Hands-On With The HP iPAQ 500 Series Voice Messenger

[Rocco Augusto]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://ctia2007.spaces.live.com/Blog/cns!2B19213B4A187D9E!166.entry' target='_blank'>http://ctia2007.spaces.live.com/Blog/cns!2B19213B4A187D9E!166.entry</a><br /><br /></div><i>"While at CTIA 2007 I had a chance to get some hands-on time with the HP iPAQ 500 Series Voice Messenger (whew, quite the mouthful!). This is a Windows Mobile Standard smartphone with some decent specs: quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE, WiFi 802.11b/g, Bluetooth 1.2, a Texas Instruments OMAP 850 200mhz processor, a two inch colour display running at 176 x 220, 64 MB of RAM, 128 MB of Flash ROM, a microSD slot, and an 1100 mAH battery that provides up to 6.5 hours of talk time and 188 hours of standby time. It weighs in at 3.6 ounces (102 grams) and is 16.3 mm thick. This is an enterprise-focused device, so it's not meant to be sleek and sexy like many of the new Windows Mobile devices - although I have to ask myself, can't an enterprise user take advantage of a T-Mobile Dash or Samsung Blackjack just as well as this device? I'm not the only one asking that question. The battery life is impressive, and the device felt sturdy - but the lack of a QWERTY keyboard may turn off some users. It will be interesting to see how this device does in the market when it's released this spring (meaning, soon)."</i><br /><br /><img src="http://www.smartphonethoughts.com/images/augusto-20070405-hpvoicemess500.jpg" alt="User submitted image" title="User submitted image"/><br /><br />I do not think anyone will ever know why HP is releasing such a bare-bones device onto the market. My only guess was they picked up a prototype they had in storage, threw Windows Mobile 6 Standard on it and called it good. Hopefully though, that isn't what they did as I would like to believe they put at least a little bit of thought into the whole design process. I guess we will just have to wait and see! :)

[Mike Temporale]

I think this is a great device for 2 years ago. But in todays world, it's just not up to standards of the other devices. It's too bad, I would really like to see HP put some serious effort into the Smartphone side of things. But It's my guess that this will fail and HP will decide that the Smartphone market is to weak or something, and pull out. :?

[sheltem]

I think this is a great device for 2 years ago. But in todays world, it's just not up to standards of the other devices. It's too bad, I would really like to see HP put some serious effort into the Smartphone side of things. But It's my guess that this will fail and HP will decide that the Smartphone market is to weak or something, and pull out. :?

I agree, this phone is so bulky and the specs suck! The HTC Vox looks thinner than this guy and it has a slide out keyboard! I remember reading about this phone a few months ago when it had a 176x220 screen :lol: Even their QWERTY phones for Cingular are very underwhelming. That thing is huge, compared to the Blackjack and Q. It seems like HP has been utterly lost in regards to the smartphone market.

[Kris Kumar]

While I agree with you folks on the looks and style. The Unique Selling Proposition for this HP device is the VoIP and IP-PBX stuff that might sound attractive to some corporations. Cisco/Linksys and some others have VoIP/IP-PBX handsets. I think it is great for WinMo. It is entering another market.

HP has huge managed services contracts with major corporations. I am sure they will be able to push the sales of this device thru their own internal sales channels and partners.