The Japanese Language Tools Store

     This is a used unit, but it's fully tested and in great shape. I buy only Axims that are functionally perfect. There may be some marks on the body of the device, but the screen will be in excellent condition (no defects that are easily visible when the screen is turned on; there might be marks that are more apparent in reflected light with the screen turned off but don't show up when the screen is turned on and you're using the device). These were originally very expensive, high-end devices mostly bought by enthusiasts who kept them in nice cases and always used screen protectors, so quite a few come in looking almost new. I check both the regular and backup batteries and replace them if they're weak. Finally, I test wireless functions, all the buttons, and the serial connector.

    The Axims are well made, the units I sell are in excellent condition, and they should serve their owners for many more years. Also, given the huge number of Axims sold and the current availabity of accessories for PDAs that were discontinued seven or eight years ago, I expect batteries, other accessories, and parts for the X50V to be readily available for many years to come.

     The X50V is no longer made; it was replaced by the X51V, but the X50V is actually the better device (similar specs, but faster and much more reliable). For me, the highlights are:

• Stability--it just keeps working
• Stability--It's worth repeating. The more I read and hear about problems users of other PDAs and SmartPhones are having (especially those with the WM5.0 operating system), the more I treasure the stability of the X50V.
• The kanji handwriting recognition is amazing; it finds the kanji you're trying to enter even if you miss strokes, enter wrong strokes, or completely mangle the stroke order.
• The screen: full 640x480 VGA resolution, vs. 320x240 quarter-VGA on most WM PDAs and even less on most SmartPhones. Even complex kanji are easily legible because of the clarity and brightness of the display (movies look great, too).
• BOTH SD and CF memory card slots. 2GB SD and 16GB CF cards are easily affordable these days--that's a total of 18GB to hold all the dictionaries you could want, GPS maps of every inch of Japan, a few movies, and thousands of mp3s (32GB CF cards are available now, and 64GB cards will probably be out within a year).
• Interchangeable battery. Not only can you carry extra batteries to keep running for days and days away from the grid, but if the included battery weakens as it gets older, you can simply pop in a new battery instead of buying a new PDA--a major flaw in the Palms.
• See the official specs to the right.

If you look into the Windows Mobile OS, you'll see that two newer versions of the OS have come out since the WM2003SE that the X50V uses. However, the hardware has NOT been upgraded in any way that's meaningful for the dicitonary or other computer functions. The two steps the hardware has taken have been down and sideways rather than up. The step down is with the WM5 devices, which feature much slower memory; even if the hardware were great, though, the defective OS would keep you from getting much out of it. The step sideways is with the new WM6 devices, which work well, but the only significant upgrade they offer is in cell phone functions. Even among the newest units coming out later in 2007, there's still nothing more powerful than the X50V--in fact, almost everything coming out lags in significant ways. Nothing has a more powerful processor (a very few have the same processor). Most, including ALL with built-in cell phones, can accept only a small fraction of the total memory the X50V can (no CF slot)--and in PDAs, it's total memory, not built-in memory, that counts (there isn't the important distinction between built-in memory and memory cards as there is between RAM and hard disk storage on a full-size computer). Finally, almost everything out there has a smaller, lower-resolution display.

While the thought of an effective PDA/cell phone combo seems tempting, it doesn't offer as much to most users as one would think. Yes, you can connect to the internet from almost anywhere you can get a cell phone signal, but the connection is going to be stupefyingly slow if you're used to broadband, and surfing on a 3 or 4 inch screen is painful at best. Plus the wireless plans are expensive. For a few dedicated road warriers, it makes sense, but for the rest of us, the networks just don't live up to the promise yet. (Note that you CAN do the same thing by conectiong an Axim to the internet through a Bluetooth phone, but if doing so is important to you, you'd be much better off with a new WM6 device.) As for carrying one device instead of two, my own feeling is I'd rather carry an Axim that fits in my front pocket and a tiny keitai that fits anywhere than one slightly bigger phone/PDA combo that doesn't fit anywhere on me. And I think the old adage about two devices that do their jobs well versus a single device that does neither job well still fits, except perhaps with the very top of the line WM6 devices just coming out. But for twice the price of my Axim, just for the device alone, it BETTER do everything perfectly.

• Microsoft® Windows MobileTM 2003 Second Edition operating system with Windows Media Player 10 Mobile
• Powered by the Intel® XScaleTM PXA270 Processor at 624MHz
• Brilliant 3.7" color TFT VGA display with 640x480 resolution
• Integrated Intel® 2700G multimedia accelerator with 16MB video memoryIntegrated 802.11b and BluetoothTM Wireless Technologies
• Packed with 64MB SDRAM and 128MB Intel StrataFlash® ROM
• Integrated CompactFlash Type II and Secure Digital / SDIO Now! / MMC card slots provide flexible expansion
• VGA-Out Support with optional VGA Presentation Bundle
• Removable Primary Battery with optional High Capacity Battery
• 3.5mm Headphone / Headset Jack for Headsets to support VoIP and voice recognition applications
• Built-in microphone and speaker for easy recording on the go
• USB Cradle including Battery Charging Slot
• Sleek, stylish design