Introduction, the competitors
Windows Mobile-based candybar smartphone. It has never been a wide-spread device, and nowadays it’s almost extinct. The last time I’ve seen such a thing was last May (that was HP iPAQ 510) and since then we had quite a lot of QWERTY handsets for testing, but none with a classic candybar form factor. The manufacturers probably don’t see a selling potential in these handsets, which by the way seems rather logical – if someone really wants to stick to the Windows Mobile Smartphone line of handsets then he will probably have expectations of the features too.
Now, however, we had two of these types of smartphones for testing, although HP iPAQ 514 is a good old friend. The point of posting this review is that the two handsets currently cost less than €220 EUR, so they’re relatively cheap. The reason for this is of course that the devices are outdated from many points of view, Airis has the old Windows Mobile 5.0 for Smartphone operating system and HP… well, we’ll see this later on. I won’t be analyzing the handsets in detail as this is not the purpose of such a comparative review.
Both handsets have been provided by SpeedShop. The boxes they came in are relatively large, and as a strange thing the package of Airis is large and on it there is a phone that doesn’t really resemble the one inside – they had a good photographer, but that’s no big deal. There is a charger, a data cable and a stereo headset packed with both handsets.
Hirdetés
Exterior, physical properties
The HP iPAQ has black and grey colors which are quite good but it has some serious flaws that I must mention. The display is a very low quality one, the keypad is not very good for typing SMS messages and as a bonus we have the d-pad which makes the screen discolor when we press the up key. This is a real shame I think.
The small Airis is not as robust as its competitor. They have the same height (107 mm), but it’s a couple of millimeters slimmer (45 mm) and five grams lighter (97 grams). Its exterior is beyond description. Below the speaker we can see the display with a diagonal of 1.9” and a resolution of 176 x 220 pixels. I don’t have much good to say about its quality, it’s a bit strange too see something like this in a smartphone nowadays. Below it there is a huge empty space; the designers tried to spice it up with an Airis logo, but they failed. Below this there are the softkeys at a strange place, while in the bottom there is the miniature joystick and the keypad that is somewhat RAZR-like. It’s really hard to type on this too, as the character shown is independent of the number of keypresses, it’s like as if the handset couldn’t sense when we’re tapping the keypad fast.
There is nothing on top, on the left there are the volume control keys and the microSD card slot, this being covered by a rubber piece with the TFLASH label on it.
On the bottom the data cable’s connector is placed. It’s not a standard one, so there’s no miniUSB this time; I have never seen such a port in my life. On the right there is the infra port and the camera’s hotkey, this is as large as the two volume keys together.
The size is probably not used for emphasizing the importance of photography features, as T470 has a 1.3 megapixel camera with fixed focus, just like the HP, which is of course placed on the back. Right besides it there is the handsfree speaker and under it there is the mirror used for making self-portraits. The back, by the way, is such a piece of crap that you can rarely see: I think the top and bottom plastic parts would like to be leather-like, but this succeeded like the nose plastic surgery for Michael Jackson. On the whole I can say that the HP, no matter its flaws, is a much higher-quality – and much better looking – piece of hardware, which also has a hard to use keypad.
Hardware, operating system, software, phone calls
There isn’t much difference in hardware between the two handsets. Both have a 200 MHz TI OMAP CPU, although HP has a newer one (OMAP 850 instead of the OMAP 730 in the Airis). ROM/RAM size is 128/64 MB in both, there is 72 MB free for storing programs on the T470, while there is 57 MB on the iPAQ, expansion is possible via microSD card. In terms of speed HP is the winner, but basically both handsets are as fast as the military robotic dog from Boston Dynamics, when marching on a mountain. So they are freakin’ slow and thanks to Windows they are not as stable as the carrying animal I’ve mentioned.
Airis T470
The operating system, however, is different; T470 has the old Windows Mobile 5.0 for Smartphone. This has lots of downsides: lack of Exchange support and Windows Live, a more basic design, Outlook with less features and limited Office support which means that files can be opened read-only.
HP iPAQ 514
In terms of extra software the iPAQ wins again. HP software includes Shortcuts, DataConnect, Tips, Help and Support, a volume control, Java environment, speed dial and Messenger. As opposed to this Airis is extremely basic, there is a poor Pocket MSN and that’s it, there isn’t even a normal task manager on it.
There were practically no problems with any of the phones during calls, sound quality is adequate. Messaging is handled by Outlook as usual, there is MMS and e-mail support in both handsets, and they handle authenticated IMAP servers and attachments too. The contact list is good, we can store contacts until there is free memory and there are lots of extra fields.
Data transfer, multimedia, summary
The GSM module is quad-banded in the HP and tri-band in the Airis, so this doesn’t support the 850 MHz frequency. The HP is better in data transfer too, as the other one doesn’t support EDGE and WiFi. But it has an infra port. Both have Bluetooth, version number is 1.2.
So the cameras have a resolution of 1.3 megapixels. The software are a bit different, but they have the same settings: white balance, JPEG compression, exposure correction, image sequencing and timer. Image quality is about the same, dynamics range is crap, there are practically no colors, and image noise is moderate. Airis takes more time for exposure, so if we don’t keep the phone stable for a couple of seconds after pressing the button we will have a result similar to the one on the third test photo.
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Airis images on top, HP photos below
No great things in music either, since the software used is Media Player, which has no equalizer and it can’t display album covers. HP has a standard 2.5 mm jack output, so we can switch the low quality headset. We can’t do such a thing with the Airis, as I think there isn’t even a converter for the handset, but the headset sounds rather good and it even looks cool. HP is the winner in speaker playback.
Summary: if we only consider the fact that we can buy a Windows Mobile smartphone for €220 EUR then practically we could be happy. But it’s another fact that Airis is outdated both in terms of hardware and software, so I wouldn’t really recommend it for anyone. HP is a different thing: it has Windows Mobile 6, it is high-quality, it has WiFi but its display is laughable nowadays, not mentioning the camera. For this sum, we can get a Symbian phone, which will surely have a screen with a higher resolution, but we most probably won’t have WiFi. So when choosing between these two handsets we have to rely on sympathy and of course we might consider that the iPAQ can take it for even 5-6 days with one charge.
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| HP iPAQ 514 |
Bocha
Translated by Szaszati
The handsets have been provided by www.speedshop.hu, thanks. Please click here to access the shop: HP iPAQ 514 / Airis T470.
Specifications
| HP iPAQ 514 Voice Messenger | ||
 | Technology | GSM/GPRS/EDGE 850/900/1800/1900MHz |
| Operating system | Windows Mobile 6 Standard (CE 5.2 kernel) | |
| Size | 48.6 x 107 x 16.3 mm | |
| Weight | 102 g | |
| CPU | 200 MHz TI OMAP 850 | |
| ROM/RAM | 128/64MB | |
| Display | 2” diagonal, 176 x 220 pixels resolution, 16 bit color depth TFT | |
| Expandability | microSD | |
| WiFi | 802.11b/g | |
| Infra/Bluetooth | none/1.2 | |
| GPS receiver | none | |
| Audio | 2.5 mm jack output, microphone, mono speaker | |
| Camera | 1.3 megapixels, fixed focus, CMOS | |
| Battery | 1100mAh changeable Li-Ion | |
| Other | none | |
| Airis T470 | ||
 | Technology | GSM/GPRS 900/1800/1900MHz |
| Operating system | Windows Mobile 5.0 for Smartphone | |
| Size | 45 x 107 x 16 mm | |
| Weight | 97 g | |
| CPU | 200MHz TI OMAP 730 | |
| ROM/RAM | 128/64MB | |
| Display | 1.9” diagonal, 176 x 220 pixels resolution, 16 bit color depth TFT | |
| Expandability | microSD | |
| WiFi | none | |
| Infra/Bluetooth | present / 1.2 | |
| GPS receiver | none | |
| Audio | microphone, mono speaker | |
| Camera | 1.3 megapixels, fixed focus, CMOS | |
| Battery | 1100mAh changeable Li-Ion | |
| Other | none | |
