Over a year ago I wrote a post about my Pocket PC, the Dell Axim. Its size, ruggedness (when armoured with a hard case) and software compatibility make it the best of the Pocket PCs, in my opinion, and a year later it’s still my trusty sidekick.

Yes, Pocket PCs are becoming obsolete. I’m cringing as I type “Pocket PC”, since it seems so dated, but the modern term is actually a different device, the smartphone. The rapid and widespread abandonment of Pocket PCs (and PDAs) for smartphones puzzles me, since Pocket PCs like the Axim can do pretty much everything a smartphone can, except for the actual phone part. For that, I have a cell phone. Are the advantages of having 1 device rather than 2 obvious to everyone but me? To me, a cell phone is a quasi-disposible, cheap device that I can use, abuse, loan out or lose without much worry. Any GSM cell phone does the job for me, and my cell phone does the job for anyone else. My Pocket PC, on the other hand, is one-of-a-kind because it has my data on it – vital to me, of little use to anyone else.

Anyhoo, having recently been forced to do a bit of surgery on my Axim x51, I decided it was time to shop on eBay for something that I must admit is even better: an Axim x51v. Compared to the x51, this has twice the resolution (VGA – 640×480), a faster processor, and a graphics coprocessor for games.

While the VGA screen is gorgeous and games and video are silky smooth, I was considerably disgruntled to find that the x51v had some significant performance problems. Battery life was terrible, with some unexplained draining of the battery while in sleep mode, and the x51v suffered from some episodes of sluggishness, including each time it came out of sleep mode. The sluggishness only lasts about 5-10 seconds, but even that can be pretty annoying when you’re trying to look up a contact or appointment.

Googling the problem made me suspect that the cause was the Axim’s OS, Windows Mobile 5. WinMo 5 was the Vista of its day, a successor to a venerable OS which added some nice features at the cost of much poorer performance. Windows Mobile 6, like the upcoming Windows 7, fixed the performance problems and extended the new features, making it a must-have upgrade from WinMo 5.

But for Axim owners, Windows Mobile 6 is a can’t-have upgrade. Dell unceremoniously killed off the Axim before WinMo 6 was released, and no upgrade path was ever offered. While Googling for workarounds and commiserations, though, I was intrigued to find that several “homebrew” versions of Windows Mobile 6 and 6.1 have been released for the x51v. Remarkably, they weren’t just half-finished hacking exploits, but full versions of the OS that are becoming widely used. (If that’s news to you, try Googling “Axim WM6″.

Now, about that word, “homebrew”. That’s my word. Some would say “pirated”. You see, these ROMs repackage Microsoft’s official release of Windows Mobile 6 and 6.1. Manufacturers who support an upgrade from WM5 to these versions sell it, they don’t give it away.

Quite honestly, if Dell sold an upgrade for the Axim I would buy it — Dell’s abandonment of their platform left me with no other option. And the guys who put together these homebrew ROMs are giving it away, not selling it. More samaritans than pirates. They did it, I assume, for the hacking challenge and prestige, and probably because they, themselves, were disgruntled Axim owners stuck on WinMo 5. So, personally, I think this kind of upgrade is a gray area: not overt piracy, not strictly legal. If you don’t agree, sue me. Unless you are Microsoft or Dell, in which case a strongly worded letter from your lawyer will suffice.

Legal concerns aside, installation of these ROMs is straightforward and requires no technical skills. This YouTube video demonstrates the process, and includes written instructions as well. While any ROM upgrade runs the risk of “bricking” your device, based on what I see on the forums that is pretty uncommon. You have the option of restoring Dell’s official ROM of Windows Mobile 5 if you aren’t happy with the upgrade — the steps for installing the ROM image are the same, but you’d use Dell’s ROM downloaded from here.

You have a few different options for which build of Windows Mobile 6.0 (or the latest and greatest, 6.1) to use. This page has a good comparison of 3 of the most widely used builds of WM6.1 for the Axim x51v, by LennySh, Football and Makuu, including links to their download pages. I chose, for no particular reason, to go with the LennySh 6.1 build.

Installation was uneventful, though it took a little longer to run than I expected, about 15 minutes. That’s 15 minutes of the Axim’s time, not mine — it took just a few seconds for me to get it started, then everything was automated after that. Three tips:

1) Make sure you have an x51v, not x51, and the ROM file for an x51v, not an x50v. The older x50v Axim can also be upgraded to WM6.x, but it uses a different ROM file.

2) Make sure the SD card that contains the ROM files is formatted with FAT32 and can be read by your x51v. My first attempt to upgrade was foiled when my Axim wouldn’t recognize the SD card — ironically, it had been formatted to FAT32 using Vista, and I had to reformat it using XP instead.

3) Make sure your x51v has lots of battery life left, since the upgrade does run for awhile

My verdict: amazing. It’s hard to believe that this is a homebrew build. I very much doubt that Dell themselves would have done a better job customizing WM6.1 for the Axim.

I originally intended to return to WM5 after seeing what WM6.1 was like, but 2 weeks later I’m still running LennySh’s WM6.1 and loving it. It is much, much faster than WM5, rock solid, with excellent application compatibility. No software crashes, no hardware glitches. Opera, CorePlayer, Audible, Mobipocket all run without a glitch, and it synchronizes perfectly with my Windows Vista PC. Battery life is still not great, but better than in WM5. The unexplained battery drains and periods of sluggishness are history!

The only problems I’ve noticed are relatively minor: icons on the Start menu sometimes get corrupted, and there is a slightly annoying boot animation. Actually, I mention the boot animation only because it seems to annoy lots of other people: the OS is so rock solid that I’ve only had to boot my Axim once.

Legal issues aside, I’m really in awe of what LennySh and his team has done here — this is a nifty piece of programming! Others have said that the ROM upgrade is like getting a whole new, faster Axim, and I wholeheartedly agree. The upgrade is free, though if you’re at delighted as I am then hopefully you’ll consider making a donation to the authors.