Leaked Pics Of HP's iPAQ hx2000 Series Pocket PC

[Janak Parekh]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.engadget.com/entry/3510618851773606/' target='_blank'>http://www.engadget.com/entry/3510618851773606/</a><br /><br /></div><i>"Courtesy of a pseudonymous reader who wishes to only go by the name 'Typhoon', we’ve scored pics of HP’s new iPAQ hx2000 series Pocket PC, including the one above showing it alongside those new Bluetooth stereo headphones HP is coming out with soon. The verdict: they’re rather bland-looking, especially compared with some of the iPAQs that came out last year or even that new Axim X50 that’s coming from Dell."</i><br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/parekh-20041004-iPAQhx2000.jpg" /><br /><br />Engadget has the scoop of the morning. ;) There's supposed to be two or three models: the hx2100, possibly the hx2400, and the hx2700. They sound rather powerful, with the hx2700 having a 624MHz CPU, BT, WiFi, CF and SD as well as what looks like a fingerprint scanner. No confirmation on whether the display is VGA or QVGA.

[Jason Lee]

Oooh! all that stuff you said plus VGA and Nevo... Then i'd be good to go. :mrgreen:

[delfuhd]

I'd just be fine witht he bluetooth headphones :D my 2200 does me just fine

[ppcsurfr]

This is definitely going to be my next Pocket PC.

I just love it.

Carlo

[Darius Wey]

Wow...it sounds so feature packed.

Now how much is it? :wink:

[Stephen Beesley]

If the 2700 version does have everything that this is saying AND VGA then I just wonder what there is to differentaite it from the 4700 apart from the trackpad?

[Boxster S]

Unless this thing is under $500, I see no use for it (for me at least). If the Axim X50 Advanced comes in at $499 along with the usual $30 off coupons on top of 15% discounts then we know what people are going to go after.

[Jonathan1]

I just don't know about a BT headset. I really am not comfortable thinking about having a BT radio unit so close to my head for hours on end. I don't know. Prob just me. I just wonder what the fallout of cell phone usage and whatnot is going to look like in 20-30 years. If they will look back and think we were stupid for worrying about it or look back and think we were stupid for not worrying enough. :confused totally:

As for the device itself. IMHO it looks MUCH better then the current crop of iPaq's sans the 4705. At any rate this definitely isn't for the gaming crowd. The buttons are so low on the device it looks like it would be next to impossible to hold the device while pressing the buttons. Not a deal breaker for those who aren't gamers.

I think it's a moot point for many on the board anyways. Unless this device comes out in the next month or so most of us will be settling in on a PDA choice by then and most will, hopefully, already have their next gen PPC devices. a.k.a BRING ON THE X50V!!! 0X :D

PS- Is it just me or does the hx2100 have a serious shining thing going on between it and a Jornada 540 series Pocket PC. It seem like HP is taking some design tips from their old Jornada line. :roll: Well at least for some of their devices they are.

[ricksfiona]

I don't have a problem with the looks of the PDA at all. But the higher end puppy MUST have 128MB of RAM, not ROM. This unit should also have VGA.

I don't mind paying a small premium for HP products either.

[rob_ocelot]

Engadget has the scoop of the morning. ;) There's supposed to be two or three models: the hx2100, possibly the hx2400, and the hx2700. They sound rather powerful, with the hx2700 having a 624MHz CPU, BT, WiFi, CF and SD as well as what looks like a fingerprint scanner. No confirmation on whether the display is VGA or QVGA.

So soon after the release of their latest 'killer' models?

(wasn't HP recently attempting to strongarm sites that leaked info like this? They really need to put the kibosh on what is really an INTERNAL problem. The cat should not be getting out of the bag in the first place so don't blame the bag when it opens)

I'd have at least tried to keep these under wraps a bit better so as not to piss off people who just bought into the latest batch.

Waitaminute... Didn't they already do that with the h22xx and h41xx models one month after people bought into the new 55xx and 19xx series?
:-)


For that matter, what the hell is up with the confusing numbering schemes? Casual consumers like to see a steady progression of numbers (2100, 2200) with a steady progression of features and at least keep the same form factor reasonably within a number group. That 'hx' crap isn't going to mean anything to someone comparing models at a local Staples.

We already have enough posts from confused people asking what are the differences between model xx00 and xx50 and now we'll have to explain why the hx2100 is a MORE powerful unit than the h2200.

P.S. A button is a simple thing. Why can't PDA makers get this right? I don't care if it looks stylish, I want the button to work properly and at least be able to take 3 or 4 rapid presses in a row without making cracking noises. They should take a cue from the videogame industry -- design your products with a mind toward the maximum amount of abuse it will take.

ok /rant mode off ;-)

[Paul P]

That is definitely a biometric fingerprint scanner. I am glad to see HP continuing to incorporate them into iPaqs. Entering passwords just sucks.

[Sven Johannsen]

I just don't know about a BT headset. I really am not comfortable thinking about having a BT radio unit so close to my head for hours on end.

I don't see a mic boom on this like the BlueTake and the Logitech (I think) so we are just dealing with a receiver. No worse than a pair of FM radio or 900 Mhz headsets. These at least don't look too huge.

Those with 2215's or other BT devices, don't get your hopes up too high. These will require a profile no-one supplies yet. Whether HP will relaease retrofit drivers for older iPAQs is questionable. Whether they release drivers for other PPCs is really reaching. They don't have a good track record of doing that, CF Camera for example.

P.S. HP better get the train moving or I'll have an X50 in my hands before this thing is even official.

[ppcsurfr]

PS- Is it just me or does the hx2100 have a serious shining thing going on between it and a Jornada 540 series Pocket PC. It seem like HP is taking some design tips from their old Jornada line. :roll: Well at least for some of their devices they are.

Oh you bet they are...

from the fl** to the p****le settings... :-)

Carlo

[Felix Torres]

PS- Is it just me or does the hx2100 have a serious shining thing going on between it and a Jornada 540 series Pocket PC.

Not just you.
My first thought was: Jornada lives!
I hope that inset thing on the left side is a jog wheel.
I'd prefer a rocker switch like the Jornada, but I'd settle for a wheel...
If this has a VGA screen and the price is not 47xx outrageous, it jumps to the top of my list...

[D.psi]

PS- Is it just me or does the hx2100 have a serious shining thing going on between it and a Jornada 540 series Pocket PC. It seem like HP is taking some design tips from their old Jornada line. :roll: Well at least for some of their devices they are.

Yup recognized my old Jornada form down to the bio-scanner, then things went all silvery like. Looks like a bad photo-chopping job to me actually.

But amazing number of features...

D.psi

[dean_shan]

Looks kinda ugly to me. The bluetooth headphones would be cool to have though.

[Mark Johnson]

I'll make a "feature prediction" about the "fingerprint scanner" on the front:

One of the most lame navigation issues with the PPC (from all manufacturers) has been that the "up/down" navigation through long lists has been extremely inefficient. Compared to the "continuous scrolling" of the iPod wheel or even the Sony Jog Dial it takes forever to get though long music or contact lists. (I'm using a Rio Carbon for my music specifically because the nav-wheel on it IS speed sensitive and allows continuous scrolling to get from A to Z in a reasonable length of time.)

I'm betting that in either this model or some future one, the "fingerprint scanner" unit's thin-line "eye" will pull double-duty as a tiny "touchpad scroll wheel" to handle these list navigation situations. It's a natural extension of the function of the scanner that is already there.

It would work basically like the hx4700's touchpad, except that it would only have up/down not left/right. Obviously no one would use it for any sort of "mouse control" as in the hx4700, but it would be excellent for PIE scrolling, WMP playlist scrolling, Contacts scrolling, etc.

Anyone else think there's ANY chance HP's doing this with the hx2000's?

[huangzhinong]

I'll make a "feature prediction" about the "fingerprint scanner" on the front:

One of the most lame navigation issues with the PPC (from all manufacturers) has been that the "up/down" navigation through long lists has been extremely inefficient. Compared to the "continuous scrolling" of the iPod wheel or even the Sony Jog Dial it takes forever to get though long music or contact lists. (I'm using a Rio Carbon for my music specifically because the nav-wheel on it IS speed sensitive and allows continuous scrolling to get from A to Z in a reasonable length of time.)

I'm betting that in either this model or some future one, the "fingerprint scanner" unit's thin-line "eye" will pull double-duty as a tiny "touchpad scroll wheel" to handle these list navigation situations. It's a natural extension of the function of the scanner that is already there.

It would work basically like the hx4700's touchpad, except that it would only have up/down not left/right. Obviously no one would use it for any sort of "mouse control" as in the hx4700, but it would be excellent for PIE scrolling, WMP playlist scrolling, Contacts scrolling, etc.

Anyone else think there's ANY chance HP's doing this with the hx2000's?
The possibility is ZERO.

[jlp]

If the 2700 version does have everything that this is saying AND VGA then I just wonder what there is to differentaite it from the 4700 apart from the trackpad?

- device size; probably h22xx size vs h55xx size
- screen size; probably 3.6-3.7 vs 4"
- price
- less the touch pad you mention
- therefore 5 directional pad instead
- fingerprint scanner

Quite enough differentiation, I'd say 8).

[jlp]

I'll make a "feature prediction" about the "fingerprint scanner" on the front:

One of the most lame navigation issues with the PPC (from all manufacturers) has been that the "up/down" navigation through long lists has been extremely inefficient. Compared to the "continuous scrolling" of the iPod wheel or even the Sony Jog Dial it takes forever to get though long music or contact lists. (I'm using a Rio Carbon for my music specifically because the nav-wheel on it IS speed sensitive and allows continuous scrolling to get from A to Z in a reasonable length of time.)

I'm betting that in either this model or some future one, the "fingerprint scanner" unit's thin-line "eye" will pull double-duty as a tiny "touchpad scroll wheel" to handle these list navigation situations. It's a natural extension of the function of the scanner that is already there.

It would work basically like the hx4700's touchpad, except that it would only have up/down not left/right. Obviously no one would use it for any sort of "mouse control" as in the hx4700, but it would be excellent for PIE scrolling, WMP playlist scrolling, Contacts scrolling, etc.

Anyone else think there's ANY chance HP's doing this with the hx2000's?

It'd be much better to have a lateral scroll.

Why in h@!! those stupid engineers have dropped it :bad-words: while it was a requirement in the Palm-size PC of the day??? That's beyond me!! It's so much easier for on hand operation, much better than a touch pad, much better than a fingerprint-scanner-that-doubles-as-up/down-scroll :splat:

[jasondearyou]

I wouldn't mind having that fingerprint reader in there, that would be really ncie since now device developers wouldn't have to have a CF card finger print reader, which to me doesn't make sense.

This would give device developers a chance to do better cf devices for the pocket pc.

[ipaqmaniac]

FWIW, on the www.hpshopping.com site, they divide the iPAQ family into three segments: the "Digital Entertainment iPAQs", which includes the rz1715, the rx3115, and the rx3715; the "Classic Performance iPAQs", which includes the h2215, the h4155, the h4355, and the hx4705; and the "iPAQ + phone + camera device" category which includes the h6315 phone edition.

I kinda view this as something like the r[xz]nnnn family is consumer oriented, while the h[x]nnnn family is targeted toward enterprise customers; thus the fingerprint reader, etc. It will be interesting to see what channels the hx2000 series shows up in. I'm doubtful I'll see it at Best Buy...

I'm definitely looking forward to this device! :D (I'd be surprised if it had VGA, though...)

[Prevost]

From another thread I remember someone wrote that "hx" means VGA...

[ppcsurfr]

I hope that inset thing on the left side is a jog wheel.

What would you do if it is not?

[Gremmie]

Is there a string-bean stylus?

[ppcsurfr]

Is there a string-bean stylus?

Probably this one took a lot of spinach...

Carlo

[Mark Johnson]

It'd be much better to have a lateral scroll.

It's so much easier for on hand operation, much better than a touch pad, much better than a fingerprint-scanner-that-doubles-as-up/down-scroll :splat:

Interesting. It seems more likely that we might actually *get* a dual-purpose fingerprint scanner/scroll wheel than a horizontal scroll wheel. That's just because the standard way of scanning the finger is (apparently) with a vertical stroke instead of a horizontal one. If that's true (and I'll admit might be a big if) doesn't it make sense to add a vertical scrolling feature (as opposed to having nothing more than the pathetic up/down "single-click=single action" buttons on the side or d-pad)?

I'm completely with you that the "one-handed functionality" of the PPC is sorely lacking. With my Rio Carbon's scroll wheel, I can easily navigate, play, pause, stop, skip, etc. through my entire music collection with one hand, while driving. Trying the same with my PPC and Pocket Windows Media would be an invitation to a car wreck. I'm not entirely following you about how much horizontal scrolling would help (I find many "vertical scroll" lists that are difficult to get through but don't immediately see the "horizontal scrolling" situations you would want the feature for.) Can you clarify this?

Also, I was curious what you were referring to about horizontal scrolling being a past feature on the Palm-Sized PC. I don't recall this from either my e10 or e100...

[Mark Johnson]

I hope that inset thing on the left side is a jog wheel.

What would you do if it is not?

Just for clarification, there's never been a true "Jog Dial" on a PPC (although I hope some day there will be.) The up/down/select option buttons (implemented several different ways on Palm-Sized PC, PPC, etc always "return to neutral" after each motion rather than allowing "continuous scrolling" like the Sony Clie Jog Dial's, or the Apple iPod Touch Wheel, or the Rio Carbon Scroll Wheel.

This really is too bad, the superiority of a "real" Jog Dial for getting through large lists is dramatic. This is exactly why I dumped my Archos Jukebox MP3 player for the Rio Carbon. On the Archos, one down-arrow press takes you down one list entry, and a "held press" starts auto-repeating down. Since there is no real "speed sensitive" aspect to such navigation, it's a pain when you have a lot of albums, or a lot of contacts, or a long web page, etc.

Note how the Creative Jukebox Zen and the new Toshiba Gigabeat are now adding these kind of touch-pad/touch-wheel scrolling zones. The hx4700 seems promising, although I haven't gotten my hands on one yet. Clearly buttons alone just don't cut it.

Consider your wheel mouse. Pretend the wheel was replaced with a pair of up/down buttons. Yuck. That's sort of what we've always had with the PPC and I really hope that this changes.

[disconnected]

With all of these new and rumored models, you'd think there'd be at least one that is just about exactly what I want, but apparently not.

Right now I'm waiting for the 4700, but what I'd really rather have is more a combination of that and the 3715. I haven't seen an actual 4700 yet, but my husband used his TAP (plus money) to trade up from a Viewsonic35 to the 3715. The volume is AMAZING compared to my 5500, and would be much better for GPS use. Also the camera and Remote Control app would be nice; I can live without them, but I'd rather have those than the touchpad on the 4700. I do, however, really want the second card slot that the 4700 has, and the 4" VGA screen. I don't understand why they don't have a 4" VGA screen on a "Digital Entertainment" iPAQ. I'd also love to have a jog dial, which obviously neither one has, and even built-in GPS (mostly for walking; I'm happy with my separate bluetooth GPS for driving), and I'm also really unhappy about the amount of RAM in both of them. People are already posting lots of hacks to save RAM, and I really think it's unfortunate that this is necessary. And it also seems that the VGA display implementation even for the built-in apps needs work, as there are lots of hacks for that as well.

My TAP is good for another year, and I probably should just stick with my 5500 for another generation, but I'm sure that if and when I see the 4700 at CompUSA I'll probably break down and get it.

[Jason Lee]

With all of these new and rumored models, you'd think there'd be at least one that is just about exactly what I want, but apparently not.

Right now I'm waiting for the 4700, but what I'd really rather have is more a combination of that and the 3715. I haven't seen an actual 4700 yet, but my husband used his TAP (plus money) to trade up from a Viewsonic35 to the 3715. The volume is AMAZING compared to my 5500, and would be much better for GPS use. Also the camera and Remote Control app would be nice; I can live without them, but I'd rather have those than the touchpad on the 4700. I do, however, really want the second card slot that the 4700 has, and the 4" VGA screen. I don't understand why they don't have a 4" VGA screen on a "Digital Entertainment" iPAQ. I'd also love to have a jog dial, which obviously neither one has, and even built-in GPS (mostly for walking; I'm happy with my separate bluetooth GPS for driving), and I'm also really unhappy about the amount of RAM in both of them. People are already posting lots of hacks to save RAM, and I really think it's unfortunate that this is necessary. And it also seems that the VGA display implementation even for the built-in apps needs work, as there are lots of hacks for that as well.

My TAP is good for another year, and I probably should just stick with my 5500 for another generation, but I'm sure that if and when I see the 4700 at CompUSA I'll probably break down and get it.

I know exactly what you mean. I could combind the features from the 3715 and the 4700 I would have my perfect (for now anyway) ppc. I'm hoping maybe the hx2700 will possibly do that. Doubt it will have a camera but i can live with out that. Probably won't have vga either.. the more i've seen of it the more i think my next ppc must have vga... Oh hum... :roll:

[jlp]

It'd be much better to have a lateral scroll.

It's so much easier for on hand operation, much better than a touch pad, much better than a fingerprint-scanner-that-doubles-as-up/down-scroll :splat:

Interesting. It seems more likely that we might actually *get* a dual-purpose fingerprint scanner/scroll wheel than a horizontal scroll wheel.

[snip]

Also, I was curious what you were referring to about horizontal scrolling being a past feature on the Palm-Sized PC. I don't recall this from either my e10 or e100...

Sorry Mark, ESL here (English as a Second Language; in fact 3rd for me); I meant "side (lateral) scroll wheel or switch"; as I understand MS made this feature mandatory for all PsPCs. I don't know how Compaq (now HP) got away with this on the first iPaqs and ever since all their new devices sorely lack one; even other devices didn't come with any. On the opposite stance (and from what I recall), Toshiba's first PPCs (e570, e550) didn't have it while all their devices from the 2nd generation (e300/e740...) always had/have one.

[Lex]

hx2000's seem ready to ship per hp's site.

http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/us/en/sm/WF04a/215348-64929-215381-314903-f67.html

Estimated ship date is 1/1/05. I don't think they'd really ship on that date. 8)

EDIT: None of 'em have VGA.

[WyattEarp]

Nooo... Not cool at all. 8O :? QVGA... Why?! HP iPAQ hx2700 Pocket PC - overview and features (http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/us/en/sm/WF06b/215348-64929-215381-314903-f67-421420-421421-421423.html)

Had everthing going for it then they ruined it with QVGA, Serial IR and a $549.00 price tag :? . Looks like my h5555 will be with me for a bit longer.

[Lex]

Had everthing going for it then they ruined it with QVGA, Serial IR and a $549.00 price tag :? . Looks like my h5555 will be with me for a bit longer.

Ditto. I just bought a new 2215 for $170 less than that.