HP No Longer Offering iPAQ hx4700

[Ed Hardy]

In the last few days a device that was once HP's flagship handheld has quietly disappeared from this company's web site.

Read more at http://www.brighthand.com/article/HP...x4700?site=PPC

[wshwe]

The bell tolls for traditional PDAs. The problem is that HP's smartphones haven't caught on, especially in the US.

[bdavidson]

As an hx4700 owner, I find sad that this fine iPAQ will likely be the last of its kind. VGA seems to be too costly in terms of manufacturing, memory requirements, and form-factor/footprint to be considered profitable for future PDA development in a competitive marketplace.

Converged devices like the upcoming h6940 are still very enticing, although taking a step back in terms of display and screensize, while offering the benefits of an all-in-one device. I'll be in line to get one when it comes out.

Not sure what will become of my hx4700 then, but it's served me very well, even with WM2003SE (plus all the ROM updates installed). No issues whatsoever, so while I'm curious about the WM5 upgrade, I don't HAVE to have it to be a satisfied hx4700 user. HP has lived up to the original promise of a cutting-edge iPAQ for business use. The failure to deliver WM5 to-date is an annoyance because of the repeated delays, but doesn't change the current capabilities of a WM2003SE hx4700, in my opinion.

Regards,
Brian

[Timothy Rapson]

I guess the days of wine and roses for us PDA users are coming into the days of Whine and and losses.
I am so ready for a new PDA. My Zire 72 is very long in the tooth. The industry got it almost perfect with the Sony TH55 and then they left.
Toshiba had a stellar model with the first VGA PPC. Gone.
I have hated half of the HP/Compaq line and loved the other half.
Alas. We are going to be left with Dell as our only source (sorry, Palm doesn't have a single model out that I would buy for my dog. I went looking for a Zire 72 yesterday for fun and found only one company on the Internet offering it.) I believe Dell may also be preparing to exit stage left. In the meantime, with no real competition on price and features, they are dropping their best price promotions and keeping prices in a stable high area that I am just not going to.
My bet is that sales numbers for 2006 will be way, WAY down from 2005. These manufacturers will blame cell phones, but they have only themselves to blame. They could have taken the Handspring phone model and kept their market leadership. Instead, they have let Nokia and Motorola define them out of the markt. Our PDAs could have survived by adding phone and connectivity capabilities. Instead phones are thriving by adding PDA, camera, game, and music capabilities.

Here's the translated version of the HP page for hx4700 in portugal.



Discontinued HP hx4700

[Wail]

All good things come to an end. The 4700 is, by far, one of the best iPaqs ever made and it is sad to see it go this way.

[pixelator]

Huh. Well, I thought it was overpriced, huge, stuck (ultimately) with an antiquated OS and a 'WTF?' thumbpad that garnered more criticisms than praises. In short, I never saw it as any real improvement over my older Toshiba e805.

Stick that screen, CPU and battery with a folding or slider keyboard and a standard input pad or stick with WM5 and HP would've had a far more competitive, if not svelte or cheap, PDA. Instead, they just can it and move toward cheaper, easier to market smartphones.

HP just can't lead, anymore - and they're not even doing so great at following.

[Wail]

pixelator,

You are absolutely correct about the flaws in this specific iPaq, but you have to admit that it was a daring effort to push something new to the users.

4? screen may not have been such a new concept, I did read about a 5? screen PDA that was available in Japan but I can?t recall what brand that was. Still, the majority of us never saw anything with such good screen space. The memory configuration, it was the first PDA to have it in anticipation of, to be released WM5, even though it has since failed to do good with that configuration since HP never did deliver WM5. Thumb-pad, what a freaky idea, but that is what made it a yummy PDA since a lot of PDA users are early adopters of new technologies and to have something out of the ordinary was a good way to ?move? forward ? even if the concept wasn?t so well applied.

There are many other great aspects to this PDA, to list a few the MHz, the dual memory slot, the VGA screen, and it was stable right out of the box.

Each of the listed features was available in other PDAs, but none of them in one PDA. The sad part to this model was that HP didn?t deliver WM5 and even went with pulling it off the market before WM5 came to be.

Now, personally, I was not going to upgrade it to WM5 since I was more than happy with the OS that it had; but the notion that HP messed up the support so much just tells me what a lousy PDA company HP really are.

To stress a point you?ve made, HP fails miserably to lead, and they fail even more to follow. Just look at their lousy convergence PDAs and you can see how i-mate (from the same manufacturer ironically) lead the market.

[Pony99CA]

Originally posted by Ed
In the last few days a device that was once HP's flagship handheld has quietly disappeared from this company's web site.

Does 45 days (probably more, actually) count as the "last few days"? I posted about this on February 4 (and I recall noticing it before then).

Unless I decide to get an iPAQ 2795, my iPAQ 5550 may be the last iPAQ I'll ever own. I use Verizon Wireless, and HP doesn't seem to be interested in making any CDMA Pocket PC Phones. Oh well....

Steve

[Take1]

HP would be smart to rehash the hx2700 design with VGA. I really like my hx2415 it's one of the best built PDAs made and really takes a beating. Add two extra hard buttons for WM5 and they've got a winner.