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HP iPAQ hx4705 Reviewed

Posted by Hemos on from the cool-machines dept.

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."

17 of 147 comments (clear)

  1. hp+apple=new newton? by boomerny · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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...

  2. Where is PalmOne? by Ryan+Monster · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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
  3. Beware of HP by DrXym · · Score: 4, Interesting
    I bought an iPaq h4150 a couple of months back only to find it was end of lifed 3 weeks later. The device wasn't even selling for a year and it is already obsolete. It was still the #1 seller for HP at the time, I think that's a little raw. No new bios upgrades, no Pocket PC 2003 Second Edition. Zip.

    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.

    1. Re:Beware of HP by DrXym · · Score: 4, Interesting
      I wouldn't have a problem with it either if I knew then what I know now. I would have simply bought from someone else.

      My issue is that I didn't know, and there was nothing on their site to suggest they were dropping support. In fact the site lead me to believe that their support was good. They even had an offer to update old devices to the latest Windows Mobile 2003 for a nominal fee. I thought "what great support!" and ordered one. Three weeks later and they announce end of life...

      As for being a gadget - no it's not a gadget, it is my PDA. I had a Palm Vx for four years that worked just fine in that capacity but which finally went a bit wonky. I heard good things about the h4150 in reviews in PCW and elsewhere and decided to switch.

      I only expected the level of support that the HP brand and their site lead me to believe I was going to get. That doesn't mean constant upgrades, but it does mean bug fixes and upgrade offers for a fee if they are feasible. For example an upgrade to Mobile 2003 Second Edition is feasible but none is forthcoming. Even bug fixes of the temperamental wireless would be nice.

      I suspect that HP have pulled the rug on support to shove people onto the new models, but it won't work. If I'm shoved, I'll end up buying a Dell Axim, or maybe another Palm. I certainly won't fork out extra money for service that I don't get. I'm sure others will too.

  4. Forgive a curmudgeon, but... by boredman · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

    So, here's the question: what do you, members of the /. community, use your PDAs for, anyway? I'm genuinely curious; please don't interpret this as flamebait.

    -boredman

    1. Re:Forgive a curmudgeon, but... by ch-chuck · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I use my ipqa 1945 for:

      1) Listening to Internet audio about the house (wirelessly)with 802.11b and headphones
      2) Listening to a shortwave radio
      3) Using a web browser to control item #2
      4) Running an Atari 8 bit emulator to play games like "Kennedy Approach" or Chess 2000 while in the waiting room
      5) Pocket Calculator, scientific
      6) Notes in the field (push putton, talk)
      7) Address book, phone numbers
      8) Passwords (the entire unit is passwd protected in case of loss or theft)
      9) Alarms and reminders - e.g., I put lanudry in the washer and schedule an alarm 18 minutes later when I need to add fabric softener
      10) Browsing slashdot and ebay (albeit awkwardly) when relaxing on the porch listening to #1 or 2
      11) ssh into my machines for simple operations and log checks
      12) Calendar for appointments with reminders - in fact it just went off to remind me of a radio program on in 10 minutes. Gotta go.

      --
      try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
    2. Re:Forgive a curmudgeon, but... by G4from128k · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I offer both agreement and an answer. I use an 4.5 year old Psion 5mx for word processing (taking notes at conferences, on airplanes, in line at the bank, etc.) spreadsheets, small databases, date & time around the globe, quickie calculations, scheduled reminders, and an occasional game. Its got a whopping 36 MHz processor, 16 MB RAM, and a 16-gray B/W half-VGA screen but that is all it really needs for these tasks. It is totally fantastic as a 12 oz. ultralite laptop because it does all the basic "office" type tasks and gets 20 to 35 hours per pair of AAs.

      Like you, I don't see the need for faster/better (especially at the expense of battery life), although I can understand the attraction to wireless web access.

      --
      Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
    3. Re:Forgive a curmudgeon, but... by Stinking+Pig · · Score: 2, Interesting

      My Palm V was a genuinely useful device. I kept my address book and calendar in it, took notes, and carried a little bit of documentation (very little :-). It was my alarm clock on the road. Its battery life was decent, with the hard case I could drop it or sit on it and it would be okay.

      I replaced it when the battery failed with a Sony Clie 610 which was prettier, faster, bigger, more fragile, and had poorer battery life. After a few months, I quit using it, mainly because of the bigger and more fragile problems -- it wasn't safe to carry in a pocket, and getting it out of my bag to take a note got to be more trouble than it was worth.

      My current employer has a side product that manages Pocket PCs, so I was recently sent an IPaq something or other... gotta take the battery out to find the product number, that's really brilliant. Anyway, I used it a few times to test our product, and I carry it in my demo bag so I can show it to anyone who wants to see the product, but it pretty much stinks. I haven't tried it for the address book and calendar functions because I now have those in my phone and my web server... but trying to get the thing onto a wireless network and use the web with it is pointlessly awful. I did try to use it for a solid day at Intel Developer Forum, but I wasn't able to get it to stay on a single AP for more than ten minutes at a time, and the fully charged battery died after about three hours, so that was that.

      --
      "Nothing was broken, and it's been fixed." -- Jon Carroll
    4. Re:Forgive a curmudgeon, but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting
      • I *still* can't figure out what these things are good for.

      Well, probably part of the problem is that different people use them for different things. For what it's worth, here's what I use my Palm PDA for:

      • calendar, phone numbers
      • writing down all the trivia that I need day-to-day (code to the laundry room?)
      • pleasure books (several of them. very nice when you're stuck in line somewhere)
      • technical reference (AT command set, abstract of relevant trade articles, various stuff clipped from the web)
      • games. Well, they're nice.
      • I'm learning Korean on it. Yep. Very nice to be able to check my vocabulary list whenever I think "hey, I *should* know that word..."
      Really the main thing is that this allows me to have with me all sorts of stuff that (together) would be way too heavy or cumbersome. But with a PDA, I have all the information I need with me, whenever I need it.
    5. Re:Forgive a curmudgeon, but... by Kanasta · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Dictionaries. Cuz Im multilingual. Half a dozen of them that woulda taken up half my shelf. I do maps too, with GPS and stuff for travel.

      I agree with you tho, cell phones do most the other PIM functions already.

      They're not really expensive tho... Look at what you spend on a graphics card.

  5. Re:I don't know about all that... by PepsiProgrammer · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I'll stick to my Zaurus SL-6000 its only got a 400mhz processor, and no bluetooth. But I dont use bluetooth and its already running linux.

    Not to mention its ruggedized (Desigined to withstand 1 meter fall to concrete) also features the best looking pda display ive ever seen, and has the trademark sliding keyboard.

    Unfortunately rumour has it that Sharp is wanting to pull out of the US PDA market entirely :( the SL-6000 is not marketed towards consumers at all. But you can still pick em up at amazon.

    --
    "The United States has no right, no desire, and no intention to impose our form of government on anyone else." - Bush 05
  6. Buy a comparable Dell for half the price... by SoCalChris · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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.

    And in their comparison of the Dell screen vs. the ipaq screen, I think the Dell displays better anyways.

    Besides, isn't /. supposed to be boycotting HP and Carly Fiona?

  7. Revolutionary PDA? by hklingon · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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

  8. Re:Zaurus 6000 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Yeah, I got a Zaurus SL-6000L with transflective VGA (transflective makes it easy to read in all lighting conditions) in April. It's so lame that PocketPC has taken so long to offer the same (assuming the iPaq is transflective) or worse.

    On the other hand, maybe no one here noticed this small Linux machine, since Slashdotters don't like machines that come with Linux pre-installed, preferring to pay the Windows tax to help fund SCO's legal campaign or patents on FAT or whatever. Only after he's paid Microsoft to try to snuff Linux does the typical /.er put Linux on a machine, then prance around boasting that he's free of MS software.

  9. Re:Still no Hard Drive by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting
    If you'd like a hard drive, just plug a 4Gb Hitachi Microdrive in the CF slot.

    And watch that 3 hour battery life go to 1 hour...

  10. And Apple would have to do some major work by Sycraft-fu · · Score: 1, Interesting

    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).

  11. Wrong on a few counts. by tod_miller · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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