How about a 2215 week one summary from one of you who has had it all week?

[kwerner]

I'm about ready to go buy one but I'd like to see a quick summary of the highs and lows if someone has a few minutes. Any con's to the new OS, major apps that won't work? Glad you bought the devie overall, etc...

Thanks,
Kevin

[wizeguy]

I like oldmantodds review. Just look around they are everywhere here.

http://discussion.brighthand.com/sho...threadid=82437

[Fennec]

When I first started using it, I had very mixed feelings. The screen was noticibly smaller then my 3950, and the volume seemed noticably lower. But after a few hours once I'd played games and noticed the speed, I loved it. Its definatly an improvment. I really do miss the screen and speaker of my 3950, but its a worthwhile trade off.

[rsmith4321]

I like it in pretty much every way. I think the screen looks fine, not perfect, but still really good. The speed is incredible. Battery life is good. And it hardly crashes.

[imported_khuff]

I came from a J568 that was really good, but my new 2215 is way better! Better speed, screen, size, battery life, and both slots to boot. Most of the software I have had problems with has either been updated or will be soon. I haven't used the BT yet, waiting for my dongle. Love the Wi-Fi w/ my Socket card. I have seen many of the concerns, and haven't really had any of them with mine. For me, I think it is the best thing available today, who knows what will be around the next corner...K

[medic119]

I am loving everything about it except for the strange Power issue and reported here in a couple of threads.

The thing just turns itself off . After being off for a while, when I turn it on anywhere from immediately to 10 seconds later it will turn itself off. Its very annoying and I wish I could figure out what was causing it.

[imported_fil]

Sounds like your unit is busted?

The one common thread that I see in the forum is the lack of quality HP has given to producing this product:
1- Sleeve case has poor stitching and scratches the rubber grips
2- The rubber grips fall off on some units
3- HP with the release of WM2003 obviously has not given vendors a heads up on the changes so with the release of the new OS and hardware their software will work. A lot of good PPC2002 s/w is broken on WM2003
4- Screen issues with grid lines, washed out colors, or dead pixels
5- DPad being too sensitive (this may not be a quality problem)
6- Screen being mushy when writing on it
7- Strange intermittent power issues.

I'll be super anal when I get mine.

The good news is that I haven't seen complaints about:
a- The battery door being easily breakable
b- Stylus silo not holding the stylus well
c- Battery issues--holding charge or not lasting a long time
d- Dust on the inside of the screen
e- Device being too slow
All of these complaints from the past HP seem to have overcome.

My $1.50

[wizeguy]

Originally posted by fil
3- HP with the release of WM2003 obviously has not given vendors a heads up on the changes so with the release of the new OS and hardware their software will work. A lot of good PPC2002 s/w is broken on WM2003

Isn't that a Microsoft deal? Besides wasn't there a developer kit out for a while. I think the developers dropped the ball. However they have been fixing there programs fairly quickly.

Developers or Microsoft, you pick. I don't think HP is the one to blame here.

[imported_fil]

word.

[spinoza]

I've had mine for four days and I have mixed feelings about it. All in all it's sort of like taking two steps forward and one step backward. Having owned a couple of iPAQs before this, I have noticed some real improvements, but a number of the older problems are still there and new ones have been introduced. In general I agree with the posting above that there seem to be some quality-control issues with these HP 2200 series iPAQs. My sense is that they have been rushed to market with some rough edges. I guess we should be used to this by now, but I was hoping that a HP had a vested interest in keeping a solid reputation for the iPAQs.

Here are my observations:

1) Physical dimensions/design and ergonomics: the reviews are not giving enough attention to the smaller screen. I hadn't read anything about this and was surprised when I first turned on the unit. The resolution is the same as the larger 39XX displays, so the text is very compact. I've since decided that because of the super sharp, high-quality display the smaller text isn't really a problem, but you do have to get used to it.

Unlike what others are saying, I *like* the soft, non-glass like feel of the writing surface of the display; I find that this makes writing easier than on glass because it simulates more the feel of paper. When I first started writing on it, I thought, wow, this is great. I have very high handwriting recognition (close to 100%), and it does seem that there are some improvements in this area, with my achieving even higher accuracy than on older models. I also like the feel of the new stylus for writing a lot; it's very comfortable.

As others are reporting, the 'feel' of the unit in your hands is very good, though it would reach ideal dimensions if it were a bit thinner, like the 19XX series. I've been keeping it in my pocket (without case), and you barely notice I'm carrying it around.

The joystick button is too erratically sensitive. I keep double and even triple engaging it, when I only want to click it once. At other times I'll click it and nothing happens; only after clicking it two or three times will the command be executed. Otherwise the other buttons are nicely designed and situated.

It's hard to understand why there's the report of the rubber sides coming off; on my unit they seem very firmly attached and so I suspect the person reporting this just had a faulty unit. On the other hand I haven't used the case at all, since it seems ridiculously ill-fitted for the iPAQ. Once again a sign of a hasty release?

2) OS and software: I had some real problems getting my unit configured and set up, and have had to hard reset it a couple of times now. I've since learned (the hard way) that you need to 'activate' the 2210 before using it, which means an initial hard reset needs to be done. This apparently is very poorly documented by HP. Also, there appears to be a lot of software that is not compatible with the new OS. This can be benign, like the software simply not working, or it can be very troublesome, like it really messing up other software and OS settings. In another case, I suddenly started noticing that the display pages were displaying partially off the screen with large fonts. Buttons were appearing off the screen, so I could no longer access them. Only a hard reset solved the problem. I'm not sure exactly why it happened, but I suspect it was my installing NYTITOD's Virtual Display software that caused this.

As others have reported, there appears to be some quirky behavior with the 2210, but I haven't decided if it's HP's hasty implementation of the new OS, or if it is 3rd party software that is not fully compatible with the new operating environment. For example, whenever I write in Word (using Transcriber), the iPAQ wants to continually change back to an 8 point font (which seems to be the default template font), even though I have it set for 12 point. I've never had this problem before with other Pocket PCs, and I can't figure out why it's happening with the 2210. But it is very annoying, and such problems alone are enough for me to want to return it. Only extended use will reveal to what degree the 2210 is simply buggy or not. This occasional quirkiness aside, the general stability has been good, but the problems I am encountering are serious enough to make me wonder about my purchase.

The only area where the new OS appears to have undergone significant change, at least in terms of the user experience, is with communication. After installing the driver to my Ambicom wireless CF card, the OS automatically recognized it and configured it for my network. I didn't have to do anything! That's pretty amazing.

All the individual apps that are part of Pocket PC, like Word, MS Reader, etc. etc., have received only minor improvements, and a number of the annoyances are still there. Internet Explorer also has a couple of improvements, but it doesn't compare with Thunderhawk as an optimized Pocket PC browser. I guess Microsoft wants to keep its third-party developers in business...

3) Here's my recommendation to people considering buying the 2210 or 2215: if you are purchasing your first Pocket PC, or if you need to upgrade, then the $400 for a new 2210 is worth the money. If you don't need to upgrade, if you already have a 38XX or a 39XX iPAQ, for example, then it wouldn't be worth the money to buy a new 2210. It definitely would not be worth upgrading in such cases, since the improvements are mostly incremental, and there are even some things on the older units that are better.