I am interested in anything to do with technology...
I am interested in anything to do with technology...
Member since:01.06.2005
Reviews:6
Members who trust:2
I purchased the iPAQ h4150 from eBay in may 2004 for £240 including postage from America and have been very happy with it. It has many good features and is also one of the faster PDAs. You can now get the h4150 for about £200 which is very good for a pocketPC of its specification.
Speed ---------------- The h4150 is clocked at 400MHz, although I have managed to overclock it to 530MHz using a program called "XCPUScalar". This is very good for a PDA. The highest speed you can get for a PDA now is about 624MHz and that is only in the high-end models. Using the PDA is very fast and not sluggish at all unlike other PDAs I've used. Games load quickly and programs like word and file explorer start instantly. Searches are also fast and so is soft-resetting.
Stability ---------------- The h4150 is very stable and when it does crash you just have to push the stylus into a small hole on the side. The PDA then soft-resets (that means it doesn't cause any loss of stored data) which normally takes about 20 seconds. Only once when I have had it have I had to hard-reset because of a crash. (hard resetting causes you to lose anything you stored in RAM)
Battery ---------------- The battery life is very good on the h4150; it lasts about a day continuous use without any wireless features enabled. When the device is in standby mode it lasts about a month! When you enable wireless features though the device loses battery very fast. Overall the battery life is very good compared to other PDAs
Expansion ---------------- The h4150 doesn't have many expansion options, its has a SD-IO slot which can be used for a camera expansion or an SD/MMC card. You can also use Bluetooth expansion devices like a GPS. There is also an attachable keyboard that fits onto the bottom. One disappointing thing is that this PDA doesn't support 'sleeves' unlike many other HP PDAs, I suppose to have that it would mean making the PDA bigger though....
Design --------------- The h4150 is a lot smaller and lighter compared to other PDAs, it fits into most pockets very nicely. The power button is placed at the top middle and there are 4 soft buttons across the bottom that can be programmed to your preference. There is also a soft button at the top left on the side which is defaulted to "record". I find myself accidentally pressing this all the time. There is also a D-Pad in the middle of the 4 soft-buttons, which is ok but can be uncomfortable when playing games for a long time. The SD card slot is located on the top of the unit and accepts SD-IO expansion devices, SD cards and MMC cards. Also on the top of the unit is the microphone, earphones socket and stylus slot. The connector for charging and connection to the computer is on the bottom. There is also a IRDA sender/receiver on the bottom which is oddly placed and can be awkward at times.
Connectivity --------------- The h4150 has many connectivity options; It has Bluetooth, WLAN and IRDA. Bluetooth and WLAN use up a lot of battery life and shouldn't be kept on for long periods of time. The Bluetooth software is a bit buggy and locks up sometimes but this happens in most PocketPCs. The WLAN is good and easy to set up, as soon as you enter a network a popup appears asking you to add it.
Software -------------- The h4150 comes with Windows PocketPC 2003 Premium. Second Edition has just come out but it is still a good operating system. The h4150 also comes with a few applications preinstalled for example Microsoft Office for PocketPC, Internet Explorer, Inbox and A few games. There is also many applications available for download or purchase.
Screen ------------- The h4150 comes with a 3.5" Transflective screen and 64K colours. This is more than adequate for most users and the quality is very good. The screen's backlight is also good and can go quite bright (It can light a small room at night). It is hard to see in direct sunlight but this is expected.
Sound Quality ------------- The sound quality for the inbuilt speaker is surprisingly good, although it doesn't have that much bass it is still very good. If you want better quality you can use the earphone socket which is a standard connecter. Using that the quality is as good as any MP3 player I have tried.
Memory ------------- The h4150 comes with 64MB useable volatile memory. This is shared between programs and files, it is a bit on the small size but you can always get a SD card to get more memory. There is also a 2.8MB iPAQ File store which is involatile so it doesn't get cleared when you hard reset or the battery completely runs out.
Overview ------------- The h4150 is a great PDA with many features and all for a good price. I would recommend this to anyone looking for a fast and portable PDA for an affordable price.
How helpful would this review be to a person making a buying decision? Rating guidelines
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Advantages: Good points? – way beats many latest pocket computers in terms of speed and graphical performance on benchmarking. Lots. Disadvantages: Its cons would only be the yellowish tint issue thingy, which you can see while using the pocket pc at a low angle. But I doubt it would bother you.
Advantages: Good points? – way beats many latest pocket computers in terms of speed and graphical performance on benchmarking. Lots. Disadvantages: Its cons would only be the yellowish tint issue thingy, which you can see while using the pocket pc at a low angle. But I doubt it would bother you.
Jun 3rd, 2005
very helpful by (100%):
