Say Goodbye to Sleeves and Hello to a New Generation of iPAQs

[Ed Hardy]

Brighthand has been leaked an overview of all the upcoming iPAQs for 2004. This shows that HP is giving up on the sleeve and committing itself to producing smaller handhelds.

Read more at http://www.brighthand.com/article/Ro...odels?site=PPC

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Update: Additional information is now available about one of these models, the iPAQ hx4700.

It can be found at
http://www.brighthand.com/article/Ru...x4700?site=PPC

[Wail]

All good things come to an end.

The sleeves served a purpose, and it did that well. Time has moved on, and so has technology. The progress we are seeing is great news for end-users, but I am saddened by the demise of one of the best model designs ever.

The new line of iPaqs are an expected evolution in this line of successful PDA, and it is just amazing how long (in technology time-span) the sleeve concept did survive.

[ktdan1]

To see the sleve go is truly sad but can HP come up with some thing better or as inovative. HP still have not produced a single VGA model!. Will we be seeeing on this year?

How about a cross between MPX and Sonys UX series

Some how I doubt it.

[hukuju]

Well I hope that the spec for hx4700 would be like

a) H4355 (with the keyboard, wifi and bluetooth)
b) with a xscale processor of at least 520mhz
c) without a build in camera, I do not like it as i drop my ipaq all the time. I do not want to break it.
d) with a better VGA screen that is like the the 1910 series.
e) Must have nice design of course, I like the silver look of my 1910 and I do not like the back of the H4150 as it is black and it looks horrible to me.
f) Must have powerfull battery of at least 1350ma that can last around 4.5 hours to 6 hours.
g) must also be able to press multiple buttons at one time so that I can play my gba and snes games.
h) must have consumer grade IR so that I can use it as a remote
i) must have loud built in speaker like the 1910 type whereby it is at the front. Please do not put the speaker at the back.
j) must have a 3.5mm earphone jack.
k) must have 2003SE
l) must have alot of good bundled software like the sprite backup thingy.
m) must have a nice cradle which is better than the H4150 and H4355 type.
n) can we also have wifi G standard please?
o) must have voice over ip ability.


Well this is my wishlist for now. I am using a H1910 and I would be so happy when July comes as that's my birthday month and I might want to buy a new pda.

Thank you Ed for the timely and wonderful information. I was almost going to jump at the A730.

[neuron]

From some inside information, "X" stands for VGA. so hx4700 and hx2700 both have VGA.

[hukuju]

Thank you for the information on the vga screen, now let's keep our finger cross that it is not going to be yellow. Can we just have nice white screens like the 1910.

[JK27]

Good riddance to the sleeves/sleds/expansion packs!! Never liked them and refused to purchase a PPC that utilized them!

There, I feel better now

[Deslock]

The hx4700 sounds interesting... ideally, I want 520 MHz, 128 RAM, VGA, and ATI hardware acceleration (that'll do 640x480 30 fps DIVX) in the formfactor of a HP4155 (along with all of the 4155's features). Yes, 640x480 on a 3.5" screen is small, but with the way WindowsMobile handles fonts, I don't think that'll be an issue.

I expect we'll instead get a 1.1:1 scale 4155 with a 3.7-3.8" screen that weighs 6.2-6.7 ounces. As long as the screen takes up almost the entire footprint of the device, that'll work too (though anything above 6 ounces is a little hefty).

In July/August, it's gonna be ASUS 730 vs iPAQ hx4700 time.

[neuron]

I highly doubt there is any space for CF slot in currect h4155 , so hx4700 is no way the same form factor as h4155.

This new generation IPAQs will look completely different from any currect models. One of one friend who is under NDA and touched one of the four model in this article said it's VGA, more than 600Mhz CPU, dual wirelss, dual slots, a touch pad like navigation buttons and a new form factor.

[polarbearucla]

Nothing in this article is overly surprising.

The sleeve for ipaq's really has been getting outdated since most of the add ons that it supported are now in sd or cf form. It was never really a factor for my purchase(s) b/c it just added weight and size.

About the new Ipaq's not coming out for about two months, thats seems to make sense. First, I doubt wm2k3 se is ready, b/c the version that was demonstrated at the developer's conference seems to have some issues, such as direction buttons not changing direction when in landscape. And maybe the extra time before release will allow MS to finally fix the alarm bug!

Also, last year hp released their handhelds towards the end of June, if i remember correctly. Thus releasing the handhelds in july seems to set a trend of anual updates.

Also, just b/c hp isn't releasing wm2k3 se handhelds right now doesnt mean motorola, dell, or another manufacture wont release one soon. (Atleast thats what im hoping)