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HP iPAQ hx4705 Reviewed
Tong writes "PDA Buyer's Guide has published an in-depth review of the HP iPAQ hx4605.
'This has been the month of the iPAQ with so many new models released! The hx4705 is one of the most anticipated because it features a fantastic VGA display and a super-fast 624MHz processor. Heap on plenty of memory, Bluetooth, WiFi, both CF and SD slots and a touch pad navigator and you've got the 4705. It's one of only two Pocket PCs with a VGA display sold in the US.'
Read the full review on the buyer's guide."
"You're older than you've ever been, and now you're even older."
unless you have excellent eyes, you'll discover why Microsoft didn't go with a true VGA experience
I heard the same thing back in the '80s, my ANSI ASCII pr0n never looked right in MS-DOS.
with HP selling iPods now, wouldn't it be sweet to have one of these top-end iPaq's running some sort of stripped down OSX? PDA of my dreams...
Imagine a Beowulf cluster of these!
Actually on-topic!
The same battery life as my laptop!
Has anyone installed linux on these yet? I swear, you can install Unix on anything these days. Just the other day I noticed someone got one on a GameBoy Advanced. (Link bellow) http://www.kernelthread.com/publications/gbaunix/
Bad karma for correcting people I always say.
You can buy the Sharp Zaurus 6000 in the US. It has a VGA screen, in fact it has been around for quite a while. Snoooooze.
... but does it run linux?
They're already fat cell phones. Soon they'll be so full of features that they'll be the size of . . . Laptops!
I think you'll find that there are more then two VGA PocketPC systems out there. I have the Toshiba e805 which has 802.11b, 128mb RAM, 32mb flash, ATI graphics chip, VGA screen, CF and SDIO slots. In addition I've seen several others with the same 480x640 screens.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
I love Palm as much as the next guy, in fact I use a Tungsten T3, but when is Palm going to get with the times and release a comparable model? The T3 or C seems to be the cream of the crop and it's only got 320x480, not full VGA, and while you can get either bluetooth or wifi, you can't get both (without the expansion card). What's up Palm?
Change your name to Homer Junior! Your friends can call you Hoju
"I'd like to dock my PDA into that cradle, if you know what I mean". Now, it's back to work :)
If this is their new policy, I would think seriously before buying anything off them. One year of upgrades is your lot in life, after which you have a paper weight. Besides, it's not like HP are the only manufacter of PDAs - they're just one of the more expensive. If you don't get value for money including adequate support you may as buy from someone else.
HP iPAQ hx4705: $645.
--
Bush: Borrowing money to try to make his administration look good.
Check out this article if VGA is something you really want on your next pda:
t _PC_is_Right
http://www.brighthand.com/article/Which_VGA_Pocke
http://nyamenation.org/
I've been watching the PDA evolution from the outside for a while (ever since buying a Palm Professional back in '98) and, for the life of me, I *still* can't figure out what these things are good for. Despite the trend toward ever-more-powerful specs, I see them as a terribly expensive compromise between the convenience and communications options afforded by cell phones and the power of a modern notebook.
/. community, use your PDAs for, anyway? I'm genuinely curious; please don't interpret this as flamebait.
So, here's the question: what do you, members of the
-boredman
im still waiting for an ipaq with 3g phone service.
just ditch the gprs stuff and give me 3g already
then i will throw my self at the stor but until then i will keep my money
I don't care about VGA. I don't even care about color. I just want a remote ssh-2 client that I can type confortably on, without carrying around a briefcase or a purse.
The Web is like Usenet, but
the elephants are untrained.
I just bought a Dell X30 with the 624mhz proc for under $300. It has built in 802.11b, bluetooth, etc... The only thing it doesn't have that the ipaq has is the VGA screen, and CF slot.
/. supposed to be boycotting HP and Carly Fiona?
And in their comparison of the Dell screen vs. the ipaq screen, I think the Dell displays better anyways.
Besides, isn't
I am a clamshell nut. I must have a clamshell design, and I've been very unhappy with the US PDA market for a long, long time. Is it just me, or do PDA product lines improve at a snail's pace?
Why do I think that? I got an HP100LX about late 1993. For those who don't know, it is a 80186 DOS based palmtop. It came with a great suite of PIM software, and could do some sort of quasi-multitasking with near-dos applications. No backlight, one PCMCIA slot, ran what seemed like forever (30-40 hours+) on two AA batteries. 640x240 resolution.
By about 1998, it disintegrated. I looked for another good PDA, but found nothing. I tried the WinCE based HP 320LX, but it was a piece of garbage. I opted to just buy another 100LX.
Finally, replaced my 2nd 100LX with a Zaurus C860, but not before trying several of PalmOS and WinCE 2.0/2000/2003 handhelds. Yeah, but the C860 is only available in japan. (Technically you can find it in the states.) It runs Linux, though, so slashdot folks should be all over that. WiFi is great, it has CF and SD (SDIO soon). The 640x480 display is stunning brilliant. Oh, and its clamshell/handheld convertable. Running a linux dos emulator on it lets me run all the old apps I ran on the 100LX (including Derive), at a good speed. Battery life is about 7 hours of continuous use with judicious use of WiFi, which is not bad.
I'm not impressed, at all, with this ipaq model. 640x480? I was halfway there a *decade* ago. 640x480 has been out on handheld PCs for at least 3 years now, though maybe not in the US. The processor speed is nice, but I just have to have a clamshell.
I think the C860 is ideal for grad and undergrad college students because of the scientific apps on linux, wifi, clamshell and other reasons I've outlined. I don't want just another toy PDA or PIM system. A PamOS 3.0 device will do basic PIM stuff quite handily. There are some seriously killer linux math apps (similar to mathematica) that run quite well on the C860, too. I just don't think this ipaq is a good geek's PDA because of the native OS and other reasons I've outlined.
I want to see a new PDA here in the US that I can be as excited about as I was the 200LX and and the C860.
More about Zaurus C860
More info on the ancient 100/200lx I lament
Here is a comparison chart of the VGA Pocket PCs coming out soon.
And the only VGA Pocket PC Game so far (a breakout game).
that lasts for 3 hours on 'light' usage (if you use everything and turn on WiFi the article seems to imply it lasts much less)? My good old Palm IIIc lasts for many, many hours for example: the only reason why I'd like to upgrade it is to get a 320x480 screen (and maybe a little more RAM) but that's about it: I don't care about playing DVDs on my pilot, I just want to use it as a PIM and to read some e-books (where having a higher resolution screen and more memory would help).
Why doesn't anybody come out with a reasonably priced PDA with a *slow* CPU that doesn't suck a lot of juice, 32MB of RAM (it's not like RAM size impacts battery life), and a reasonable 320x480 color screen that maybe sacrifices super-sharpness for battery life? (I think a PDA should last 20-30 hours on a battery charge to be really useful)
Are there any palm-compatible PDAs like that around? The T3 would be the ticket (in terms of features) but I heard that it has horrible battery life for example.
-- the cake is a lie
Anyone know anything about this?
When I first read that title, I read it as, "HP iPAQ h4x0rz..."
I'm just curious, but what is it about this device that sucks so bad? It seems pretty spiffy to me.
I don't read or respond to AC posts
Let's see...
1. Contact List
2. Memo Pad (I like to jot down things)
3. Calendar/Schedule
4. Games, with halfway decent resolution.
I bought a Palm IIIx about 4 1/2 years ago. Upgraded the memory. It still works great, although the screen is a little worn.
I bought a refurbished Palm IIIxe for $35 a couple of months ago. I still love the IIIx line.
Cellphones make crappy browsers, crappy memopads, crappy schedulers, and crappy game platforms. Add to that, you typically can't sync them with your PC, and I tend to switch providers (and thus phones) almost annually, and I can't ever see a cellphone becoming a suitable substitute for a PDA.
Just my flamebait opinion.
Come on! Couldn't they overclock it just a tiny fraction of a percent more to get it to a nice round number like 625MHz?
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
Maybe I should.
I just recently purchased my first PDA, a Palm IIIxe, for $50. I didn't want to spend a huge amount on a device I may not end up using (or so I was thinking).
What I use the PDA for mainly is time tracking for my clients (using TimeWhiz, http://www.timewhiz.st/). I also use it as a scratch pad, and I'm trying to get into using it for a day planner.
I've been using my PDA a lot since I bought it, but not as much as I had hoped. Definately have to discipline yourself to use the PDA for everything, otherwise it's worthless.
I know this gets brought up each time, but let's do it again so maybe some developers that are watching will remember at the next meeting seeing this one issue always brought up when a new PDA comes out.
Why does this still only have mere MBs of memory and not a 60GB laptop Hard Drive in it? Or at least the option to choose a hard drive model... I would buy if there was.
Commence Modding...
HP iPAQ hx4705 Reviewed
When I saw that phrase, I spent a good 20 seconds trying to figure out what the non-l33t translation for 'hx4705' was.
"HP iPAQ hacks... No... Um, hat attacks? No. What the hell does that say?!?"
Sure, you can say that I spend too much time on IRC, but I blame the editors for posting an article title that wouldn't pass the lameness filter if I tried to add it as a comment. What am I supposed to think, other than 'wow, that's some seriously obfuscated l33t'?
"We have to go forth and crush every world view that doesn't believe in tolerance and free speech." - David Brin
And, at $629 from Amazon, it's cheaper than that iPuck.
Can't somebody please make a clam shell design subnotebook of about psion series 5 proportions (series 7 at a push) which will run off of regular AA batteries, features a proper keyboard and can run Linux.
Thats all I want. It doesn't have to be super fast, just have enough power for vi, lynx, ssh and other essentials.
http://shit.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/09/30/1 911215
Can I attach a USB kybd/mouse/harddrive/whatever to it?
I wonder what Qtopia looks like on it...
This is why the http://myxda.com/XdaII/personal/template/XdaIIProd uctInfo.vmXDA2 still trumps 'em all.
PXA263 400MHz processor
128MB SDRAM(I have 384 in mine) 64MB ROM
65K display (good enuff for me)
camera (motion or still)
BT, Wifi(opt), etc
Phone, GPRS, etc
Handwriting recognition
WMP9, IE, RealOne, etc (the only windows machine I own/recommend) (WM2k3)
ObBitch: It doesnt have very good osx support (read: none), tho works for periods of time with some third party software. SyncML should, in theory, work, tho I havent gotten around (anyone?) to getting it to work.
Looking for something to do in Long Beach, Ca [lbcpc.com]?
Totally offtopic, but I wish i would have seen your sig 6 months ago. My girl went to CSULB and we didn't really find anything to do without driving outside of the LBC. Ah well.
Sony ha
I'm definitely getting a VGA PDA, maybe the HP, but more likely the Asus (also available now) or Dell (when it is available). I would have already purchased a Zaurus by now except for one thing - there is no GPS software for the Zaurus that does routing and voice instructions in the U.S. (when I last checked, I can't imagine this has changed). So I'm limited to Palm and Pocket PC, and as others have pointed out, Palm hasn't announced any VGA products yet.
e .htm), but the reviews predate the development of VGA.
I wrote deluo.com and asked if Routis would display optimally on a VGA PDA and they said no and didn't know when that would change. Does anyone else know of GPS software that works correctly on a VGA PDA? I've looked at Dale's excellent site (http://www.gpsinformation.org/dale/PocketPC/winc
By the way, GPS is one answer for what a PDA is good for. I've used a laptop w/ GPS in a car before - when you're the passenger, it's OK, but when you're the driver it sucks. You're worried its going to slide off the seat, you have to look 90 deg away from the road to see it, the screens can't handle sunlight, and the interface can't use large touch screen buttons. Phone screens are too small to be a good GPS - even a 4" PDA screen is a bit small, but I guess a 6" device is too big for most people. I guess I could also consider a dedicated GPS (maybe there exist VGA ones), but if I'm spending that kind of money, I want to use it for other things too - like a music player that can turn down the volume while giving voice instructions.
Dara
Then no thanks.
I'd rather have the HP h6315 iPAQ Pocket PC Wireless Phone, which has bluetooth, wifi, etc.
I've got one of these, in fact, I'm typing this on it right now... The big daw for me at least was the screen, it's beautiful, large and sharp, it also has built-in wifi and bluetooth, but it's really the screen that did it. (note to self, typing on a virtual keyboard is a PAIN)
You don't just load a desktop on a device that small, it doesn't work. OS-X is made to run on big hardware. It takes a lot of processor, RAM and diskspace for all it's nifty features. That's fine, Macs have that, but a PDA does not. They'd need to redesign OS-X to an embedded version before it would be a usable OS for PDAs.
That's why there is Windows CE. There really is a difference to making an OS run on a normal desktop and a PDA.
It's like with Linux. You often hear how Linux can boot from a floppy, which is true enough, 've done it on several occasions. One then might ask why Linux installs are so huge. Well because that little floppy distro is just the bare bones. No X, no Gnome, no Mozilla, etc. You want all the features, you need more space.
Now to cut those down for PDAs isn't just a simple recompile. X as it ships with most distros wouldn't even fit on a PDA, much less run. A more streamlined, cut down version is needed for the PDAs that use it.
It's not that an OS-X PDA is impossible, just that Apple would have to do major OS work to do it, and would probably want to sell the hardware themselves (the consider themselves a hardware company).
Or does the model number just look too much like 'h4xx0r5'?
Join moola.com, play games to earn money.
not everyone has dainty little child hands. Some of us have big meaty ham fists that cramp up when using microscopic electronics.
I've yet to find a mouse that is big enough to be comfortable.
According Palminfocenter and the Register, Palm Tungsten T5
could come as early as next Monday.
Preview is your friend.
Try Corewar @ www.koth.org - rec.games.corewar
Currently Familiar's Linux distribution supports some of the following key features:
If thats not enough Linux in your PDA, try:
The intimate project is a fully blown debian based linux distribution for the Compaq iPAQ. Taking the work being done by the Familiar Project and combining it with fully blown debian package management, and access to the thousands of existing debian arm packages. The goal is simple. We want the best of both worlds. Sure... it won't fit in the 16MB Flash but for the lucky few with microdrives then this is the way ahead. The minimum requirements are currently around 140MB of storage for the base image.
Have you not done any air travel lately?? Airports' security makes you take out any laptop for special inspection. That is particularly problematic if you happen to have carefully packed your carry-on luggage to get everything in. I very much envy people with palmtops: Since they officially aren't laptops, they can just leave them in their luggage. Or keep them in their pocket for that matter--much easier to pull out for the beady-eyed DHS guys.
Then there's battery life. Everyone knows that those 15 hour plane flights make those one hour batteries look downright silly they are so pointless. But even in terminals: The placement of power outlets is remarkably scarce in most airports, showing zero consideration for busy travellers. Aside from ultra-expensive, overweight laptops in the long-battery-life market niche, palmtops are really the only way to get 5+ hours of useful worktime.
Of course, the average PDA these days still makes design decisions that mock the potential usefulness of the platform. Like making the USB attachments only client-side, not controller-type; and like having no good method for data input. On this point I am pretty much in agreement with you, that most PDA's on the market are pretty darn worthless. Nobody ought to pay out that much just for a piddling addressbook peripheral!
I've used both PalmOS devices and PocketPC devices and I would have to say that PalmOS stuff is better designed, better supported and more effecient. While this may put PocketPCs on the top hardware-wise, it still doesn't beat a PalmOS device when it comes to it's native OS and general usability.
The only thing it doesn't do from your list is play dvds.
I have one and am so happy with it.
Symbian OS is something you have to try.
We are Turing O-Machines. The Oracle is out there.
it wont work on linux unless you do whatever voodoo suse did. they mucked up the firmware and plan to replace that in like 6 months.
osx and windows will still work.
you could also get the ps2 version with an adapter, but probably not thier adapter which supposedly uses the same buggy firmware
...nuff said.
Slashdot: stuff for news, nerds that matter, matter for news, stuff that nerd
Well, there's one thing missing from this ipaq, and it's the sleeve system. Never mind that there's builtins(I dont play the dual standard game of SD), but I'd still want to throw in a dual pcmcia sleeve and go wired/wireless on my terms (200mW 802.11b card, antenna jacks, GPRS cards, wired Ethernet, etc.), and if I wanted to do so where I have AC, to be able to plug in a pcmcia interfaced notebook drive to gain up to 80GB capacity off of IDE. If I want to slim it down, I can remove the sleeve, and any apparent bulk there is gone. Excuses people give for the sleeve's removal:
USB
The excuse of USB is not valid since they do not directly attach to the pda as with the sleeve.
Builtin peripherals:
The excuse of the builtins isnt valid either for this pda, as I'd rather use the chipset of my choice simply by plugging it in. When HP returns that to their ipaqs, then they will have me as their customer.
"Forget the engineers." -Carly Fiorina, briber of MIT Technology Review.
One upon a year, 624khz was far more than what we had, and VGA was state of the art.
Lets not forget 256mb smart cards come in Cereal Packets nowwadays.
So if your VGA screen is small, you have new ways of interacting, multi modal - voice recognition from mobile phone technology (voice dial) for small vocabulary recognition, shortcut buttons, hand writing recog, and stylus input.
Not to mention new inputs like Dasher. Lets not get appl eand pairs. Opie or GPE and the familar projects and other, they are real linux - and no you don't want an OS formatted for 4:3 19" screen on your 16:9 pocket screen. (google Dasher - it runs on my Axim rather well.)
So you argue against familiar being a 'full' linux, not just a different flavour, but you also state you cannot just push darwin onto a PDA.
So if you moddified it to work on a PDA, you would look at in discust, say it isn't a 'real' darwin, and if it was you wouldn't want it....
What is your point? Sorry but a lot of work is going on in this field (lots of happy hardware hacking) and I am waiting impatiently for a rebootable, power managed debianesuq distro to run on my axim - give them encouragement not misdirectd misdirection.
Hope that made sense.
#hostfile 0.0.0.0 primidi.com 0.0.0.0 www.primidi.com 0.0.0.0 radio.weblogs.com
These PDA's all use different ICs and it's not a simple case of install a configured Linux kernel and you're away.
The boot code can differ, the chips are sometimes proprietary (reverse engineering required) and the process of installing software into the ROM can be tricky (for one of the Toshiba's you have to solder a socket onto it).
Sure, it had x, y and z features, but it just wasn't as easy as a Palm.
To me, a PDA isn't about processor speed, memory and all that. It's much more about a human experience. Like, when I use a mobile, the menu navigation is one of the most important things to me.
The proof of the pudding is that it didn't organise me, and I didn't record the things in it I should have.
I've now got a Tungsten E, and I'm smiling. It's just a joy to use and not very expensive.
Well, I think they are pretty useful gadgets! In fact, I foresee (wait, I meant I can see them around 200 years in the future!)
..oh wait a minute..
Things you can do with a PDA:
1) View video disks
2) Record and playback audio logs
3) Receive email from Martian Buddy and win freebies
4) Open and shut security doors in your work place
5)
Online backup with Mozy, sounds like Ozzie, but more!
Did anyone else read the name as HP iPAQ H4xo5/Haxor The first time? :P
On a screen that is 10-15cm diagonal (rough estimate, I haven't seen the specs, but a larger PDA would be uncomfortable), the text is going to be too small to comfortably read -- in fact, the reveiw mentions that the PDA uses a special larger font so it is readable.
I'm happy with my B&W Palm m105 (160x160 screen), but I'd imagine a 320x240 colour screen should be good enough for most purposes.
Checkout the screenshoots of not just blackbox, but icewm, and KDE running on the iPaq. I think most would agree that KDE is a "desktop" level window manager. You can take debian .debs (for arm) and install them.
Debian suports ARM as one of it's many architectures, and has done since release 2.2 ('potato') was released in 2000. The current release is Debian 3.0 ('woody'). Whilst it nominally has equal status with other architectures it is fair to say that there remain some bugs in the ARM release and it can be hard to install on some platforms. Nevertheless it is an extremely useful resource for the technically competent user, allowing you to run a modern Linux on your ARM device."
I don't think anyone would complain about some modifications to OSX to fit the constraints of a PDA, as long as you could still run OSX and OS9 software on the PDA, right?