HP Obsidian?

[vovillamor]

Does anyone have any fresh news about the HP Obsidian from AT&T?

A few months ago I was about to replace my AT&T Tilt with a Samsung Epix.
The Tilt is my second phone with a sliding keyboard, and I wanted to try out a device with a front-facing qwerty keyboard. I want a device with a hardware keyboard, but don't want to have to rotate the device to use it.

That's when news about the Tilt 2 from AT&T started coming out. So I decided to wait so that I could compare side-by-side the keyboards on the Epix and the Tilt 2.

Now the Tilt 2 is out, but Epix is no longer availble from AT&T.

I had a bad feeling all along about the Epix anyways ( proprietary port for charging and syncing, 320X320 screen resulution, no reset button, no mini USB port ... ).

From what I've read so far about the HP Obsidian, it has the front-facing qwerty keyboard that I want, and doesn't have the the problem features that the Samsung Epix has.

So, does anyone have any fresh news about the HP Obsidian from AT&T?

[Sven Johannsen]

Not sure that you would have been terribly unhappy with the Epix. While I acknowledge all you issues, I didn't find them terrible detracting..except maybe the lack of a reset button. Most of the time, when needed, just a power cycle fixed the inevitable issues. Keep in mind that the Epix is a WM Pro device (touch screen), while most of the other devices with similar form factor are Standard (non-touch). I found the keyboard very usable and the touch screen welcome, though not as essential as you might expect, with the touch pad set as a mouse emulator.

Not trying to sell you on the Epix, just wanted to provide a little perspective. I actually used the Epix and an iPhone for the last half year, and a Tilt instead of the iPhone before that. Recently traded up to a Pure. Already like the Pure onscreen keyboard better than the iPhone's, though neither compare to real keys. Not a heavy enterer, and rarely made the effort to open the Tilt's keyboard. Just decided to see if not having a keyboard was worth the slimmer device.

Rumor is that the Epix will get a 6.5 upgrade. Looking forward to that. Good luck with your HP quest. I've had numerous HP PDAs from Jornada's to iPaq 211, but never one with a phone in it.

[vovillamor]

Not sure that you would have been terribly unhappy with the Epix...

Thanks for the reply, Sven.

I don't think I would have been unhappy with the Epix.
I'm more interested in new devices that will work with old accessories ( like miniUSB chargers ) and that will work older software (that may have problems with the 320X320 resolution ).