No. Not really. For that, you need a Pocket PC program called Photo Viewer.

Photo Viewer, which we reviewed for the Palm OS back in September, is a powerful image editing tool for your handheld. Photo Viewer will allow you to adjust brightness and contrast, and crop images, as shown in Figure D.

FIGURE D

You can do some very nice basic image manipulations, right on your handheld. Click picture for a larger image.

In addition to the basic image adjustment capabilities, you can also annotate your images using either voice notes or text. Plus, you can draw rudimentary shapes, shade them, and color them, as shown in Figure E.

FIGURE E

In this example, I've made a note to tell a co-worker where to find me in the lobby of the Swan Hotel. Click picture for a larger image.

The program manages thumbnails, albums, can play videos, and can even create presentations complete with background sound. Frankly, back when we reviewed it in September, we liked Resco's Photo Viewer so much, we gave it four stars. Were you to have to buy it, it'd be well worth the $24.95 price. However, in the bundled CD of the Dell Axim, we found the Resco Photo Viewer OEM version -- which provides all these capabilities for free.

One more quick note on Photo Viewer. It includes a bundled screenshot maker. All the screen shots you're seeing of the Axim's screen were taken with Photo Viewer. Did we mention this was an amazing program?

Getting the pictures out of the Axim X50v
So, now you're on the road. How do you get those pictures up to your server, back to your computer, or someplace safe? This variant of the Axim has both built-in Bluetooth and built-in WiFi networking. With the built-in Bluetooth, you can connect to your Bluetooth-equipped phone and email the images back to yourself, as shown in Figure F.

FIGURE F

You can email images right from the Photo Viewer's interface. Click picture for a larger image.

Or, if you wanted to transfer a whole pile of images quickly, you could locate your nearest Starbucks or other WiFi hotspot, and use the X50v's built-in WiFi to upload those images back to your home server at broadband speeds.

Our overall impressions
We consider the Dell Axim X50v to be the best pure PDA we've yet seen. Period. It has an exceptional VGA-quality screen. It has support for both Compact Flash and SD cards. It has built-in WiFi and Bluetooth networking and a built-in voice recorder. It comes with an exceptional photo management program. And, running Microsoft Windows Mobile 2003 Second Edition with an Intel XScale processor running at 624MHz, it's as fast as many laptops. At an amazingly reasonable $424, this is definitely the PDA to get if you're a photographer. We give it a crystal clear, high-resolution 5 out of 5.

OUR RATING: 5 of 5

Dianah McDonald is a reformed corporate webmaster and software instructor who threw off her shackles and is now a full-time writer. She can be reached at dimcd@crepehanger.com.