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I've had this device for little over a week now. Despite owning a large number of PDA devices that accept SIM cards over the years including the Sony Ericsson p800, p910i and the iPAQ 6915 and 6815 this is my first non touch screen device. In all the pictures below you can click the image for a higher resolution picture.

At first it takes a little getting used to. I'm so used to using a QWERTY keyboard, either on a PC, laptop or PocketPC, so going "back" to a 1-9 keyed phone was strange. After a few days it all became fine, and I actually felt comfortable using the phone.

The device has the "standard" 1-0 numbers, the * and # keys and then at the top it has a home key, a return key, a 4 way joystick, an OK button in the middle and a further 2 buttons for menu commands, as well as a green and red phone button to start and end calls.

Battery Life

Some may say the device is nothing special, it isn't bleeding edge technology having a 1.3 MP camera, and a 200mhz CPU, however I believe HP have done this deliberately in order to get a good battery life and a low weight. The quoted specs say the battery is a 1100 mAh Lithium-Ion (user changeable), with a talk time of up to 6.5 hours and a standby time of up to 6.7 days (160 hours).

In my experience the battery life is excellent, the first day I received the unit I charged it and turned it on Wednesday at 2:30pm, I got a low battery warning Sunday night. The call log showed a total of 2hr 2mins of calls, I had done a fair bit GPRS Data sync with push email, and also used WiFi for a short time. You've no problems reading how much battery is left to charge when plugged in, if left unattended the battery charging screen is full screen and easy to read.

Unit Size

The size of the unit is great, easy to slip into a jeans or trousers pocket, unlike other PDA devices I've owned. The picture below shows the unit lined up as follows, reading from left to right, an iPAQ 6815, the iPAQ 514, the Nokia 6233 and the iPAQ 6915.

The next picture shows the thickness of the unit, reading from top to bottom, iPAQ 6915, iPAQ 514, Nokia 6233, iPAQ 6815.

Software features

Pocket Versions of Microsoft® software are included (Outlook, Word® Mobile, Excel® Mobile, PowerPoint® Mobile and Internet Explorer Mobile with Windows Live for Smartphone). HP have included a useful setup assistant which allows you to configure one or many phones from a interface on your PC. The iPAQ also comes with points to redeem at the iPAQ Choice website, so effectively you get a few smartphone applications or games of your choice included with the device.

Unfortunately Microsoft removed the ability to sync files with Smartphones and Vista, however pictures, videos, podcasts and music files can be automatically synce using Windows Media Player.

HP have taken the standard OS and added some features to make the device easier to use. The first one pops up automatically upon first powering up the device, or following a factory reset. This sets up your data connections for you and worked first time for me.

The next thing that pops up is the HP QuickStart tour which can introduce you to the device and explain some of it's features. This was useful as unfortunately the Getting Started CD would not work with Vista. On speaking to HP it appears to be an issue with the version of Flash on your PC, version 9.0.16 of flash onwards are unable to run the CD.

For those users with existing iPAQs the Wireless connection manager has a very familiar look and feel. With a scroll and a click from the homescreen this is the easiest way to turn on or off Bluetooth and WiFi. I encountered a small issue with the WiFi connection manager in that the screen became sluggish when altering some settings. I've not been able to reproduce this so I can only assume the device was low on memory at the time.

HP also include a utility to control the profiles on the device, once again accessible from the home screen. This gives you a choice of 5 profiles, with the automatic option switching between normal and vibrate when your calendar indicates that your current time is busy! From within the profiles you can rename the profile, alter the ring tone, volume, alarm, reminder and notification type as well as volume for all three. You can also alter the system sound volume from the profile manager. One thing HP did on the 6915, which I wish they would carry over to other device was have the ability to control the wireless options from the profile. For example, you could name a profile car, have it boost the sound and turn on Bluetooth for handsfree calling.

There are also a number of utilities available to control the memory space, and running programs on your iPAQ Voice Messenger.

When you first turn on the device, you get an iPAQ tip appearing as default. I first off ignored these, then as I used the device more and more I kept wondering, for example, if I could turn the keyboard lock on with a single press, turns out iPAQ tips had the answer. The tips also told me that if I press and hold the Home key I get a Quick List popup.

HomeScreen

The default homescreen allows you to quickly see the status of your device, upcoming appointments, unread messages, profiles, internet calling status as well as quicklinks at the top to the last 10 applications you have run.

Internet Calling

Voice

Having the name iPAQ Voice Messenger and you'd expect something to do with voice on the device, and you won't be disappointed. The iPAQ includes VoiceReply to emails and Cyberon Voice Command. Both work alot better than I expected.

To use Voice Command you press and hold a button on the right hand bottom side of the device, when you release the button a screen pops up and a voice speaks "Say command". At this point you can speak to the iPAQ and tell it to dial a contact, compose or read an email, audio email and SMS. If you do nothing it simply timesouts. If you choose to read email or SMS it will tell you how many unread messages you have and then start to read the first unread message. By pressing the button again you can bring up a sub menu with the options next, previous, repeat, reply, reply all or abort.

If you wish to dial a contact you simply say call <contact> at home/work/mobile. The device will then read your command back to you where you can say yes to dial the contact or no to re-speak your instruction.

I found the call contact option very useful, it works well at home, but does suffer misunderstandings when used with a Bluetooth headset in a car. I believe some of the noise cancelling Bluetooth headsets available would assist greatly here. You can also tell it to digit dial and read a phone number out to dial.

The other great feature is voice reply or send email. Let's say your stuck in a traffic jam and late for an appointment. Here in the UK it's illegal to use your device in the car, so you would simply use the voice feature, ask it to compose audio email to <contact>, it checks you really want to do this, then you can speak for up to 30 seconds, with a countdown timer on the screen in large black letters. The device then plays your message back to you and asks if you want to send it. Saying yes and the message is sent. In my test message it was only a 53kb message including the voice message.

The phone also speaks low memory warnings to you, which gave me a bit of shock the first time it did it!

Maps and Internet Browsing

The screen is the smallest I have used, but is surprisingly readable, even in daylight if you push the brightness up. Having just watched the apple iphone video I was amused at how they portrayed the ability to use Google maps as a feature, so I present to you pictures showing how the iPAQ 514 can do the same task, ie pull down a map, search for a Sushi restaurant and get your driving instructions.

Specification comparisions

The device bears comparision the HTC 710, which also runs Mobile 6. The HTC device has a slide out QWERTY keyboard and is heavier, slightly wider, thicker, but not as long.

Conclusion

All in all a very nice device, with good battery life, and all the software features I need on the road, including push email, Windows Mobile Media player, the Microsoft Office suite. The device does the things it does well, the Voice Commander software is a nice to have feature. The thing that would make it a killer device for me would be GPS. It's small enough to be shoved into your pocket, and has enough battery for a long day on the road including making voice calls and receiving push email all day.