Serious Axim Accident and Recovery- Any Others?

[Mahstah]

I was in Florida visiting my parent's condo. It's on the second floor up a cement stairway. Getting out of my rental car, I unplugged my Axim X30 from its 12V adapter powering its Bluetooth GPS functionality. I slipped it into my pocket and bounded up the stairs...

I felt a weight lift from my pocket as I ascended the treacherous cement terraces. Immediately, I realized the severity of the missing few ounces- and turned to see the X30 tumbling crack-smackcrack crackcrack-smack to the bottom of the stairs, ejecting both its battery and SD card like pilots determining immanent destruction on the descent and deserting the faithful vehicle on the way down. Crack! It hit bottom.

I scrambled to retrieve the components and handheld. Lo and behold, I plugged in the battery and SD card, pushed the power button, and the (Dell) logo in a circle greeted me with a satisfying soft reset logo. It's worked flawlessly for over a year since.

Any other near catastrophic or total annihilation stories out there?

Please share...

[Mark Kramer]

I dropped my brand new, replacement X51v in its case onto a rug, and the damn screen cracked. In the 3.5 years I had my Toshiba PDA, I must have dropped it 25 times, with case, without case, onto rugs, hardwood and tiled floors, you name it. It never suffered at all. I felt sick when I looked at the Axim, for which I had a 2-year warranty, but no accident insurance. I called Dell the next day, explained what happened, and was astonished to find that they agreed to let me keep the original Axim, whcih had not yet been picked up for return, and send in the broken one at no cost. Since the replacement had the identical software issues that the original had (all related, I think, to the old ROM), this was a very good deal. I suspect that when the tech looked up my record, and saw how many times I had complained about so many issues, he took pity. In any case, it was the only time Dell tech support ever came through in a helpful fashion.

[Mahstah]

I suck so bad. Today, I was washing my hands with my X51v at the edge of the counter. A clumsy elbow move later, the Axim was sliding into the sink to the lowest point, right beneath the heavily flowing water. It became submerged for a second before I panickingly pulled it out. I dried it with a towel before superheating it with a hair dryer. 5 horrifying minutes later, it turned on and functioned as normal. Thank you Lord.

[JohnGalloway]

I never wanted to post here, but after today, I'm eligible.

Was holding a Cappachino in one hand, Axim x51v (2 weeks old) in the other. Was opening the car door with the fingers of the hand with the Axim, and began to spill my Cappachino all down my shirt.

My reaction was to bring my right hand (with Axim) to right the cup. But, it continued spilling and totally drenched my Axim with sticky, gooey Cappichino (mocha, no less). That made me DROP the Axim onto concrete. It was in a leather case, so no marks on it.

But.......when I removed the SD and Compact Flash card, it was soaked inside. Nothing worked. Wouldn't turn on, soft reset, hard reset - and when I charged it, I got a RED light.

So, I fried it. Was SICK as a DOG about it.....until I came home, checked what I purchased and found I had Complete Care Accidental Warrant (3 years) that covered spills, drops, lightening bolts. I'm doing a HAPPY DANCE now. Dell is shipping a new one to me N/C with a return postpaid label. I'll have it tomorrow or Wednesday. Checked both cards and they are fine (my CF card was 2 G's).

What a dumbass thing to do. My balancing act will NOT be repeated !

Dell is Great, in my book.

[water wizard]

Not long after I first got my Axim5, about three years ago, I was at work and went out to my car to get some things among them my Axim. I set my Ax down on the roof of my Forester(now approaching 200,000 miles, lots of windshield time in my work) and pulled out some paper (yech) files to clarify things for a co-worker. Later when we left for lunch, you guessed it, I had left my poor Axim on the roof. It had been raining earlier in the morning but was now pleasant and I forunately had the window down. I heard a noise that made me look in my rearview mirror and saw my my Axim tumbling along the street behind me. Naturally (check out correlaries to Murphy's Law) it ended up in a puddle. Luckily there was no one behind me, (even Murphy can't be on his game 100% of the time) and I pulled a panic stop, racing back and rescuing the wee beastie before it became so much electronic road kill. I quickly pulled it out of its aluminum RhinoSkin case (god bless'em), and examined it. No broken screen, just some cosmetic damage to the case, though it did spring open, and some moisture in the battery case. I quickly dried what I could with paper towels and put it on the dash over the defroster. Fired it up a few minutes later and all was well!