Having a few minutes, I thought I'd whip up a quick concise list of most of the nagging questions/complaints that seem to bother a lot of the 210 owners on this forum. Feel free to submit updates and I'll edit them in.
UPDATE: Added link to thread about USB OTG cable
These are in no particular order.
1. The screen is squishy! or, Why do I have to push so hard to get taps to register?
It appears that the screen is a completely different design from previous models. While the LCD itself looks great indoors, and is still very readable outdoors (even under sunlight), the touchscreen portion seems to be some new design most of us are not too fond of. The screen feels much "squishier" than previous iPAQs, and most other PDAs in general.
This does improve some, but not much, as the screen "breaks in". There have also been reports that using a quality screen protector will greatly improve the responsiveness.
2. Why is my battery slowly losing power, around 2-3% per hour?
Most testing done by users of this forum point to the CF card being the culprit. Even though there is an option in the control panel to disable power to the CF card when the device is in standby mode, it doesn't seem to do anything.
There have been reports that different brands of cards behave differently. Please post your results and I will update this list (most of the list below was taken from other forum posts):
Transcend 16GB 133x: 1-2%/hour drain
Sandisk 16GB "Extreme III": 1-2%/hour drain
Adata 4GB 266X Turbo: 0.6%/hour (thanks GloryQuest)
3. Whats with the low speaker volume? I can barely hear my alarms.
Even though HP initially advertised the 210 as having a dual speaker configuration, sound is currently only coming out of the back speaker. The sound output of this speaker is less than previous iPAQ models.
HP has said that they are looking into this issue, and it is possible that they will release a software update for it in the future. In the meantime, you can re-record your alarm sound files to be louder as a workaround.
4. How do I hard reset?
Unless you have very flexible hands, its probably easiest to use the utility provided on the CD that came with the device.
5. I thought the 210 was supposed to have 18 bit color. What gives?
Sorry, but HP was inaccurate in its early marketing material. Whether this was a misprint or an outright lie, you will have to decide for yourself.
http://forum.brighthand.com/showthread.php?t=254529
6. Why does my device go nuts when I try to charge it via mini-USB?
Normal USB ports dont have enough current available to properly charge the 210. You can set the charge to "slow" in the control panel, but this is indeed very slow, in fact so slow that if you leave the device turned on it is not fast enough to overcome the drain from having it turned on. Stick with the 24-pin port for charging.
7. Cases? Cradles?
Cases:
PDAir -
Piel Frama -
Sena Cases (preorder) -
EBCases
Cradles:
Boxwave
As BH-T3 noted in his post below, you can't use this cradle if your 210 has an extended battery attached to it. (Thanks BH-T3 for pointing this out)
8. Are there any software updates from HP yet?
Yes. Here is the link:
Update page
There are reports of the latest (1.10) driver not installing properly in Vista. If you run into this problem, grab the .cab file from
this forum thread.
9. Compatible software?
There is a sticky thread for this.
10. The bright blue LED is driving me mad!
Fear not. Read this:
http://forum.brighthand.com/showthread.php?t=255486
11. Whats this hiss?
A slight hiss can be heard on most units when using headphones. See
http://forum.brighthand.com/showthread.php?t=255077.
ceril points out that there is a new "HD" sound driver available called WOW. I have not tested it personally yet, but there have been reports of improvements over the stock driver.
12. Why is my iPAQ Wireless control program acting so odd?
Its easily fixed. See
http://forum.brighthand.com/showthread.php?t=256264.
juttonn reports:
Quote:
"I've found a permanent fix for the problem that works for me at least. I installed the trial of MemMaid (I think they give you a 10 day evaluation period). Anyway, in looking through the options of the program, one of the tabs lists the startup programs and in what order they load. Both the Bluetooth stack (BTTrayCE.ink) and the HP wireless utility (iPAQWireless.ink), among others, are listed. I had the idea of pushing the BTTrayCE.ink up to the top of the list (to be loaded first) and the iPAQWireless.ink to the bottom of the list (to be loaded last) hoping that would give the Bluetooth stack enough time to finish loading so that the HP wireless utility would find it when it loaded, and it is working for me. Now every time my device does a soft reset, the Wireless utility shows both WiFi and Bluetooth!
I'm sure there are other programs that could do the same thing, or by editing the registry directly, but MemMaid (http://www.dinarsoft.com/memmaid/) is a free download and the evaluation period is plenty of time to make the change."
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13. Does the device support USB host?
Yes, there is a cable for it. Please see the following thread:
http://forum.brighthand.com/showthread.php?t=257276
We're still waiting to see reports from the folks that have ordered it. Hopefully it will support enough devices to justify the very high cost of the cable.
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Thanks to all the forum contributors! (Most of this information comes from them.)
Common questions/complaints about the iPAQ 210
