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Citizens of Germany are the first people in the world to get a crack at Hewlett-Packard's (HP) newest Pocket PC Phone, the iPAQ hw6500. T-Mobile announced it would begin offering the smartphone in that country today.

As part of T-Mobile Germany's Take-Away plan, consumers can buy the hw6500 from a store and have the carrier activate it later.

HP began touting the new cellular-wireless handheld back in February. It is reportedly the opening salvo of an upcoming onslaught of such devices from the computer and printer giant.

Although there's no word as to what other operators will offer the device, it has become fairly clear that Cingular Wireless should be among the first to do so in the United States—most likely this September.

Cingular is the only carrier in the States with a widely deployed EDGE (Enhanced Data for Global Evolution) network. EDGE is the high-speed wireless technology supported by the hw6500.

T-Mobile Germany doesn't have an EDGE network, however.

Because of EDGE support and a number of other factors, HP's new smartphone is a major step forward over the company's first Pocket PC Phone, the h6300 series, which didn't do as well as expected in the marketplace.

Many prospective customers seemingly passed on the earlier smartphone because the keyboard wasn't physically merged into the unit like with palmOne's Treo 650 and more recent Pocket PC Phones (e.g. Sprint's Audiovox PPC-6601 and Cingular's Siemens SX66) that even have retractable keyboards, among other factors.

The hw6500 remedies that problem with a BlackBerry-like integrated QWERTY thumb-keyboard.

More Nuts & Bolts
The hw6500 runs on a 312 MHz Intel XScale processor, 64 MB of memory (46 MB available to the user), and an 8 MB File Store. Taiwanese original equipment manufacturer High Tech Computer (HTC) designed the smartphone.

In addition to GSM/GPRS/EDGE, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth radios, the hw6500 has a Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver with NMEA (National Marine Electronics Association) standards support for navigation and other location services. Even though the hw6500 lacks an external GPS antenna, HP asserts the Pocket PC Phone still gets good reception from satellites.

Where that isn't possible, however, the device turns to cell phone tower triangulation to determine locations. HP will bundle TomTom Navigator software with the ability to choose and download one free city map with the hw6500.

Interestingly, the hw6500 is the first handheld of its type with a square 240 x 240 pixel resolution display. As with the h6300 series, HP will offer versions of the hw6500 with and without a camera—a 1.3-megapixel model with LED flash for taking pictures up to 1280 x 1024 pixels in resolution or video at 640 x 480 pixels.

Many companies and organizations don't allow employees to have devices with cameras to the office for security and privacy reasons. T-Mobile Germany is initially selling the version of the hw6500 without a camera.

The hw6500 measures 4.7 x 2.8 x 0.8 inches (118 x 71 x 21 millimeters) and weighs 5.8 ounces (165 grams). Rumors say the device should cost around $600 when it ships in the United States.