Unboxing: HP iPAQ 512 Voice Messenger

I have a new toy, and it's in the form of the HP iPAQ 512 Voice Messenger. It's a Smartphone. Powered by Windows Mobile 6 with some HP additives.

I usually change phones in one or two year's time. I am also a solid Sony Ericsson fan (my very first Ericsson phone was an A1018). So why get a non-SE phone?

My current, er, "previous" phone sa a Sony Ericsson M600i, has UIQ for it's platform, white (goes with my iBook) and slim with of course the rocker thumboard. I had it for 6 months and I might say, I am well contented with it. Problem is, it doesn't have two functions that I want, a camera and WLAN (WiFi).

Then came the Sony Ericsson P1i. Of course, there's also the Nokia E61i, but I am not really a fan of Nokias (for the same reason that I don't like Windows Mobile, they're both SLOW and BUGGY!). Anyways, the P1i is still too expensive for my taste. I still have to convince myself to buy a phone worth more than a generic desktop PC or half a Flat Panel LCD 32" TV. Plus the fact that I'm looking for an OS (smartphone) that will accommodate my profession's applications (at the moment, only Palm has fulfilled that need).

Some will say, why not get a Treo or the latest Centro. Well, I've entertained both, then again, Palm handhelds still lack wireless (wifi) capabilities. I will grab a Palm phone right away (even if the OS is aging) once they have included WiFi capabilities on any of their products.

Now, why the iPaq line? Well, what really caught me was the price point. It's mid-range, with a very nice feature-set (I'm the type who wants to get the most out of a gadget). I also like how it looks like. The built (for having it for three days already) is solid. Although I'm afraid the paint will eventually erode as use becomes more frequent, especially the logos at the backside. The keys have good tactile feel, but coming from a thumboard, I had a difficult time re-adjusting to the one hand texting. Also, even if I don't have quite a big set of fingers, I often mis-press the adjacent keys.

The OS. Ok it's Windows Mobile 6. It looks good...on the Home Screen. But when you dig deep into the OS, it's a boring flat, no eye candy what so ever. Responsiveness? Nada! It's down there. Once I started to use multiple applications, the response is crawling. That's even after I closed all of the applications from the Task Manager. Also, multitasking, although available (since it's Windows Mobile), will definitely screw everything up. If for example, an application is open and a text message comes in, the processes will stop to almost to a hanging state. Heck this is the cause of most hangs with this phone.

The manual is not very helpful. It's more of a generalized user guide than a detailed one.

Let's go to the WiFi connectivity. It's supposed to be easy, but for some reason, I have a hard time connecting it to my network. It takes some time for it to get it's IP address. I also got a couple of errors with regards to DHCP. But once connected, everything is doing good. I have yet to try VOIP services on this phone. I used GIZMO settings.

Bluetooth? It has it, no problem with pairing with my Jabra headset. Though I experienced some problems with transferring contacts from my SE M600i in bulk to this phone. It did not accept it. Still on the process of test if file transfers (i.e. pictures, music, etc) from the iPaq 512 to another device.

Camera is so, so. Being it only a 1.5 MP shooter. It's mediocre. But it will do. I now am having a hard time looking for a FREE blogging client that will let me post the pictures I've taken to my blogger account.

The screen is ok, but not impressive. There will be some pixelations, but overall, it's ok.

So far, I have not experienced any problems with ActiveSync. It works! That's the surprising fact.

It did not come with a real charger, but instead, it has an USB adapter which is plugged into an electric socket and a USB cable is used to attach and charge the phone.

Voice Messenger:
This phone is being touted as a Voice Messenger. Meaning, a lot of functions can be started/used just by using voice. And what's nice about it is, it does not need any training. If I want to call Rob in my contacts, all I have to do is say "CALL Rob at MOBILE" then it will ask you to confirm. Pretty neat! I can also read back text messages (but with how Filipinos text, a simple message can take a long time to read out).

UPDATE: email set-up is a breeze in this phone. Email is integrated with the messaging client, together with the text messaging. Setting up an email through the built-in wizard was so easy that I was getting emails from my Gmail, Hotmail and believe it or not, Yahoo! Mail in less than a minute of entering the required data.

I have a rough time configuring my email client on my SE M600i a while back. Though I got it to work on the Sony Ericsson phone, configuration is not as easy as this one. Also, what's so surprising is that, I am now able to get Yahoo! Mail on this phone, even if my Yahoo! account does not have POP3 access.

The first thing I did was to enter my email address, then the second part was the wizard auto-checking for available configurations for the email, then it asked for, of course the log in details and the frequency of pulling email from the servers. And that's it! Email on the go.

Overall: I think I will still use the phone, but majority of the reason relies on the presence of Wireless access. But I don't think this will last me a year before I get a new phone. Oh and did I tell you that this is my very first WINDOWS MOBILE device. Yes it is.