Wednesday, February 6, 2008

Ipaq Classic 112 PDA Review... From a guy who bought one

I recently decided to buy The Ipaq Classic 112 PDA.
It was simply too good to resist.

I suppose I should be grateful to all the cell phone manufacturers for crowding the market with smartphones, because this has caused the prices of the PDAs to tumble.

The flood of smartphones on the market has crashed the price of the dwindling range of PDAs and the newest entry from Hewlett Packard is fantastic value.

The price I paid was $350 Australian dollars. A couple of years ago I would have paid about $800 for a similar product.

The fist thing that I noticed when I picked it up was its sleek design and weight. It is much lighter than previous Ipaq models and the manufacturer has dispensed with the clunky metal finish in favor of a smarter plastic look.
The weight and size make it easy to fit in a pocket, even a front jeans pocket.
My personal lifestyle has leaned me towards having a separate PDA and cellphone
The consumer market suggests that I am in the minority, with most consumers buying Windows enabled cellphones.
I prefer two separate devices because manufacturers are making the smartphone’s screen sizes too small to be effective as a PDA.
I had an O2 Atom before I bought my Ipaq Classic and I found the screen too small for my liking.
The new Ipaq boasts a full 3.5 inch screen and that makes a huge difference in the functionality.
Cellphone manufacturers are good at making phones and Ipaq are good at making Handhelds and combining the two into one means that the quality of the phone suffers.
I have owned a succession of Windows mobile devices and the Ipaq runs Windows mobile 6, which is the latest OS from Microsoft. In my estimation there is no great difference between version 5 and 6.
HP had the common sense to opt for the standard sized SD card option, rather than the mini or micro, because the standard SD is the cheapest alternative.
If you have a collection of smaller cards, you can still use them with your Ipaq with the use of adapters.
Bluetooth and WIFI both work great.
It is very easy to use your modem equipped cellphone to create a dial up Bluetooth connection to the internet, for the times when WIFI is not available.
There is a handy one touch recording button on side for the times when you want to record a memo, but are not in a convenient position to whip out your stylus.
Battery life is a slight disappointment, with no major improvements in this area over the years.
Other than that, my advice is to buy one.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Where did you get it for 350?? it sells for 377 at Dick Smith and that's the cheapest I've found!

Anonymous said...

I got it at Dick Smith Electronics Carnegie in
Melbourne.
I told them that organiser world sells them for $355
and asked them to beat it by ten bucks.
They did so I got it for $345.

Anonymous said...

How many hours of battery life do you get if you don't use WiFi?

 
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