Introduction, accessories

After testing the HP iPAQ Voice Messenger last week, I didn’t really feel like going wild of happiness, when upon entering to SpeedShop I gave back that smartphone and I’ve immediately got a different HP to replace it. One that costs about 600 euros…

So, it’s 600 euros, and all this for a phone-PDA that has a sliding keyboard. This is the real top range, for this some one could even get a luxury phone, but if we’d like to stay in this category, I’d like to note that for this some we can get anything from HTC’s current set of products. We should add that their similar model isn’t cheap either (Touch Pro for 550 euros), but that’s basically a more advanced model, as it has TouchFLO, it has much more on-board memory and as a “side note” it has a VGA resolution display. I didn’t expect much from the materials used, as Touch Pro is very well assembled, HP just can’t really make something much better than that, something that would require such a difference in the price. We have to admit it again: HP sells its stuff too expensive.

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The handset came in a simple, white box, which had a stereo headset, a microUSB data cable and a charger with a changeable connector inside, in which we have to plug the data cable in. This isn’t much to say the least, a screen protector foil, a spare stylus or a leather case would have been the minimum at this price.

Hirdetés

Exterior

The handset is basically not small, but this is something specific of the QWERTY keyboard models, so in its category we can’t say that the weight of 160 grams and size of 114 x 57 x 17.4 mm are huge. The materials used, however, are quite low-quality ones, as Data Messenger has no metal parts on its cover, which would be no problem, but even the plastics are maximum medium-quality ones, so we can hear a real symphony of cracks when taking the phone in our hands.

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On top of the front side we can only see the manufacturer’s logo, which also covers the speaker. On its left, behind the shiny black part, there is the status LED, while below these there is the QVGA touschreen display with a diagonal of 2.8”. Its only positive quality is that it has no rim, otherwise I wouldn’t call it a great one, as its image quality is nothing special and the protective plexiglass can be pressed very easily. On the bottom of the front panel we can see the basic keys, like four touch-sensitive things (two softkeys, a Windows key and an OK button), a touch-sensitive d-pad, and the call accept/reject keys, which are real physical buttons. As there is quite a lot of room around these, they are rather easy to use, even though we just have to tap around.

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The back panel is horrible. On top there is a 3.1 megapixel autofocus camera and a led, that’s okay. The top and the bottom parts have a lacquer finish, while the center part – being the largest surface on the back – is made of plastic covered in a rubber layer, which provides a firm grip for the handset. The problem is that the part that can be taken off is wobbling and it can be pressed as it doesn’t fit the battery under it, which is no wonder, as it’s a piece of plastic thin as air. To sum it up: it wobbles, it moves and it cracks.

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On the top we can see the mute slider that can be familiar from Voice Messenger, which is placed on a poor quality piece of plastic that moves by itself. On the left there are four keys: keypad lock, volume up, volume down, messaging (this can be reconfigured). The stylus is in the bottom left corner, it’s a great one, as it’s a very massive thing with two telescopes, it’s almost as large as a real pen and it’s even made of metal. Besides this there isn’t anything on the bottom, the camera’s shooter key and the microUSB and 2.5 mm jack are covered by a lousy piece of rubber on the right side of the PDA.

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The sliding mechanism isn’t very good, the handset wobbles a bit when opened, at least the display does. Of course we would forgive Data Messenger for this, if it would have at least a good keyboard, but unfortunately it doesn’t: the keys are hard to press, it’s hard to make a difference between them when typing and the backlight is also mediocre as light passes through between some keys. Of course this is still not as bad as tapping the display, but I’ve seen much better solutions than this.

Operating system, speed, programs

The new handset is based on a Qualcomm chipset, its heart is a 528 MHz MSM7201 CPU, which works along with 128 MB RAM and 256 MB ROM, we have 44 MB free for storing data and 47 MB for running programs – of course the storage space can be expanded with a microSD card, the socket supports large microSDHC cards as well. The operating system is Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional, with all of its pros and cons – in this case mostly with cons, as the manufacturer didn’t really install any king of program in order to let the user use the handset with his or her hands. Well, this is a data-messaging handset, or what.

During everyday use the handset isn’t very fast, but it’s faster than a phone with a 200 MHz TI OMAP processor. We can still feel that something’s not okay, I’d say that it has some optimization problems, which is proved by the results from the table above – as they are terrible.

There is no extra Today plug-in, so the standby screen has the usual stuff, we won’t be tapping anything with our finger, at least not with positive results. There isn’t any large set of programs either, although the manufacturer has supplied some interesting stuff, but probably there will be very few to use most of these – but they will be very happy about the. There is a wireless printing application (Photosmart Mobile) and HP Enterprise Mobility Suite too, I didn’t really make much use of them, but of course this doesn’t mean anything.

A bit more useful apps are the PDF-reader and the Java runtime environment. Other applications are all the default ones, the Office suite has four programs, you can see them on the screenshot above.

Phone calls and data transfer

Fortunately I had no problems with phone calls, sound quality has been all right both on the speaker and through handsfree, no one has been complaining about not hearing me well.

All programs related to phone calls are default ones, so those who have already read dozens of Windows Mobile handset reviews at us can skip this paragraph. The contact list and messaging are handled by Outlook, which is still one of the best software of its kind. We can store contacts in the phonebook until there is free memory, there are lots of extra fields and as for messages, both MMS and e-mailing is supported – of course attachments and authenticated IMAP servers are no problem.

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The handset is good in data transfer as well, no wonder it’s called a Data Messenger. The GSM module is quad-banded, there is 3G, HSDPA and HSUPA support as well. In case there’s no network coverage we can of course fall back to GPRS or EDGE as well, and if there’s a hotspot nearby we can connect to it, as the handset has an 802.11 b/g WiFi antenna inside. Bluetooth is v 2.0, so it supports stereo headset. The handset has a GPS receiver and my original iGO 8 ran without any problems.

Multimedia

The camera has a resolution of 3 megapixels and autofocus, the highest available resolution for images is 2048 x 1536 pixels, while videos can be recorded at 320 x 240 pixels in H.263 or MPEG4 formats. There are very few settings, we can tamper with white balance and JPEG compression. Of course there are some other “extras”, we can turn off camera sounds, there is a timer, we can take panorama photos and image sequences, and of course we can set the exposure-correction in a range of +/- 2 EV with a stepping of 1 EV.

Image quality is rather fine for a Pocket PC, the colors are quite pale, but edge sharpness and noise level are okay. You can observe all this on the pictures above, so I don’t have anything else to say.

Music: Windows Media Player. It’s still basic, it won’t display album covers, it has no equalizer, but it can filter by ID3 tags. Sound quality is quite poor on handsfree, the speaker hisses a bit and sounds are distorted, while the headset isn’t very good either.

Battery, summary

The battery has a capacity of 1140 mAh, it can keep the handset alive for about two days.

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I will put it short: I cannot recommend it for anyone. For 600 euros we get a handset that doesn’t know more at all than the much cheaper rivals that have existed since a long time ago, and it has a terrible keyboard, the materials used are very low-quality, it’s slow, it’s not optimized and it cannot be used with a finger. Stay away from it!

Bocha

Translated by Szaszati

The handset has been provided by www.speedshop.hu, thanks. Please, click here to access the shop.

Specifications

HP Data Messenger
	Technology	GSM/GPRS/EDGE 850/900/1800/1900 MHz UMTS/HSDPA 2100 MHz
	Operating system	Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional
	Size	114 x 57 x 17.4 mm
	Weight	160 grams
	CPU	528 MHz Qualcomm MSM7201A
	ROM / RAM	256 / 128 MB (44 / 47 MB free)
	Display	2.8” diagonal, 240 x 320 pixels resolution, 16 bit color depth touchscreen display
	Expandability	microSD (SDHC-compatible)
	WiFi	802.11b/g
	Infra / Bluetooth	no / 2.0 (A2DP too)
	GPS receiver	yes
	Audio	2.5 mm jack, microphone, mono speaker
	Camera	3.1 megapixels, autofocus, LED flash
	Battery	1140 mAh changeable Li-Ion
	Other	QWERTY keyboard, touch-sensitive d-pad