Almost Perfect
Written: Aug 29 '03 (Updated Aug 30 '03)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Small, affordable, replaceable battery, buit-in Bluetooth, SD card slot, plenty of memory
Cons: Plastic case, no display cover, no thumb wheel, minor software quirks
The Bottom Line: Due to its small size, affordability and built-in Bluetooth, this device is almost perfect for a typical PDA user.
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| digidealer's Full Review: Hewlett Packard iPAQ H1945 Pocket PC |
I've been a devoted user of Palm OS-based PDAs for many years. And although I've been peeking at Pocket PC domain occasionally, I have always rejected an idea of switching. Until recently.
Pocket PCs have always been more powerful and feature-rich than Palm OS-based PDAs. But they have also been more expensive, bulky and power-hungry. For me, small form-factor and affordability of Palm OS-based devices have always been more important than bells and whistles of Pocket PCs.
My favorite was Sony Clie T615. Slick and thin aluminum body, bright hi-res (320x320) color display, fast CPU and plenty of memory (by Palm OS standards), memory expansion slot, LiIon rechargeable battery. And last, but not least, priced under $300. I could even connect my Clie to my Motorola StarTAC mobile phone with a serial cable and surf the Internet wirelessly. Why would anybody want more? Oh, you wanted MP3 playback? No problem, for about $50 more you could get T645 model with built-in MP3 player.
In Pocket PC domain, only iPAQ h1910 came close to Clie T615/645. But it didn’t give me enough incentive to switch. When you’re happy with what you got, why bother?
Then I got myself a new mobile phone with built-in Bluetooth (beautiful Sony/Ericsson T610). How cool would it be to connect my Clie to T610 via Bluetooth instead of serial cable? It would be a perfect mobile Internet solution.
When I started looking for a Bluetooth solution for Clie, I realized that there weren’t many. Bluetooth MemoryStick was available in Japan and Europe, but not in the US, meaning that I had to upgrade to a Bluetooth-enabled PDA.
There were two Palm OS-based PDAs with built-in Bluetooth within my budget ($300) – Palm Tungsten T and Sony Clie TG50. Both with hi-res (320x320) color display, MP3 playback, 16 MB of RAM, memory expansion slot, ARM CPU and Palm OS 5. Clie TG50 had a bit faster CPU (200 MHz vs. Tungsten’s 150 MHz) and a built-in QWERTY keyboard instead of a silk-screen graffiti area, but it’s also quite a bit bigger.
My major concern, however, was Palm OS 5. Sure, it’s the latest and greatest Palm OS. Sure, it brings fast ARM processors into the Palm OS world. But what about software compatibility? All Palm OS applications are built for Motorola 68K processors. Palm Inc. bent itself backward to ensure that these apps still work under Palm OS 5. But they execute in compatibility mode and therefore don’t take full advantage of the fast CPU. In fact, some apps may even run slower. And some may not work at all.
This made me take another look at Pocket PC domain. There it was, iPAQ h1945. It’s about the same size as Clie T615 (it fits perfectly into T615 holster), has built-in Bluetooth and is well within my budget. Let’s compare the two.
CPU
The h1945’s 266 MHz ARM CPU (made by Samsung) is not the fastest around, but it’s fast enough to run Windows Mobile 2003 comfortably. Faster CPU usually means shorter battery life, so it’s a fair trade-off. At any rate, this is faster than T615’s 33 MHz or even TG50’s 200 MHs CPU.
Battery
Both iPAQ h1945 and Clie (T615 and TG50) have rechargeable LiIon battery and similar battery life – about 2-3 hours of continuous operation with the backlight on. The h1945, however, has a replaceable battery, which is a definite advantage.
Memory
The h1945’s 64 MB of DRAM (~56 MB available for user programs and data) seems like a lot comparing to Clie’s 16 MB, but Pocket PC apps tend to be bigger than Palm OS apps, so it’s not fair to say that iPAQ has 4 times as much memory. Still, 64 MB seems to be enough for most uses.
The h1945 has a nice feature called “file store”. It’s an unused portion of the Flash memory (about 14 MB) available for storing user data. This memory is non-volatile, meaning that its content is not lost even after hardware reset or if the battery is completely discharged.
Display
Both iPAQ h1945 and Clie have bright, backlit TFT display with 65,000 colors. Although the h1945’s display has 320x240 resolution, which is lower than Clie’s 320x320, it has 50% larger surface area and 3x4 aspect ratio. In my view, the Pocket PC’s 3x4 display aspect ratio has always been its advantage over square display used by most Palm OS-based devices. Besides, not all Palm applications take advantage of the hi-res display and still insist on working in 160x160 resolution mode.
Controls
Controls on iPAQ h1945 and Clie T615 are similar. Both have navigation controls and four application buttons for invoking frequently used applications. Clie’s navigation controls include a two-way UP/DOWN knob and a thumb-wheel. Unfortunately, the h1945 does not have a thumb-wheel. Instead, it has a 5-way navigation knob. Although not as convenient for one-hand operation as thumb-wheel, it’s not too bad either. Besides, not many Palm applications take advantage of Clie’s thumb-wheel anyway.
Design
As I mentioned before, iPAQ h1945 is about the same size as Clie T615. In fact, it’s a bit shorter. It has a nicely rounded bottom and is very convenient to hold in one’s palm. Unfortunately, unlike Clie T615 or TG50, the h1945's case is made of plastic. This is a real turn off. Although it doesn’t make it look cheap, it feels ...well... plastic. I’d gladly paid $10-15 more for a nice metallic case.
Also, unlike Clie T615 or TG50, the h1945 does not have any kind of screen cover and it comes with no protective case whatsoever. You’ll have to buy it separately. I don’t like the TG50’s cover because it cannot be detached, but the T615’s detachable screen cover was very nice indeed.
Another design quirk of the h1945 – non-standard, 2.5 mm headphone jack. Thoughtfully, HP did thow in a 3.5mm patch cord in the package, but it’s still a hassle to carry it around.
Also note that iPAQ h1945 comes without a cradle. All you get is a USB cable. If you like cradles, you’ll have to buy one separately. I personally don’t like them because they just add clutter to my desk. Therefore, I always end up buying a separate USB cable for my PDA. So for me, not having to buy a USB cable for the h1945 was actually an advantage. Besides, who needs cradles or cables when you got Bluetooth? Buy a Bluetooth USB dongle for about $30 instead of a cradle and sync with your desktop wirelessly.
Unfortunately, supplied USB cable does not permit using the USB port as a power source for charging the battery. Instead, it has a power jack, so you can connect both the USB cord and the power adapter to your PDA at the same time. This is not as convenient as charging the battery from the USB port, though.
Software
The h1945 is powered by Windows Mobile 2003 operating system, based on the Microsoft’s latest Windows CE .NET (version 4.2). Supposedly, it’s faster, more robust and power-efficient then previous versions of Windows CE (version 3.0).
In addition to typical PDA software suite (schedule/calendar, address book, notepad, calculator), it includes pocket versions of Microsoft Office (Word and Excel), Media Player, Internet Explorer and even MSN Messenger. HP also threw in Image Viewer and Backup software.
Microsoft ActiveSync software integrates Pocket PC with Windows desktop PC almost flawlessly. You can browse your PDA file system using Windows Explorer and transfer files between the PDA and your desktop PC by dragging them back and forth with your mouse. Try that with your Palm OS-based PDA!
You can also synchronize address book, schedule, tasks, inbox and notes on your PDA with Microsoft Outlook 2000/2002. Microsoft Outlook 2002 is included on the installation CD.
What surprised me though is that Microsoft ActiveSync software limits the number of PDA/PC partnerships (i.e. ability to synchronize data) to just two desktop computers, presumably your “home PC” and your “work PC”. You can establish "guest" partnerships with other PCs to transfer files, but you won’t be able to sync with them. Although this is sufficient in most cases, Palm's HotSync does not impose this restriction.
Establishing dual partnership with “home” and “work” PC wasn’t entirely trouble-free either. Particularly, it was difficult to avoid duplication of data because unlike Palm’s HotSync, ActiveSync does not give you an option to override either PC or PDA data as opposed to synchronizing it.
There’s another quirk I stumbled upon. Mobile Internet Explorer that comes with Windows Mobile 2003 has a built-in AvantGo client. It’s very convenient if you’re an AvantGo user because you don’t have to install additional software. However, for some weird reason, AvantGo Connect software was not activated on the PDA by default and it took me several hours of frantic Web search to figure out how to make it work. I ended up uninstalling the Palm version of AvantGo from my desktop, re-installing ActiveSync and hard-resetting the h1945 before I could get it to work.
Despite these quirks, Pocket PC software has come a long way in recent years. It used to be slow, bloated and buggy, while Palm users mostly enjoyed greater selection and better quality software. Now it’s not so clear-cut. Increased hardware power of Pocket PCs (CPU speed and memory size) at affordable prices removed many limitations that hampered early Pocket PC software.
At the same time, Palm OS devices did not equally benefit from these hardware improvements due to inherent Palm OS architecture limitations (e.g. single-tasking). Palm OS 5 was supposed to be a breakthrough, but I wouldn't bet my bank on it. At any rate, I've made my choice and I like it so far. Good-bye Palm, hello Pocket PC.
Added 08/30/2003:
My new Sony/Ericsson T610 mobile phone has a built-in lo-res camera (288x352). It's not a substitute for a real camera, but it's great for taking "picture notes" while on the road trip, for example. The phone has 128x160 color display (65,000 colors) and about 2 MB of user memory for pictures, games, messages, etc. While impressive for such a small device, it's not enough for storing lots of even lo-res images (each image takes about 20 KB of memory). The phone's diplay is also too small for viewing pictures (about 28 x 35 mm). With iPAQ h1945, I can beam pictures via Bluetooth or IR (the phone has both) to my PDA and view them on a much larger screen and also free up the phone's memory. Now, how cool is that?
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 279.00
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Epinions.com ID:
digidealer
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Location: California, U.S.A.
Reviews written: 3
Trusted by: 1 member
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