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| Upcoming HP iPaq Info Leaked |
by Scott Raulinaitis, Editor - 9/19/2003 - 4:16pm EST
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Things certainly have been busy on the Pocket PC front this week, despite my inability to keep up with the news. Pocket PC Italia leaked some sketches and information about the HP iPaq 4000-series which indicate that they'll be juiced-up models built upon the smaller 1900/2200 platform. An Office Depot employee confirmed and clarified additional details. There will be two models, both of which feature built-in Wi-Fi but no CF card slot. Common features include a 400MHz XScale processor, Bluetooth, SDIO expansion, a 3.5" transflective screen, 64MB of RAM, 32MB of ROM, and a charge/sync cradle. Both are expected to be released sometime next month.
The h4155 is styled very similarly to the h1900-series and will feature a 1250mAh battery (larger than the 1900/2200's 900mAh). It's expected to list for $449. It's rumored to be sized at 4.47" long x 2.78" wide x 0.53" thick and weigh just 4.4 ounces, which would be barely larger than the 1900-series. That would be quite a feat, indeed.
The h4355 is the model that has generated the most buzz as it's the first Pocket PC 2003 device with a built-in thumbboard. Additionally, it features a large 1500mAh battery. The Hitachi G1000 also features a thumbboardm, but it's still running the older version of the PPC OS. While the h4355 looks to be on the longish side, it should be significantly smaller than the G1000. Unlike the G1000, it has the full complement of hard application buttons and a directional pad. It should be 5.46" long x 2.94" wide x 0.57" thick, and will weigh in at 5.8 ounces. It's expected to list for $499. Significantly, Microsoft made several tweaks to the OS with PPC 2003 to better facilitate usage with a keyboard.
Reaction has been mixed with many PPC devotees panning them for the lack of CF slots. The PPC is popular among those who like to jam all sorts of things into these CF slots, so that doesn't surprise me. But I have no doubt that HP is listening to their enterprise customers (who, as I continue to tell you, love to tell the manufacturers what would make the "perfect corporate PDA" but never actually buy them). Combination Bluetooth and Wi-Fi seems to be the big push these days, allowing someone to check their email at a Wi-Fi hotspot when one is available and via a Bluetooth phone when one is not.
The h4350 appears to be largely hated among the geek community as well, mainly due to the added size, though there are a vocal few who applaud the idea. I'm a big proponent of the idea of thumbboards in wireless PDAs, but I'm still not sure if it really works well with the portrait-mode rectangular screen that the PPC OS is currently locked into, as it makes for a long top-heavy device. Once MS gets with the program and allows their GUI to be used in either portrait or landscape modes, I think better hardware designs will follow. That said, we're not there yet and if you want some of the added functionality that the PPC brings with the ease of a thumbboard, the h4355 looks pretty nice. I just hope the keys are backlit.
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