Causing a stir, Timothy D. Hall put what appears to be the never-released iPAQ h5600 wireless handheld up for sale on eBay. Days later, it's sold.
Just prior to the merger of heavyweights Hewlett-Packard and Compaq, much speculation arose concerning the further development and future of Compaq's popular iPAQ product line. Among other details, a picture leaked of what was assumed to be the full new line-up of iPAQ handhelds in the h5000 series - but the world never saw the introduction of more than one of the models pictured: the iPAQ h5450, featuring Bluetooth and WLAN connectivity all in one.
The two remaining models, of which the exact model names remain unknown, were never introduced, although conflicticing statements have been made by HP executives concerning the company's intent to introduce a wireless handheld based on Microsoft's Pocket PC platform. Alledgedly to feature built-in GSM or CDMA connectivity, the two remaining models were equipped with distinctly longer antennas, and one of them also featured the biometric identification capability of the long since introduced h5450 model.
 | | Ill: Timothy Hall |
However, even though the unannounced models never made it to shelves, an eBay auction now appears to prove that samples of them were indeed circulating. Put up for auction by Timothy Hall on August 30th, a "Compaq iPAQ h5600" sporting the above-mentioned features and running Pocket PC 2002 Phone Edition was rapidly sold for $600 USD to an unknown buyer.
In an e-mail conversation with infoSync, Hall guaranteed the legitimacy of the device he was auctioning, and also produced high resolution versions of the same pictures as found on the eBay auction site to show that the unit in his posession utilized a modular system for either enabling GSM or CDMA connectivity in the handheld. Also, the pictures of the unit show it to posess the same SIM card slot as that which is present - yet goes unused - in other h5000 series models such as the h5450 and h5550.
According to the specifications presented by Hall, the "h5600" also posesses integrated Bluetooth connectivity and features a 400 MHz Intel XScale processor. Its specifications are otherwise very similar to the h5450 model, as it harbours 64 MB of RAM and an SDIO capable expansion slot, as well as a biometric identification system.
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