HP iPAQ hw6515 - Part 2 - The Internal Applications

HP iPAQ hw6515 Mobile Messenger Review Part II - Internal Applications Supplier: Clove Technology Limited Manufacturer: Hewlett Packard Product: HP iPAQ hw6515 Mobile Messenger Colour: Silver / Gunmetal Grey Cost: £382 (£448.85 inc VAT) Supplier Web Site: www.clove.co.uk Supplier Product Web Site: HP IPAQ hw6515 (IPAQ-6515) Manufacturers Page: Hewlett Packard Thanks to Clove Technology 4WM has been given the chance to review one of the more interesting Windows Mobile devices to reach the marketplace in recent months. We are of course talking about the HP iPAQ hw6515 Mobile Messenger which is the first WM device to feature a square screen and high speed EDGE communications technology. In this section of the review we will look briefly at the application set supplied with the program and see if HP have maintained their usual high standards of supplied applications. The application-set as visible in the 'Programs' folder is very much vanilla WM2003SE Phone Edition with the addition of GPS Map and Voucher GPS Navigation Launcher HP Image Zone HP Photosmart iPAQ Backup Pocket MSN So nothing really 'extra' there on top of what might be expected for a machine which as standard runs with GPS Navigation and a camera on board. Or is that really the case? At first glance there seem not to be many enhancements, but when the 6515 is actually put into operation a whole host of useful features are found hidden within. Read on to find out more! The same appears to be the case with the Start/Settings/System screen, the only new items here which are in addition to the usual HP System applications are: HP Profiles Keyboard So again it appears that there is not too much to inspire or excite the user This begs the question how can such a relatively expensive PDA get away with relatively few extras? We'll now start to dig through the depths of the machine to see if we can find anything more interesting........ So lets us start at the beginning and look at what version of the OS we have on board. The 'About' screen is the settings reveals that we are running a very recent build of WM2003 SE 4.21.1088 (build 15110.2.6.2) - this compares to my recently update iPAQ 4705 which is running 4.21.1088 (build 15045.2.6.2). It's good to know we are running the latest MS update to the ROM, which of course includes Media Player 10 and a whole host of improvements behind the scenes - for example the Bluetooth stack is more reliable in the later ROM issues. The 'Asset Viewer' confirms the specification, 64Mb ROM / 64Mb RAM, enough for a Phone Edition device but it would have been nicer to have 128Mb of RAM to work with! The Settings / Memory section shows that the iPAQ File Store just over 12Mb of additional storage memory. The reason that this is mentioned at this point is that usually this is protected flash memory - on this machine it is not the case! If you perform a hard reset on the 6515 you will lose the contents of the File Store - be warned! The today screen is very much as standard with the exception of the addition of the 'Today Panel Lite' plugin from http://www.rhinocode.com/ as well as the specialised bottom tray icons (HP Connection Manager) and something else rather special which we will cover later. The Start Menu programs list includes a link to the 'GPS Navigation' application, better known as TomTom Nav 5.0. To give picture / media support to the 6515 (as it has the camera and MMS phone capabilities) HP include the fully featured HP Image Zone application which allows one to perform all the expected operations on photo media; features such as copy, paste, moving, deletion etc are of course supported but also sending of he media via MMS, E-mail, Bluetooth or Infrared. Rather extensive features are hidden behind the scenes which include viewing colour histograms, display to external viewer, playing of associated sound files, auto view on SD card insertion. This makes the view rather fully featured and is a great included application from HP. One of the 'little' extras added into the Image Zone application is that of a Screen Saver. This looks to have been added in to replace the Dockware program from Ilium software which was included on prior iPAQs like the 4705. Again this is fully featured and can be set to display pictures from any desired location with a selection of transition effects and date / time formats being available. The final component supplied with the 6515 for media support is the 'HP Photosmart' application which replaces the usual camera control offering supplied on HTC built devices. HP have put some thought into the design of the interface and it is much prettier than the rather bland view screen offering supplied by HTC. The initial screen has been designed to give one the look of a digital camera viewfinder, unfortunately though at the expense of a reduced viewfinder display area. Internally a goodly selection of controls are given to you whereby you can affect the capabilities of the camera: White balance: Auto, Sun, Tungsten and Fluorescent Color: Full Color, Black & White, Sepia, Negative and Cool Compression: Good, Better and Best Resolution: 160x120, 320x240,640x480 and 1280x1024 Flicker filter: Auto, 50Hz or 60Hz Camera sounds can be toggled on or off, instant review times can be changed as well as a self timer triggered for when you wish to be included in the photo. You can define the filename prefix of saved images, control the picture taken count (useful) as well as where images are to be saved. Alas the only video format supported is H.263 (no MPG or WMA) and video sizes are restricted to 128x96, 176x144 and 352x288 - useful for MMS work but nothing really above that level. Within the main viewfinder screen one can also adjust the digital zoom level which allows us to a 2x zoom to be selected as well as turning on the LED flash. The later however is somewhat disappointing as it appear that there are only two settings, on or off, there is no auto flash option that I could see which would be triggered by current lighting conditions. The relationship between Sprite Software (the makers of the best backup application for WM devices) continues and HP include in ROM the latest version of the Sprite backup (not Pro) software as per usual rebadged a little as iPAQ Backup. This is always one of those benefits of buying a HP machine you are guaranteed the best of backup solutions as standard. Moving onto some of the settings applets within the machine all of them appear to be very much standard WM2003SE but on a closer look there are hidden extras within. The first of these extras appears within the Buttons control applet whereby under 'Lock' the 'Enable Keyguard' facility is added. This serves to lock all buttons (including the keyboard) on the machine until Contacts and Messaging buttons are pressed on the front of the device. Useful! We'll see what that looks like in the third part of the review! HP have created a HP Profiles application which allows you to switch between; User, Outdoor, Meeting, Normal and Silent profiles. On each profile you can vary the Ring type, volume, ring tone, vibration, screen brightness, backlight, power off, and even whether the phone or Bluetooth systems are activated. This is very useful and goes someway to alleviate the requirement for programs such as ZenPhone or PhoneAlarm. The only commonly used option that appears to be missing is auto-changing of profiles dependant on times or Outlook busy status - you do have to switch the profiles manually. Even taking those 'missing' features into account this is a superb addition to a Phone Edition pocket PC and credit goes to HP for creating such as useful feature and including it in the ROM as standard! The keyboard applet has been added to the System controls to allow you to specify how the keyboard operates. You can turn off the keyboard entirely if you so wish as well as set how long the keyboard backlight stays on since a key was last pressed and of course vary the repeat timings. The only lack here is that there is no sensor for auto-control of the backlight - it is on each time a key is pressed regardless of lighting conditions. Moving on to the communication capabilities of the device - even though WiFi is sadly lacking HP have again put in significant effort to ensure you have the best tools available. These standard MS Bluetooth stack has been replaced with the Broadcom offering which is widely considered to be the best available for WM devices and most commonly required services such as File Transfer, Serial Port, Information Exchange, etc are included. One common complaint from Phone Edition owners (especially those purchasing SIM-free devices) is that it can be difficult to set up their new device with the correct GSM/GPRS settings for their air-time provider. HP have addressed this rather annoying issue by supplying their GSM/GPRS Manager which allows you to select your Country and Operator and configure your device with a few screen taps. You can even choose to use Automatic Detection if your provider is not included in the standard list and then edit the parameters so ensure you are set up correctly. Well done HP! Once configured correctly you can them use the rather confusingly names 'iPAQ Wireless' control to turn on and off the Bluetooth and Phone modules of the device and quickly access / change any profile settings you wish to modify. This applet is very similar to that uses on the HP WiFi devices and I can see it being extended in the future to include WiFi control if HP do bring out a WiFi variant of the 6515 in the future. TomTom Nav 5! Here we come to one of the awesome aspects of the iPAQ 6515 - as standard an in built GPS system which comprises the GPS receiver itself and also the TomTom Navigation system. However once you take on proud ownership of your 6515 DO NOT dive straight into the Navigation system - as you do have to do a little preparation work first - and shock horror - yes this is (mostly) covered in the manual and the GPS start up guide. Firstly you have to go into the Quick GPS Connection control applet and download the QGPS connection file, this is only a few Kb in size and therefore there is no great GPRS cost involved. The connection file serves one very useful purpose and that is to reduce the start up of your GPS system. When a GPS system is operated for the first time (or used after a period on none usage) it can take the quite a few minutes for the system to gain a 'lock' on the satellites to fix your position. The QGPS system operates using the cell phone network to estimate your location and passes this data to the GPS system which greatly speeds up the process of locking onto your current location. Very cool and very impressive. Tests here indicated that a lock was obtained within 5-10 seconds compared to my external GPS which can take 60-90 seconds! Now before you can start using the GPS system you will need to visit the TomTom web site, create a user account, register your software and download any updates for the iPAQ 6515. At the time of writing the review their is an update from version 5.0 (ROM) software to version 5.10. This fixes a number of bugs and allows you to more easily download your free map! Once you have installed the update (which will add the TomTom today applet) you are now free to configure the TomTom Nav 5.1 system. When you run the TomTom Nav 5 software (TTN5) you will be guided through the initial configuration of your GPS system. Here you can select the language you will wish to use, right or left handedness, your chosen distance units and clock formats. After this you will be prompted to select the default voice for the system to use, however at this time you will only be able to select USA voices - don't worry about that for the moment and continue the set up until you get the warning message that you have no maps installed. From here you need to dock the 1PAQ in the cradle, give it time to connect, and then tap that mysterious 'GPS Map & Voucher' icon. This will take you to a special area of the TomTom site, give you your discount voucher code and allow you to choose your one free city map for download. Once the map (a CAB file) has been downloaded and installed you can now go back into TTN5 and complete the rest of the configuration (setting your home location, etc) and you are up and running. Additionally you can of course log into your account on the TomTom web site and download and install the 'missing' UK voices. Pocket MSN - The missing link! One feature NOT included within the iPAQ 6515 which can very easily be added is the latest Pocket MSN application suite. As well as including MSN Messenger this also now adds Hotmail e-mail support including the facility to use the MS Hotmail push delivery system. As part of the new system you gain a new today applet which allows you to sign into MSN and once logged in will show your MSN status for messenger and Hotmail e-mail as well as allowing you to visit the Hotmail PPC based web site. Options internally allow you to clear any saved passwords (useful for retaining security), configure e-mail delivery and junk mail filter options, update presence information automatically, use SMS for messenger data exchange and even witch users. This feature is looking to be standard on the newer build of machines but to have this on the 6515 just adds to the connectivity already seen above. This gives you SMS, MMS, regular e-mail, Hotmail and IM on one machine - all nicely integrated together. Plus as one querant asked; it will support the viewing and opening of attached e-mail documents! HP should have gone the extra mile and added this package into the 6515 as standard. Why is it included here - basically because it does turn the 6515 into a true Mobile Messenger. Internal Pro's & Con's Pro's Well thought out application set Reasonably powerful and easy to use HP camera application Quick GPS set up utility TomTom Nav 5.10 included Free City map download included Sprite Backup in ROM Screen Saver applet Profile Control applet included Pocket MSN included as standard Keyguard facility GSM/GPRS Manager / configurator Con's No auto flash sensing No auto-backlight keyboard control Pocket MSN application suite NOT included Application Conclusions Yet again we see with the iPAQ 6515 why HP are one of the big names in the Pocket PC / Windows Mobile devices world. Here they have produced a relatively small PDA incorporating some high level hardware and take the care and effort to blend and construct internal applications to match. This machine is sold as a 'Mobile Messenger' and it is, the messaging capabilities are there in full and when in use you do feel fully in touch with the world around you. Adding to those communication features quick and speedy high-tech GPS navigation as well as a 1.3Mb camera with custom control software its easy to see why this latest iPAQ is destined to be a winner! It's just a pity that the Pocket MSN application suite is not included - if you are a MSN Messenger user and have a Hotmail account you need to add this suite to the 6515 - it cries out for the attention! HP however do have their own 'Push' e-mail system which you can subscribe to called Pocket X-Press which you can try for 30 days or subscribe to at the rate of UK: £7.49 (ex VAT) per month (for 12 months) - Ouch! You can see why I recommend the Pocket MSN application suite which costs £10.99 for a year! 4WM Rating for Internal Applications: 93%