HP iPAQ 914 review

HP used to be a company at the forefront of Windows Mobile PDA’s and Phones in the very early days. Their dedicated PDA line used to be very popular and every aspiring device manufacturer looked up to the HP brand, hell even Mobility Today used to be known as Daves iPaq. In the last few years HP have disappeared from the Windows Mobile domain but they are now back and have released a couple of new devices. Are they back with a bang or a whimper, lets find out.

Looking around the outside

Front

The 2.46" QVGA touch screen after using the HTC Diamond, Touch Pro and Samsung Omnia looks and feels tiny and it is back to the old design of being recessed which is not finger friendly. Below the screen we have the menus keys, phone keys and a few short cut keys for mail and the start menu. A shiny chrome D-Pad with a plastic surround is just above the QWERTY keyboard.

 

Back

On the rear we can see the 3 megapixel camera with flash light as well as the speaker cover and HP logo. The back cover clips off to reveal the battery and sim card slots.

 

Top

The top part of the phone has the on/off button, a small soft reset hole and a flap that reveals a connector for a GPS antennae.

 

Bottom

The bottom of the phone is totally clear.

 

Left Side

The left hand side you have the Volume up and down toggle keys, voice memo quick launch key, MicroSD card and USB ports which is also used for charging the phone all covered by a plastic flap.

 

Right Side

This side has a camera quick launch button an OK button and the scroll wheel.

 

Scroll Wheel

The scroll wheel is a nice addition but being someone that always holds a phone in my left hand, I found the placement of the wheel to be on the wrong side and awkward to use.

 

The Software

The word VANILLA springs to mind here, its a very standard version of Windows Mobile Professional for touch screen with no enhancements, below is a short video taking a look at what is on the device and it is not much out of the box.

 

Conclusion

This is a short review and the reason why it is so short is that there is not a great deal to say, its an average performing business type phone that runs Windows Mobile. Its reasonably snappy in operation most of the time but freezes and stalls on some easy tasks, the keyboards nice enough to type on and the screen is bright and readable but very small. Battery life seems good overall, as it should be as this one has a 1940mAH battery which is more than twice the size of the HTC Diamonds and doesn’t have the VGA screen. GPS is a nice add on but HP’s devices have had this for a long time anyway and again no software apart from Google Maps. The camera is average and suffers from a long lag between hitting the shoot button and actually taking the picture, the stylus is telescopic and of average quality, overall this device is average in all senses of the word. If your looking for a business phone for email and a fast data connection without any of the new bells and whistles we are seeing from HTC and Samsung then this may be of interest. If your looking for a bit more then stay clear, this one has to be aimed at the Blackberry business user.

Positives

QWERTY Keyboard

HSDPA 7.2 mb/s

GPS

Negatives

Plastic looking

Recessed screen

No enhancements

Boring

 

HP iPAQ 914 Specifications:

Windows Mobile 6.1 professional

2.46-inch transmissive TFT 320 x 240 pixel touch panel display

Built-in Assisted GPS

Integrated Quad band GSM/GPRS/EDGE, Tri Band HSPDA

WiFi 802.11 b/g

Bluetooth V2.0

UMTS (3G)/HSDPA Connectivity

Marvell PXA270 Processor 416 MHz

128MB SDRAM/ 256MB ROM

3 Megapixel Camera

MicroSD Slot

1940 mAh Lithium Polymer battery

113 x 64 x 16 mm

Weight 146g (5.15 oz)

 

Thanks to Clove for supplying the review device

Disclaimer, the HP iPAQ featured in this review will b
e returned.