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Technology Stocks : Dell Technologies Inc. -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: stockman_scott who wrote (171506)	11/7/2002 7:04:07 PM
From: calgal	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 176387

Dell's Handheld Plans Revealed Arik Hesseldahl, 11.07.02, 10:00 AM ET URL:http://www.forbes.com/2002/11/07/cx_ah_1107tentech.html?partner=yahoo&referrer= NEW YORK - There's a buzz in the handheld computing industry with a lot of fear and anxiety behind it: Dell's coming. It's been known for months: Dell Computer (nasdaq: DELL - news - people ), the only PC manufacturer who seems to be able to make a profit in a down market, is prepared to do to handheld computing what it has done to desktop and notebook computing. Dell's forthcoming Axim 5 Pocket PC Though the official launch date is still about two weeks away, the specifics about the product are starting to filter out via rumor sites and a few media reports. The handheld will be called the Axim X5 and will come in two models. It will run Microsoft's (nasdaq: MSFT - news - people ) Pocket PC 2002 operating system and will have XScale processor chips from Intel (nasdaq: INTC - news - people ), one running at 400 Mhz, the other at 300 MHz. The lower-priced handheld will have 32 megabytes of memory and the higher priced one will have 64 MB. They'll both have two expansion slots, one a Compact Flash card slot, the other for Secure Digital memory cards. The screen on both will be a 3.5-inch transflective thin film transistor display with a resolution of 240 pixels by 320 pixels. Battery life will be about ten hours, and an extended-use battery will boost that to 25 hours. Most of those features have been pretty easily guessed. But the secret has been the price, and that is what has so many other vendors worried. The low-end handheld will sell for $199, the other for $299. Dell will be pushing the device not only through its traditional channels through the Web, over the phone and even occasionally on the TV shopping network QVC, but it will also be hawking the Axim through its retail kiosks that are popping up in malls all over the U.S. Expect an aggressive marketing and sales push for the holidays. They will be available for sale on Nov. 18, which is the day that Dell plans to make a big splash at the Comdex trade show in Las Vegas. Dell has put a sneak preview of the Axim on its Web site. And while the Axim 5 may be the least expensive Pocket PC on the market when it launches, to our eye, it won't be the best looking. At a time when other vendors are working on thinner and smaller handhelds, Dell's first try at handheld design seems a little boxy. The size and weight of the Palm V from Palm (nasdaq: PALMD - news - people ) is considered an important milestone. In terms of look and feel, it is arguably the best-designed PDA ever made. And it won't be long before other Pocket PC vendors will have devices of comparable size. Hewlett-Packard (nyse: HPQ - news - people ) is widely rumored to be working on a low-priced version of its popular iPaq handhelds that will come pretty close. As we've said in recent weeks, there is a shakeout coming in the handheld computing business. And Dell's aggressive attack on the market will play a big part in getting that process started.