Axim X50 Release Pushed Back to November

BY: Ed Hardy, Brighthand.com Editor
PUBLISHED: 9/13/2004

When the Axim X50 was submitted to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for approval, a confidentiality request was also submitted. This asked the FCC to withhold from the public much of the information about the X50 until September 24, which was presumably the day Dell had planned to announce the X50, which will be its first Pocket PC with a VGA screen.

Recently, however, Dell submitted an updated confidentiality request. This asks the FCC to withhold from public view the details of the Axim X50 until November 8, which indicates that Dell currently doesn't plan to introduce this handheld for another couple of months.

Other VGA Pocket PCs Delayed, too

Dell isn't the only company that has had to push back the release of a VGA Pocket PC. Both HP and ASUS have had to do so, as well.

When the iPAQ hx4705 was officially announced, HP said it would be available before the end of August. Later, the release date was moved back two weeks, to September 9. Now, HP's official online store will say only that the hx4705 is "Coming This Fall," which means the release of this model could be as late as November.

Justin O'Dea of PROPortable, the largest retailer of ASUS handhelds in the U.S., says the ASUS MyPal A730w is now expected to be available at the end of October, but it's possible that the release could be even later than that.

The good news is that, after brief delays, the Fujitsu-Siemens Pocket Loox 720 is starting to reach customers' hands, if only in Europe.

It remains to be seen if the Toshiba e830 will be released later this week, as expected.

X50 Now Bluetooth Certified

In order for a product to carry the Bluetooth seal, it must go through an approval process. The Bluetooth Qualification Program has given the Axim X50 its approval.

Details on the program's web site show that this device will use Bluetooth 1.2, the latest version of this standard. This is fortunate, as the latest version was designed to reduce interference between Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, both of which at least one version of the X50 has.

More about the Axim X50

While the confidentiality request is keeping the FCC from revealing everything about the X50, by carefully scrutinizing the documents that are available, Brighthand was able to ascertain many of the details about this model.

It appears that there will be several versions of the X50. One model will have a 3.7-inch, VGA screen, while a second model will have a 3.5-inch, QVGA screen.

One of these will have both Wi-Fi and Bluetooth wireless networking. A second will have only Bluetooth.

This isn't confirmed by the information in the FCC site, but all versions of the X50 are expected to have both a CompactFlash slot and an SD slot.

For additional information on the Axim X50, read this article.

Thanks to Duncan from FirstLoox.org for the tip.