Tuesday, March 7, 2006
Arkon's Docking PDA Mount Reviewed
Posted by Darius Wey in "HARDWARE" @ 09:00 AM
Performance
With apologies to Arkon, I intentionally took a while to review this unit as I wanted to test the ability of the mount to withstand temperature extremes. I received the unit in Spring, though I wanted to put it through the Australian Summer to see how the suction cup would perform in 40°C+ (104°F+) heat. So far, the mount and I have experienced a little over a month's worth of humid and dry weather conditions. With standard summer temperatures bordering on levels of insanity, I don't think I have survived, but the mount has! :) Not once has the suction cup lost its grip. Of course, I've yet to see how it performs in Winter, but where I live, the temperature rarely drops below 0°C (32°F), so I doubt I'll have a problem.
The thing about a tight-fitting, model-specific cradle such as the Docking PDA Mount is that the Pocket PC must be inserted into the cradle as-is. Don't test your luck with cases - it simply won't work. Those of you with aluminium or leather cases may not mind taking the Pocket PC out of the case, but those of you with silicon skins will probably give it second thought.
Figure 6: The Axim X50v in the docking cradle (side arms open). Counter-clockwise, from 1 to 4 - power LED, amplified speaker, noise-cancelling microphone, speaker volume control, and battery switch. The power LED turns orange when the cradle is powered.
The cradle's retractable padded side grip jaws help keep the Pocket PC in place. It has a drawback though, and you'll see it in Figure 7. The jaws can cover up a portion of the Pocket PC's side buttons. While it might not affect all Pocket PCs, it does affect the Axim X50v. Nothing can be more annoying than trying to press a button only to have a piece of soft foam concealing it. If you do purchase this mount and find that you're in the same boat, you may want to leave relatively unimportant functions assigned to the side buttons, and keep the important functions assigned to the front-facing buttons of the PDA.
Figure 7: All set and ready to go.
The speaker quality is very good, though it does take a bit of fiddling on both the cradle and Pocket PC to get perfectly right. If the volume setting on the Pocket PC is too low, audio emanating from the cradle's speaker is barely audible. Conversely, if the volume setting on the Pocket PC is too high, audio emanating from the cradle's speaker is muffled. Once you've determined the right volume setting on the Pocket PC, you can use the volume control on the cradle to make fine adjustments.
Continuing on the topic of audio, the cradle also accepts a hands-free kit for those "private" moments. Plugging it in disables the amplified speaker. Like the cradle's speaker socket, the privacy earphone socket is also 2.5mm.
On the rear of the cradle, there is a compartment for a 900mAh rechargeable battery. Because the cradle can be detached from the pedestal, you can use the battery/cradle combination outdoors and still keep the Pocket PC powered. But with the DM500 series, it goes one step further by powering the integrated GPS as well. This might be handy on those "lost moments in outback expeditions". The mount doesn't include the battery by default, so you will have to purchase it as an accessory if you need it.
Conclusions
Despite a few minor drawbacks, Arkon's Docking PDA Mount is a solid performer. It offers many advantages over a universal mount and looks great too! You can purchase the mount as a stand-alone product, or alternatively, purchase it with the North American or European MobiNavigator GPS map software for use with the mount's integrated GPS module (in the DM500 series) or a separate Bluetooth or card-based GPS module (in the DM300 series). Although the mount in this review targets the Dell Axim X50/X50v and X51/X51v series, Arkon does make a set of Docking PDA Mounts for other well-known devices. You can find the full list here.
Darius Wey loves technology! When he's not working at this web site, he's busy working for his medical degree (MBBS) and dabbling in audio and video editing, web and graphic design, photography and the odd bit of mobile development. He lives in Perth, Western Australia.
