The original GPS business phone is back; Jørgen Sundgot reviews Hewlett-Packard's iPAQ hw6915, sporting an improved thumbboard, Wi-Fi connectivity and Windows Mobile 5.0.
Review summary of the HP iPAQ hw6915:
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 The unique selling point of the HP iPAQ hw6915 is its integrated GPS support - which also happens to be the sole feature of this business phone which truly shines. Above-par performance and a large screen are both good and well, but come at the expense of battery life. Also, the screen is of too low resolution to be much good for document management, and when coupled with mediocre data entry allows for only light work. Its unfortunate lack of 3G aside, it does however offer excellent connectivity as well as favourable one-handed navigation. Price: $700.
Pros: Comprehensive connectivity; integrated GPS; good performance
Cons: Poor thumbboard; low-resolution screen; lacks 3G; mediocre battery life
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Full HP iPAQ hw6915 Review:
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Nearly a year in the making, HP's update to the iPAQ hw6515 - one of the first Windows Mobile business phones to be equipped with a decent thumbboard - is finally here. With a 175 g design nearly identical to that of its predecessor, the reasonably-svelte hw6915 features a physically spacious 3-inch screen which, unfortunately, is cramped due to its low resolution of 240 x 240 pixels. This leads to an excessive amount of scrolling and zooming to carry out document viewing and management, while screen brightness is also mediocre as compared to many recent business phones.
To enter data or not to enter data
Another aspect which fares poorly seen in the light of increased competition is the thumbboard of the device, which despite its redesign suffers from creaky buttons with spongy tactile feedback and no discernible bevel - the latter of which has one constantly worried about accidentally pressing an adjacent key. On the other hand, the thumbboard sports superb backlighting which rivals that of Palm's Treo line of business phones, and the lag which marred the text entry of the hw6500 has now been eradicated.
Sadly, there's more criticism in store, as the Today screen choices for the soft buttons of the hw6915 cannot be altered; not unusual for a Windows Mobile 5.0 device, but more pressing given this unit's lack of dedicated application keys. Worse still, however, is the inability to select text by a combination of pressing the Shift key and using the joystick. Instead, this must be accomplished through an appallingly unintuitive combination of Fn, Shift and the alternative arrow keys of the thumbboard.
Lastly on the note of hardware, we find a mediocre 1.3 Megapixel camera backed up two surprisingly capable applications for capture and viewing in HP's Photosmart Camera and Photosmart Mobile. In fact, the former even ties into the GPS functionality of the hw6915 to tag photos with coordinates; now that's clever.
Natty about networking
Having gained support for Wi-Fi 802.11b through shedding the SDIO capable SD/MMC card expansion slot of its predecessor, the hw6915 has made an unfortunate choice in omitting 3G for consistently higher data transfer speeds on the go as opposed to unnecessarily high speeds offered by Wi-Fi in limited areas. Still, quad-band GSM with GPRS and EDGE represent an adequate offering, while Bluetooth 1.2, Infrared and USB 1.1 let laptop users to get online, although we're disappointed by the lack of USB charging.
The star of the show, however, is the integrated GPS receiver, a feature HP pioneered and which remains fairly exclusive even in today's market. Delivered with excellent navigation software capable of over-the-air downloads of new cities, its performance proved impeccable throughout testing - as was the case for voice calls. In general, signal range and reception for wireless options proved slightly less than excellent, but more than adequate.
As for general performance, the hw6915 makes light work of both common productivity tasks and more demanding applications courtesy of its 416 MHz processor. Memory, however, is a scarce commodity with only 32 MB of RAM and 45 MB of storage on board; fortunately, a miniSD card expansion slot alleviates this issue somewhat.
What do you want to see today?
Capable of sustaining Windows Mobile 5.0 for in excess of one and a half day of average use, the iPAQ hw6915 plays to the strenghts and weaknesses of this operating system which include its broad variety of Microsoft branded applications, best-in class desktop synchronization and good groupware support for Exchange. Document management, meanwhile, is decent but by no means extensive with Microsoft's own applications handling the viewing and editing of Word, Excel and PowerPoint files.
Beyond the operating system itself, HP has also included three Today screen plug-ins which display status and let users interact with aspects including battery life and memory; wireless radios; and profiles - all genious, had it not been for the fact that they consume more than one third of the Today screen. Our favourite part? If removed, the functionality they provide can only be accessed from deep within the Control Panel or, in the case of profiles, not at all.
Price and availability
The Hewlett-Packard iPAQ hw6915 is expected to be available throughout Europe in April 2006, selling for €730 EUR without subscription. A sans-camera edition will also be available, selling as the iPAQ hw6910. Furthermore, US mobile network operator Cingular Wireless will be carrying identical versions under the iPAQ hw6925 and iPAQ hw6920 monikers, respectively.
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