X03. It came out a couple weeks ago, but they still might've not put it on your axim. So check that and update ASAP if you need to, it speeds things up a has much better wifi performance.

 

[bionic77]

Thanks for the help man. I will give all of those programs a whirl tomorrow.

When you watch videos on your Axim do you watch them in widesceen? and do you reencode your divx movies?

and how do you view pictures so that they take up the whole screen?

any chance there is a pda firefox?

 

[bionic77]

bumped for prosperity.

 

[SKluck]

Another thing you want to do is go into settings->buttons and remap the record button to "flip screen" or whatever. No one really uses that button to record sounds, set it to flip screen so you can go landscape with a button press. The only way to really play video is in landscape, betaplayer automatically flips it when it runs fullscreen anyway.

I usually just encode everything as widescreen, except in movies where they have the fullscreen version on it, I don't own any strictly fullscreen movies. As for your normal illegal movie downloads... they are fine as is. Plus betaplayer lets you zoom if you want. But you do lose 50% of the screen with widescreen movies. Matrix Revolutions is so small :lol, I think its 1:2.35.

Most people use netfront for browsing. It's probably the best portable browser. I don't use it though, it costs money and PIE runs most sites fine anyway. Netfront supports plugins and more java/shockwave type stuff I think though.

I don't use my PDA for pictures, but on the CD that came with the axim Dell does include the full version of a pretty robust picture viewing/organizing program. I've never installed it.

As for gaming... I really don't use it for it. I've yet to find some PDA games worth buying. I got scrabble and thats really all I use. There are some nice RTS games, I like RTS games but on a PDA its just weird. Puzzle games, card games, casino, pool, etc are good, I wouldn't really use it for anything else. Check out the FPS "cube" though, there is a version optimized just for the x50v, it's cool just to show people the crazy graphics.