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PDAStreet.com > News > HP Prepping New Smartphones, PDAs HP Prepping New Smartphones, PDAs
By James Alan Miller
Posted by Swedish Web site Mobil.Se and brought to us in english by Unwired View, the pictures show two smartphones, the iPAQ 914 and iPAQ 614; a pair of handhelds without phone functionality, the iPAQ 214 and iPAQ 114; and a GPS navigator, presumably called the iPAQ 314 All of these devices, save the iPAQ 314, which is said to use custom software from HP, run on Microsoft's Windows Mobile 6 platform. The iPAQ 914 is supposedly fitted with a QWERTY thumb-keyboard, GPS, Wi-Fi, a 3 megapixel camera, Google Maps, a 2.46-inch, 240 x 320 pixel resolution touch screen and support for extremely high speed (7.2 Mbps) HSDPA cellular-wireless data networking. As for the iPAQ 614, it seems to offer similar specifications, but in a chassis that nixes the keyboard for a numeric keypad. Both of these iPAQ smartphones could hit the market this fall for an unsubsidized price of $800 apiece—with the iPAQ 914 due to ship sometime in November and the iPAQ 614 in October.
Reportedly, the iPAQ 314 will be HP's first standalone navigation device. There's rumored to be a large 4.3-inch, 800 x4 480 pixel resolution display, the ability to play media files, and support for wirelessly syncing of Outlook and cell phone contacts over a Bluetooth connection. No rumored pricing for this model.
Both the iPAQ 214 and 114 will purportedly offer Wi-Fi (with VoIP support) and Bluetooth, with the former sporting a 4-inch, 480 x 640 pixel (VGA) resolution screen and the latter a 3.5-inch, 320 x 240 pixel (QVGA) resolution display. Both of these models, like the iPAQ 614, are reportedly due to ship in October—the iPAQ 214 for about $500 and the iPAQ 114 for around $430. Once Pocket PC leader, if not - for a time - the PDA leader overall, HP has experienced some hard times in the mobile-device market over the last few years. A couple of reasons include the bottom falling out of the non cellular-wireless handheld market—HP's bread and butter— and the rise of smartphones. Yes, HP has made several stabs a cracking the market, but it has done so without the notable success of some of its competitors; such as Motorola with the Q, Samsung with the BlackJack, RIM with the BlackBerry, HTC with just about any kind of Windows Mobile-run device you can think of, and Palm with the Treo. Related Links:
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