HP's five latest iPaqsAfter its North American debut last week, the new range of HP handhelds have now been launched in Asia. As with previous PDAs, these new devices from HP will have different model numbers as their US versions, this time ending with a "2". The new models include two business-oriented PDA-phones, two PDAs and one GPS navigation device. Update:The new devices will be available in Asia Pacific in Q4 2007. Though the company could not be more specific, an HP spokesman mentioned that some of them could reach markets as early as October. There will also be versions of the 612 and 912 PDA-phones without cameras, though these will arrive slightly later. The US prices as listed on the next page may be indicative of their eventual Asia Pacific prices--which have not been revealed by HP yet.24 September 2007--HP has amended the prices of the the HP iPaq 212 and 112 handhelds. The corrected prices are reflected in the table on the next page. The iPaq 612 Business Navigator is one with phone features. It comes with HSDPA for high speed data over the cellular network and, as its name suggests, built-in GPS navigation. Some of its other key features include 128MB RAM for running applications, a 520MHz Marvell processor and a 3-megapixel autofocus camera. The 612 has a QVGA display with a numeric keypad beneath that. This is similar to another GPS-enabled handheld, the Asus P526. Unlike the Asus, the 612 has an interesting touch-sensitive dial integrated into its keypad which allows it to do without a directional pad or joystick below the screen. The other PDA-phone launched is the iPaq 912 Business Messenger. This handheld has almost the same set of features as the 612, including HSDPA, GPS and 128MB RAM. It's main differentiating factor is the BlackBerry-esque QWERTY keypad meant for some serious texting. It also has a landscape-oriented rectangular touchscreen--a form factor still quite uncommon among Windows Mobile PDA-phones. The Palm Treo 750 comes close, but that one has a square display with a resolution of 240 x 240 pixels, two-thirds the number of dots compared with the 912's 320 x 240 pixels. The same comparison can be made to the HP hw6965, the device which the 912 will be replacing. The other three devices do not have cellular radios. Two of them are dedicated PDAs, the iPaq 112 Classic Handheld and iPaq 212 Enterprise Handheld. The 112 is a consumer-focused model with a QVGA display and an SDIO slot. The 212 is more business oriented, sporting a VGA display, a CF slot and quite some heft at 192g. They both feature the latest 624MHz Marvell PXA310 processor and Windows Mobile 6 Classic. The third and last handheld is the iPaq 312 Travel Companion, which runs a customized version of Windows CE 5.0. This is chiefly an in-car GPS navigation system which also has some multimedia features to keep the children still when on a road trip. Watch this space as we will be updating it with availability and pricing, as well as further information about the new PDA-phones. |
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