Tuesday, January 10, 2006
More Details On The Long-Missing HP hw6900
Posted by Janak Parekh in "HARDWARE" @ 03:30 PM
"Well lookey here: a good friend of Engadget's who shall remain unnamed landed an internal specsheet on the HP iPAQ hw6900 Mobile Messenger we got some rough n' early details on yesterday. Want the real skinny (until they change it again, anyway)?"
Engadget's got the most definitive specs to date, including a 416MHz XScale, GPRS/EDGE, 802.11b/BT 1.2, GPS, WM5+MSFP (i.e., AKU2), 1.3MP camera with LED flash. Brighthand suggests that it will only have one (miniSD) slot.
The real question is, however, what's taking HP so long? Brighthand suggests that this unit has replaced the long-awaited hw6700 and that they might be waiting for AKU2/MSFP to hit release, but it has already been released by Microsoft and in fact appears in at least one device. I chalk it up more to HP's incompetence. This is a company that took their confusing product numbers and saw fit to add an additional character (e.g., the rz, hx, hw, ...); refused to upgrade the ROM of their most popular devices (like the 2215 or the 4150), alienating their customers; still hasn't gotten around to releasing a WM5 upgrade for the hx4700 even though it was promised; and is generally allowing any interest in their devices to be lost in favor of Palm's and HTC's new devices. In fact, despite the Treo's less RAM, I'd pick that device any day -- it's more compact and it seems someone's actually putting effort into getting it released in a reasonable timeframe. Even though this is one of the few square-screen GSM WM5 Phone Edition devices, I wouldn't be surprised if Palm's future GSM Treo 700w will far outsell HP's unit. It's sad to see HP fall this far -- both of its past constituents (the Jornada and iPAQ teams) were considered amongst the best in the industry. :(
Engadget's got the most definitive specs to date, including a 416MHz XScale, GPRS/EDGE, 802.11b/BT 1.2, GPS, WM5+MSFP (i.e., AKU2), 1.3MP camera with LED flash. Brighthand suggests that it will only have one (miniSD) slot.
The real question is, however, what's taking HP so long? Brighthand suggests that this unit has replaced the long-awaited hw6700 and that they might be waiting for AKU2/MSFP to hit release, but it has already been released by Microsoft and in fact appears in at least one device. I chalk it up more to HP's incompetence. This is a company that took their confusing product numbers and saw fit to add an additional character (e.g., the rz, hx, hw, ...); refused to upgrade the ROM of their most popular devices (like the 2215 or the 4150), alienating their customers; still hasn't gotten around to releasing a WM5 upgrade for the hx4700 even though it was promised; and is generally allowing any interest in their devices to be lost in favor of Palm's and HTC's new devices. In fact, despite the Treo's less RAM, I'd pick that device any day -- it's more compact and it seems someone's actually putting effort into getting it released in a reasonable timeframe. Even though this is one of the few square-screen GSM WM5 Phone Edition devices, I wouldn't be surprised if Palm's future GSM Treo 700w will far outsell HP's unit. It's sad to see HP fall this far -- both of its past constituents (the Jornada and iPAQ teams) were considered amongst the best in the industry. :(
