HP Fansite

HP Slate officially becomes HP Slate 500, appears on HP.com

Well, well, well… what’s this we have here? Just as we were discussing the HP PalmPad yesterday and talking about the potential demise of the HP Slate, with the large possibility that the PalmPad was going to take its place as competitor to Apple’s iPad. Apparently HP wants to compete on both operating system fronts when it comes to offering iPad equivalent alternatives; with a mobile, more content-consumption friendly Web OS for the PalmPad as well as full-fledged (but touch optimized) Windows 7 OS on their not-so-dead-anymore Slate. The HP Slate has appeared on HP’s official website, now officially known as the HP Slate 500 (so there’s room for both higher end and more basic ‘budget’ tablets…), which you can check out right here and here. So far, specifications haven’t changed from HP’s initial announcement of the Slate with Microsoft earlier this year, as the Slate 500 maintains the use of a 1.6 GHz Intel Atom processor, Windows 7 OS and 8.9 inch touchscreen. Pricing remains a mystery though, as well as other specifications and a release date, but we’ll let you know whenever the news breaks. Those hoping for a Windows 7 running tablet, I can see all of you heaving a big sigh of relief….

In search of multi-touch for HP trackpads

I’m thinking of trying to get the touchpads of a few HP notebooks to support multi-touch and gestures, via unofficial solutions of course. Thanks to two of my best buds who volunteered their PC’s, my lab rats at the moment are a HP Pavilion dv2 running Windows 7 and HP Compaq 6510b running Windows Vista, which use ALPS and Synaptics touchpads respectively. Today I downloaded an unofficial driver modified to give certain Acer (gasp!) models multi-touch, but the app author said it should work on any Vista computer… so I tried installing it on the 6510b and it works, sort of – Pointer momentum worked 100%, multi-touch two-finger scrolling worked for a few minutes but suddenly stopped (for unknown reasons) and since then, I couldn’t get two finger scrolling to work again. Pinching and chiral scrolling didn’t work at all.

I figure that the Pavilion dv2 MAY have a better chance at working since its rather big touchpad fitted into its slim profile hints at it being ‘new hardware’ (hopefully multi-touch and gesture enabled?) but I need to find and try more drivers first. I’ll post results of my findings as we go along.

HP iPAQ Data Messenger Review

I recently got my hands on a retail version of HP’s iPAQ Data Messenger phone (European version).

It’s a nice, simple and stylish looking Pocket PC phone which is a tad smaller than the iPAQ 600 I have. To summarize in one sentence what the HP Data Messenger is all about, it’s actually a slightly smaller iPAQ 600 with a QWERTY keyboard and more fashion sense.

The main features of the HP iPAQ Data Messenger is a 2.8 inch QVGA (320 X 240) touchscreen, a slide-out backlit QWERTY keyboard from the side, with an optical navigation pad and touch sensitive controls on the front, 3 megapixel camera and it runs Windows Mobile 6.1 Pro. There’s also a 2.5 mm headphone jack for making calls/listening to music and micro USB port for charging and connectivity to your computer.

Sure, I do not doubt what people think about the iPAQ Data Messenger – even at the time of its debut, which was around October 2008, it’s specifications already looked dull, dusty and outdated compared to its competitors with similar form factors (that is, devices running WM 6.1 Pro with slide-out QWERTY keyboards). Both the Sony Xperia X1 and HTC Touch Pro offer either larger/higher resolution screens than the HP Data Messenger and come with their own Today Interface, which attempts to cover, what people brand as hideous and clunky, the Windows Mobile UI.

So what’s the point of the HP iPAQ Data Messenger, you ask? Well, it’s mainly targeted at business people who want a straight forward business Pocket PC phone (And we all know Windows and Windows Mobile mean business). It’s not meant to be a flashy or show-off phone with tons of bells and whistles. I find the Sony Xperia X1 a bit on the pricey side (which Sony product isn’t?) while the HTC Touch Pro is the true competitor of the HP Data Messenger and will probably steal quite a few sales thanks to its superior specifications.

However, what’s going for the Data Messenger, versus the Touch Pro 1, is that it has a 2.5 mm headphone jack (I can easily plug in an adapter for 3.5 mm standard headphones) and the fact that I can start out with a fresh phone and install whichever 3rd party Windows Mobile Today Interface that I want. Compared to the new Touch Pro 2 and other new phones released over the past week this month and it’s a different story; those other phones are much more appealing, sadly.

The only way HP can probably fight for now is by lowering the price of the Data Messenger so more people will go for it… and get off their butts NOW to the design room, then hopefully down the road somewhere, release more appealing and competitive iPAQs which are actually able to stand toe-to-toe against the competition!

I love HP (especially their notebooks) but I seriously think they should actually put in some effort into their Pocket PC/smart phone department!

8GB SDHC works on HP iPAQ hw6915

HP iPAQ hw6915 owners and fans rejoice, I’ve just tested my 8 GB SanDisk microSDHC memory card with the HP iPAQ hw6915 (via a microSD to mini SD adapter, of course) and guess what? IT WORKS!! And with just ONE 3rd party driver I downloaded from the internet too! Fantastic.

Now I can go to the gym tomorrow with all my music and in-ear earphones! Here’s the story: I’ve been using a 2 GB microSD card with my HP hw6915 via a micro SD to mini SD adapter since the device can’t detect 4 GB and above cards. Problem is, all my songs can’t fit on a mere 2 GB card… and also, having a few MOVIES at hand is a plus, in case I get bored of just songs while working out. Meanwhile, I’ve got four 2 hour long movies and over 600 songs in the 8 GB micro SDHC card I use in my iPAQ 614c, but the hw6915 has never managed to detect the 8 GB card… until today when I installed the unofficial SDHC update.

Why not use the iPAQ 614c for music then? Well, the iPAQ 614c has a triple-duty mini USB port which handles charging, data transfer and headphones. But I want to use my own headphones (sometimes it’s in-ear, sometimes it’s the big over-the-head headphones that I use for gaming) and they all need 3.5 mm jacks, which is the standard. I prefer my own headphones because they have noise-isolation/cancellation and have VERY good bass and “thump” – the iPAQ 614c’s bundled “dangle from the ears” type of earphones (you know like those bundled iPod earbuds? same case) lack both. Also, the iPAQ 614c can NOT use HTC mini USB to 3.5 mm adapters because HTC’s mini USB ports are slightly squarish, making them sort-of proprietary and HTC exclusive, whereas the 614c’s port is more mini-B shaped.

But since my iPAQ hw6915 started developing the tendency to self-reboot randomly at times a few months ago, it became unreliable as a phone. So I use the iPAQ hw6915 now almost exclusively as a music player (plug in my own headphones via a 2.5 mm to 3.5 mm adapter, and made even better now with 8 GB SDHC compatibility) while using the iPAQ 614c as a phone and sometimes music/video player.

Until HP releases a nice large and wide touchscreen, QWERTY keyboard Pocket PC phone with a 3.5 mm headphone jack… umm which should be in the near future right? Hey EVERYONE has one now (HTC Touch HD, Nokia N97, iPhone 3G, etc all have 3.5 mm headphone jacks) so why not eh, HP?… then I guess I’ll have to switch between or sometimes carry both devices (oh, what a drag!) along with me.

Of course, it would appear that the Nokia N97 I talked about a few days ago sounds like it would fit the bill perfectly, I would rather use the Windows Mobile OS, and preferably a HP device (for many reasons).

By the way, to save you all that time searching the net, here’s where I downloaded the update for SDHC compatibility with the HP iPAQ hw6915. Do note it’s 3rd party (but what Windows Mobile add-on isn’t?) and I’ve personally tested my iPAQ hw6915 with cards up to 8 GB, all of them work. Just put it in your non-SDHC card (like 1 or 2 GB normal mini SD), put the card into your iPAQ hw6915, install the CAB file and restart. After that, the device should be able to detect memory cards up to 8 GB.

UPDATE (June 2009): Since the time of writing this article, I have since returned the iPAQ hw6915 and iPAQ 600 phones, and transitioned over to the HP iPAQ Data Messenger. So, sorry, I will not be able to test memory cards with the hw6915 as they come out with larger capacities (ie 16 or 32 GB) in the future.

My favorite HP trackpads

My all-time favorite notebook PC trackpad has gotta be the one on the HP Pavilion tx-series notebooks. The tactile feedback of the little dimples are absolutely fantastic and I have no problem finding the trackpad area, even when I’m not looking at it. And the thing still works great when using wet hands to touch. By the looks of it, I suppose the one on the Voodoo Envy 133 will offer the same, nice control as the HP tx-tablets. Next up is the ones on HP business notebooks, which always have a matte like finish to the trackpad area and rubberized buttons.

The vertical scroll zone has gotta be the best thing since sliced bread too since I don’t need to shift my hand to the arrow keys or page up/down controls, or move the mouse to the scrollbar on the side of the screen. Practically, minimum finger/hand movement. I don’t quite care for horizontal scroll zones on my trackpad though, as it somehow isn’t as precise or natural as vertical scrolling and it takes up precious real estate (Really now, with widescreens and high-resolution displays nowadays, how often does one need to do horizontal scrolling?).

I’m not a big fan of the slippery trackpads on the HP HDX, and some of the HP dv-series and Compaq Presario models, which make them hard to use with wet hands and the horizontal scroll zone makes things worse, in my opinion.

I can’t wait to see multi-touch on more notebook PC trackpads. The Voodoo Envy 133 already has one which supports multi-touch and chiral gestures. I’m sure this will trickle to high-end notebooks and other premium notebooks, before (sooner or later) becoming a standard feature on all notebook PCs.