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HP's New iPAQ hx2755 Reviewed
Brandon Miniman submitted a story that discusses the whole iPAQ line of handhelds and specifically looks at the newly released iPAQ hx2755 Pocket
PC. This one is unique in that it has a biometric fingerprint reader.
Does anyone know if these fingerprint thingies got any standardised protocol for verifiying data - or does all vendors have their own system?
life in low-res
iPAQs have had fingerprint readers for over a year now. 5550 was the first I think?
Ok, without having read the FA, I'll make a prediction about this article:
1) The article reads like a press release from H-P.
2) The submitter is just pushing traffic to his own site in the hopes he can cash in on some advertising revenue.
Am I correct or am I correct?
I could have sworn i have seen PDA's with fingerprint readers in the past.....
but they feel like plastic light weight junk and they look like s.
Read The Friendly Article...
"Like the HP iPAQ h5450 and h5550, the hx2755 has an integrated biometric fingerprint reader"
My 5455 has a great fingerprint reader, had it foe a while...
-MrLogic
1. I hope AC above me is joking
2. Who cares about handhelds? Other than toys, do they really serve a purpose? Does anyone really use one and not a laptop instead?
"I believe today that my conduct is in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator"-Adolf Hitler or George W Bush?
They are also hosting it on the iPaq...
Mine came with halitosis recognition. It only turns on for people with really bad breath. And THEN it does the fingerprint scan. Talk about security.
Sigs are for Terrorists.
I've been trying to buy a PDA for a year and cannot find a PDA that has the features I need, every PDA has pros and cons, however the cons in almost every PDA make it a questionable buy. If you want to use the HP iPaq and have a phone plan you can only use TMobile which has horrible reception in my area, Cingular and Verizon offer their own versions but the PDAs they provide are very subpar and expensive to boot. Just with there was a great PDA avaialable with cellular provider of your choice, but that would be good for consumer and bad for the cellular companies...
An improved screen? I mean if you're putting your fingers on it all the time, the screen could get pretty janky, and may not be able to read your fingerprint through all the crap and scratches. Or, bill/tom/dick/harry could get access with the fingerprint you left on the screen.
That reminds me of a recent Dilbert....g es/dilbert20051830810113.gif
http://www.dilbert.com/comics/dilbert/archive/ima
There's much debate about whether fingerprints are the primary keys to human identity. Law enforcement has based over 100 years of work on the premise that no two humans, anywhere, ever, have the same fingerprints. Some people say this is hogwash. Let's leave out, for now, the fact that it's not possible to verify this claim at all: there's no way to test all living people and compare their prints. This is troubling, but a bit of a red herring. More troubling is the way fingerprinting is practiced. There's a case in Philly right now where a federal judge has prohibited the prosecution from testifying that two fingerprints "match" -- and Tom Ridge wants fingerprints added to U.S. passports. From this article:
The answers, respectively, are "no," "no one knows," and "no."
Letter
None of the other new features were attractive enough to get my attention.
somewhere, on a Big Red Sign:
if(color==blue){speed--;}
And I still use a $0.89 Mead Composition book (UPC #043100090236) for my daily to-do and I keep it tucked inside a small calendar to track my "appointments". Why? Because it's just easier for me to grab a pencil and scratch an entry down. I was never able to get the entry down quickly with a PDA (despite using Rosetta, Graphiti, Jot and Transcriber). It's just not fast enough for me. As a plus I also get to use some of my nice fountain pens, they are a joy to write with. The calendar folds out to the size of a comp book when open (9.75"x15") and gives me an easy view of my month or my week. Flipping forward and back is a cinch and takes no time at all. I always hated hunting for appointments and tasks on a PDA because I could only efficiently see one day at a time no matter what the platform (though the Newton did it best, but was the largest unit).
If I drop it on the way to a meeting it doesn't break, and I don't have to worry about batteries running down at the worst possible moment. Plus the comp books are literally $0.89 and the Calendar was about $11.99 and is refillable.
Sure, I can't play super break out or solitare or freecell, but I don't care. At work I'm there to work and when I'm someplace waiting I'm usually reading a paper or adding notes and "todo's" in my book. Or I just put the damn thing down and enjoy the environment I'm in. I don't miss the games.
I've converted...back to paper for good I think. I'm not planning on rushing out and upgrading with the next generation of PDAs (unless Apple does another one). I'll save that money and buy another Pelican or Parker or Delta fountain pen instead.
on mobile devices. These devices can get tussled about a decent amount, what happens if the device breaks? Do you have to pay for an expensive repair just to get access to your files?
Monstar L
I just read a recent report that said smartphones with pocket PC capabilities, sale numbers rose an average of 120% while smartphones have only gained about 6% growth. IMO pocket PC's wont be around much longer, it just makes more sense to include the features in cellphones, i really dont want to pay $300+ for somthing im most likely going to keep notes and addresses in. And i think its clear which side the public is on. Death to pocket PC's, long live the smartphone!
When I read about the evils of drinking, I gave up... reading.-Henny Youngman
and it even has a better screen than the Mac Mini.
When will these things become a bit lower in price?
It's either clean out my wallet... or get a dinky cheap PDA.
At least with cell phones the price may be super inflated... but at least they get subsidized with a plan.
Perhaps it's time for 802.11b hotspot providers to subsidize PDA's? Get a plan for 2 years, and get a cheaper PDA?
Most likely would get geeky PDA's in more consumer hands... more customers.
Well mine came with Butt recognition. It only turns on for people who leave it in their back pocket. And THEN it does the fingerprint scan. Talk about security.
If people would just keep a closer eye on their stuff, we wouldn't have to do retina scans while we put our fingers onto biometric panels and licked a strip of electrodes.
Personally, I think if you have things on your iPAQ that you want to protect so badly, then you should try a little fucking harder to take care of it.
Pluses for me over a laptop:
PIM information is more available (I've yet to see a laptop that wakes up 15 minutes before an appointment, or one that you'd WANT to carry with you everywhere you go).
Small keyboard (yep, I've got the microthumbboard) is easier to use in cramped conditions, like plane, restroom, bus, or train.
Synchronization- I'm sure there's a way to get the laptop to do this, but it's nice to be able just to grab the thing out of the cradle and know I've got the same e-mail, contacts, calendar and todo list as my desktop machine (and part of the web too- Avantgo and rsssync mean that pieces of the web get copied to the device locally).
Having said that, big negatives that the laptop does better include:
More hard drive space- I do have a hitachi 2GB on there but I'm always running out.
Screen resolution- for many applications, especially Acrobat Reader, QVGA just is very very small at only 320x240.
All in all, though, I'm satisfied- and use mine every day.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
Hewlett-Packard not Picard. Close though.
I doubt source will be released since it uses Microsoft Pocket PC.
How many people can read hex if only you and dead people can read hex?
Am i the only one to whom the idea of a device you hold having a fingerprint reader for security seems a little... silly?
"Nothing can shake my belief that this world is the fruit of a dark god whose shadow I extend." - Emil Michel Cioran
We wouldn't be seeing what is largely a dup of a Jan 5th Slashdot Article...
If all you need is access- I've used Activesync to back up files from a PocketPC with a broken screen. From the looks of the fingerprint reader, it's a good deal more robust than the screen (which is very much the most fragile piece of any PDA). But I'd assume, based on my experience, that Activesync would continue to be able to sync to/from the device, if you could turn it on at all.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
HP's New iPAC h4x0r3d
What are you doing with your PDA in the bathroom anyway?
I bought mine because being a nursing student I thought I'd have ample use for a pocket computer. Carry my drug guide, assessment cheat sheets, care plans, record patient vitals, set alarms for meds, etc, etc...
But there's no real substitute for having a good memory and a notepad. My PDA locks up, the transcriber input is at times laughable, and people generally look down their nose at me for using it. It's big (Audiovox Thera) and cumbersome to carry in a scrub pocket. Plus when the patient barfs, bleeds, or shits all over me the PDA has to be cleaned...
But in any case in my last pda evaluation I once again ran up against an annoyance factor that doesn't go away. I do not like Windows for PDAs, in any shape or form. I like Palm OS much more. But Palm make it hugely difficult to change the battery, even though the basic battery is just an ordinary LiIon. Why? Even the T5, which has flash memory and so can survive battery change, has a battery that requires watch-like dismantling to change. I do not like relying on a device which is only as reliable as a nonexchangeable battery.
HP is surely big enough to make it possible to run their PDAs on either OS. Even if it was a buy-time decision, I would rather have an HP PDA that ran Palm OS than any form of fingerprint recognition.
Panurge has posted for the last time. Thanks for the positive moderations.
two reviews in less than a month on the same HP model. Guess what, I will NOT buy it. Also, I have had a fingerprint reader on my Ipaq for over three years now, so fingerprint readers on Ipaqs or other PDA's are not new. What would be new is if Taco reads what he posts.
Only to people who have already spent the ~$2000 to subscribe to MSDN- for them the source is available because every damned version of Windows CE is vendor tweaked from an SDK provided by Microsoft.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
You can't easily synchronize a Mead notepad with your central database over a wireless connection in a coffee shop.
You can't do an automatic search-and-replace on a notepad.
You can't write in various computer languages and then have the notepad render or compile the language to its target format(s). Think web design, for example.
You can't passphrase-protect your notepad.
The notepad has zero levels of undo.
The question is not whether a PDA is useful, but whether the uses it has are ones you want when you're away from a regular computer. If not, that doesn't make you a ludite any more than not driving in a metropolitan city does.
We're still ways to go in battery technology.
I actually have a friend that carries 2 phones, one is the latest and greatest palm based one and the other is a regular phone and he switches the smart chip between both.
I personally want a phone that just works and has a long battery life. No color displays, no pictures, just signal strength, clarity, battery life and portability.
Once we make progress and we can store contacts, appointments and sync by just being close to our bluetooth PC then we'll be ready.
Meanwhile...let's just wait and see
I mean, is he a little person? That'd be sooo kewl.
Oh, and can it run Linux? Clustered with a beowolf ?
What's a beowolf ?
You have to cut off your finger and send it in with the device for repair.
My P900 has >72 hours standby time and does everything I'd use an IPAQ for including note taking, voice recorder, web browsing (Opera), email, games, calendar, address book.
Oh, and its a phone.
Sam
blog.sam.liddicott.com
Do you see the basic fallacy in these remarks? The part that makes the phone smart is the PDA capabilities, and whatever report you cited specifically mentioned PocketPCs, so there is no death for PocketPC as a platform.
The report mentioned "Pocket PC Capabilities", which I take as code for "Blackbery and Treo rich devices".
I do know that around my workplace, Blackberries are almost standard now.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Does it run Linux?
Data will not be lost while the battery is out, the 650 uses NVRAM. Just like a cell phone, you can't maintain an active call or data connection with the battery out :)
I do not deploy Linux. Ever.
iPAQ is equipped with ProtectTools
and ProtectTools is HP's codename for Trusted Computing compliance.
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
If I drop it on the way to a meeting it doesn't break, and I don't have to worry about batteries running down at the worst possible moment.
And if you lose it, there is no backup. Since it's working for you, go ahead and do that... but PDAs do have some advantages over paper, it isn't all one-way.
I'll never forget the classified ad I saw:
LOST: my DayTimer. Help! My whole life is in there! $50 reward!
mirror here: http://www.mirrordot.com/stories/1978f3a9c0c8b40ca efe72c27a9f7c2f/index.html
If it fails the fingerprint reader more than a few times (5 I seem to remember) then you are asked to answer the secret question you set when you teach it your fingerprint.
PDA's are a wast of time for the disabled. I have low vision and am dyslexic. I could really use a PDA. Most cell phones are almost useless to the disabled and eldderly as well with tiny butons and text. Yes the displays keep geting bigger but the text is geiiting smaller. I nead at least 24-30 point type size to read. Hay Motorola and Palm wake the $$$$ UP.