Home  Out Now  Coming Soon Advertise  WAP  Search  Subscribe   RSS 2.0 Feed   YouTube   
 

 

HP iPAQ 600 Series and iPAQ 900 Series

 HP Logo Discontinued
11th September 2007

Back in the dim and distant past (well, about 7 years ago), the iPAQ name was synonymous with state-of-the-art Windows PDAs. Originally badged under the Compaq name, iPAQ devices were very widespread and probably the market leader in that segment, pitched head-to-head with Palm and their popular range of "Palm Pilots".

However, the original iPAQ range was little more than a glorified diary/address book. Functionality was strictly limited and PDAs such as the iPAQ lacked any cellular or WiFi connectivity. This changed in 2002 with the O2 XDA (made by HTC), which was actually useful to a wide variety of customers as they could access email and browse the web while on the move. Against this sort of competition, sales of PDAs collapsed and the iPAQ brand (now owned by HP) almost vanished from view.

 

It has taken HP five years to get to the point where it can truly say that it is back on a par with HTC in technological terms.. and that's no small achievement as HTC have continued to wow us with the advanced technologies they manage to squeeze into their products.

So here are the HP iPAQ 600 Series Business Navigator and HP iPAQ 900 Series Business Messenger smartphones. At first glance, these two devices look quite different - but in fact underneath they are very closely related.

Both the iPAQ 600 and 900 Series run Windows Mobile 6 Professional, they have WiFi, tri-band HSDPA (3.5G), quad-band GSM with GPRS and EDGE and they also have built in A-GPS navigation. On the back is a 3 megapixel camera with autofocus, it comes with a microSD slot, Bluetooth and a range of HP-specific applications on top of the standard Microsoft Office Mobile suite. This is all pretty promising.

On the negative side, the video capture resolution of the iPAQ 900 and 600 Series is just 176 x 144 pixels, at a time when Nokia's flagship E90 and N95 phones can manage 640x480 pixels. They're also quite heavy at around 145 grams each.

 HP iPAQ 900 HP iPAQ 900 Series Business Messenger

The flagship in the iPAQ range is the clumsily named HP iPAQ 900 Series Business Messenger - this has a 2.46" landscape touch-sensitive display with 320x240 pixels in 65,000 colours. There's a QWERTY keyboard underneath, and navigation can also be done using the iPAQ 900's thumb wheel. HP have appended the "Business Messenger" moniker because clearly this is aimed at heavy email users. To make life more complicated, there are likely to be many slight variants of 900 Series phones - the 914 is one model we've seen mention of.

 

We wrote about weight earlier - the iPAQ 900 comes in at 146 grams which is perhaps a little heavy. On the plus side there's a whopping 1840 mAh battery which should keep the iPAQ 900 going for some time.

It's a very sober looking device - the straightforward and tidy layout looks quite usable, and it's certainly nicer than some of the smartphone horrors we've seen in the past. The iPAQ 900 measures 113 x 63 x 16mm.

 HP iPAQ 600 HP iPAQ 600 Series Business Navigator

Featuring another wordy product name, the HP iPAQ 600 Series Business Navigator is essentially the same as the 900 with a different screen and form factor. Here the display is a large 2.8" portrait 240x320 pixel touchscreen panel. The screen can be flipped between landscape and portrait orientations.

There's a slightly smaller battery in the 600 Series, at 1590 mAh, but overall the screen and battery differences cancel each other out when it comes to weight, and it weighs 145 grams.

Navigation on the iPAQ 600 is done by using the touchscreen, or smart touch wheel on the front. This gives the iPAQ 600 a distinctive but purposeful appearance. HP have designed the iPAQ 600 so that it can be used with a single hand.

The "Business Navigator" tag is used to emphasize the iPAQ 600's Assisted GPS (A-GPS) capabilities, although they do appear to be identical to the 900's. The switchable landscape/portait function will be particularly useful for satellite navigation assuming that you have a car kit that can switch between the two orientations.

 

At 117 x 60 x 18mm the iPAQ 600 is larger than you'd expect, but do remember that there are a substantial number of features crammed into it.

As for model numbers, well they might vary and so far we've heard of an iPAQ 610 and 614 although this is likely to be carrier dependent.

Can HP break HTC's stranglehold?

HP's brand recognition is huge, but it's not something that consumers generally associate with smartphones. However, you could say the same about Apple who are completely new to the same market and have just shipped their millionth iPhone. And although HP have been through some tough times in the past few years, recently everything has started to come together and things are on the way up. It's very hard to predict if HP can actually carve a niche for itself, but this is certainly going to be an interesting fight.

Slashdot Slashdot It    Digg this Digg this     Post to del.icio.us Post to del.icio.us

 Subscribe to our newsletter for more news on upcoming releases 
 

HP iPAQ 600 Series Business Navigator

Available:

Not stated

Network:

GSM 850/900/1800/1900
UMTS 850/900/2100

Data:

GPRS + EDGE + UMTS (3G) + HSDPA + WiFi

Screen:

320x240 pixels, 65k colours

Camera:

3 megapixels

Size:

PDA-style device
113 x 64 x 16mm / 146 grams

Bluetooth:

Yes

Memory card:

microSD

Infra-red:

No

Polyphonic:

Yes

Java:

Limited

Battery life:

Not specified

HP iPAQ 900 Series Business Messenger

Available:

Not stated

Network:

GSM 850/900/1800/1900
UMTS 850/900/2100

Data:

GPRS + EDGE + UMTS (3G) + HSDPA + WiFi

Screen:

320x240 pixels, 65k colours

Camera:

3 megapixels

Size:

PDA-style device
113 x 64 x 16mm / 146 grams

Bluetooth:

Yes

Memory card:

microSD

Infra-red:

No

Polyphonic:

Yes

Java:

Limited

Battery life:

Not specified

 

 About Us       Links

Copyright (c) 2014 - Unauthorised copying is prohibited by law. Use of this site means that you agree to our privacy and cookie policies.

Quantcast