This is a review of the HP iPAQ Voice Messenger, a quick summary of the stats from the HP QuickSpecs.

Software included
Value add applications:HP Data Connect, HP SIM Manager, HP Power Save Mode, HP Help and Support, HP Keyboard Backlight, HP Light Sensor, HP Asset Viewer, Opera Browser, Sun JVM, Westtek Jetcet PDF Viewer, Westtek Jetcet Print

For all the pictures in this review you can click them to view a much higher resolution image.

As the name suggests HP are aiming this at users who are wanting a device mainly aimed at voice use, for those who will be wanting to do lots of data entry the data messenger is the HP device to consider.

First off, size wise, this unit is very nicely sized, and feels very comforable in your hand. I have been using the Data Messenger recently, and on switching back to the voice messenger, it's light and slim form factor is immediately noticeable.

From the front the device has a small LED top left for charging and other notifications. To the left and right of the iPAQ logo are two soft keys, these are touch sensitive and thus have no moving parts, so less to go wrong. The left hand one is the start key, and the right the contacts key.
In the middle is the 5-way optical navigation button with center select. In practise this works very well, once you are used to it. The first few times of using I found it very easy to scroll past the area I was trying to get to.
To the left of the optical key is the answer/send key in green and the home key, and then to the right is the back key and the end/power key in red.

On top of the device is a very handy switch to turn off sound, and turn vibration on. This is very useful when going into meetings or quiet areas, as you don't have to unlock your device to enter vibrate mode.

On the left hand side is a key guard button, which you can press and hold to lock the keys, a volume up/down button and a voice commander button (which I changed to launch messaging)

On the right hand side there is a 2.5mm stereo headset jack, a micro USB connector ( a first for HP and meaning I have to change all my adapters for in car etc) and a camera button.


Looking at the back you see the 3.1 Megapixel camera with flash, and a shiny silver plastic look.


Taking off the back cover you see the sim slot, the battery and the MicroSD slot which has up to 8GB capacity.


The phone is very nice to use, the home screen that comes with Windows Mobile 6 non touch devices is very easy to use, and makes me wonder why Microsoft didn't release something similair for touch devices.
From the home screen you can quickly access new email, text messages, pictures, calendar appointments or even songs. You can also quickly access your profiles to change ring tones, toggle WiFi, access the task manager and change background images.


The phone has integrated Assisted GPS and using google maps was quick to get a lock on and guided me around some unknown streets in London recently. However I couldn't find a navigation program that used stored maps and worked succesfully with the phone. Webraska has a working client but that uses your data plan to download. Whilst this seems a good bit of software, I need my navigation to work in the mountains where there maybe no mobile phone signal.

Compared to other iPAQS, the 514 Voice Messenger and the Data Messenger. In the first picture the Voice Messenger is in the middle, in the second one it is at the bottom of the stack.

 

All in all I am very pleased with this phone. The two reasons I don't use it day to day is that I am hopeless at texting and writing emails with a number keypad and secondly that I couldn't find a Micro SD card based navigation program that would work on the device. I expect that I could fix the first issue with more use, but the second is a key requirement for me, so for now the Data Messenger is my day to day iPAQ. For someone who wants a small, light smartphone, with good battery life and impressive features I would certainly have the Voice Messenger on my shortlist.

 

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