[JASJAR, XDA Exec, MDA Pro General] mackaby007:
I'm not entirely happy that Activesync is workig the way it was intended & as I was unable to get this confirmed from several forum members, I ventured out of Xda developers.com to seek confirmation of my doubts.

I ended up reading a review of the new Dell Axim X51v Pocket PC, which as you may or may not know, uses WM 5.0 (but less the phone side of things). Not exactly to my surprise, i found that even in non-phone PPC devices, Active sync is a bit of a cause for concern!

Read here: Review of Dell Axim x51v PPC (WM 5.0)

Windows Mobile 5: Not All is Golden

I won't delve too much into Windows Mobile 5 in this review, since I'm focusing on the X51v itself, but I found Windows Mobile 5 very painful in two ways when I was setting up and using the X51v. First, after a hard reset I connected the X51v to my PC and set up a new partnership. ActiveSync 4.0 has a different partnership wizard if you have a Windows Mobile 5 device, and it's quite intuitive. I entered my hosted Exchange account information, then watched as basically nothing happened. The X51v synchronized with my desktop PC, but coughed up an 0x85020006 error when the device tried to sync with the Exchange server. ActiveSync 4.0 removes the option for Internet passthrough - I assumed that meant it was automatic, but after fighting with Connection Manager on the X51v for 15 minutes I gave up and disconnected. I turned on WiFi, and the X51v saw my access point - I entered my WEP key, started ActiveSync, and clicked sync. It worked! Within a few minutes I had all my data on the X51v - but why wouldn't the synchronization work in the cradle? I have no idea, but it's a serious problem.

Later, I wanted to see if a particular ActiveSync bug had been fixed: I've always had the problem where, after a backup and restore, the Pocket PC has been unable to synchronize against the Exchange server again. Only a hard reset would allow the Pocket PC to sync again. On the X51v, I did a backup using the included application, then hard reset and a restore. I restore the device, then after a soft reset I noticed the date was wrong. No matter, I fixed it and started a sync session. Much to my delight, the sync actually started, which is sometime that wouldn't have happened under Windows Mobile 2003SE.

My delight turned to disbelief, then anger as I saw what ActiveSync was doing: it duplicated 900 contacts, 50 emails, and 6 months worth of appointments! No warning, no "Replace, Remove, or Combine" dialogue box, simply a duplication. It will take me hours to fix this manually, unless I can find a tool to remove duplicates. I have memories of such a tool, but at this point I haven't had time to track one down. Any suggestions for one that will work with Outlook 2003 and an Exchange server? I'm unsure as to whether this is a problem with Dell's backup application, or with ActiveSync. The bottom line is that in this instance Exchange ActiveSync remains broken after a restore - and I'd rather have it break completely then duplicate all my data, so from my point of view it's actually gotten worse. I didn't think that was even possible!

Suffice it to say that while Windows Mobile 5 brings with it several key advantages - persistent storage is amazingly helpful - my experience with it so far has been mixed (WMP 10 Mobile retains its horrible library functions), and I have no shortage of feedback for Microsoft at the MVP Summit coming up in a few weeks. Windows Mobile 5 feels like one step forward and two sideways.

End of this part of the review. Full Review here: http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/articles.php?action=expand,43092&start=2

What do you guys think? I think quite a few problems Universal owners are experiencing will dissapear once MS fix their ActivShite application!