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The HP iPAQ 910 has excellent RF reception and is an impressive device

One week ago I wrote about my first impressions of the HP iPAQ 910 Business Messenger. I have been using it steadily every day since then and actually found something rather surprising over the holiday weekend. I had the Samsung Blackjack II, HTC Touch Diamond, T-Mobile Dash, and Nokia N95-3 with me over the weekend and out of all five, the iPAQ 910 outperformed them all in terms of RF reception. We were at the lake in the woods and reception was very weak, but the iPAQ 910 picked up the AT&T signal and gave me 2-3 bars of EDGE connection compared to no or very little signal on all the other devices.
Written by Matthew Miller, Contributing Writer

One week ago I wrote about my first impressions of the HP iPAQ 910 Business Messenger. I have been using it steadily every day since then and actually found something rather surprising over the holiday weekend. I had the Samsung Blackjack II, HTC Touch Diamond, T-Mobile Dash, and Nokia N95-3 with me over the weekend and out of all five, the iPAQ 910 outperformed them all in terms of RF reception. We were at the lake in the woods and reception was very weak, but the iPAQ 910 picked up the AT&T signal and gave me 2-3 bars of EDGE connection compared to no or very little signal on all the other devices. I am also seeing HSDPA in many more areas than I have seen on devices like the HTC Advantage and so far reception ROCKS!

The iPAQ 910 is a full touch screen Windows Mobile Professional device, but just by looking at it you wouldn't guess that it had a touch screen due to the keyboard and rather small display size (2.46 inches). There are enough buttons (Start Menu, OK button, jog wheel, etc.) to allow you to use the device without ever needing to touch the display and this is a big selling point in my opinion because it gives you maximum flexibility in terms of usage. Speaking of touching the display, the stylus is fantastic on the iPAQ 910. It is a telescoping model that extends out to almost the full length of the device with metal and plastic construction to give it a decent amount of heft. It is the BEST mobile device stylus I have used in years and is a welcome change over other devices.

I took the video below of the device in action and added some thoughts to go along with my first look last week.

A few questions from readers were posted on my blog last week and I wanted to answer them as best as I could here:

Question 1: Does the device support SDHC? Yes, it does. I tested it with an 8GB microSDHC card and after inserting the card and then turning the device on and off I was all set and ready to go. I think microSDHC is upwards over 16GB now too.

Question 2: Does the device experience reboot issues in various scenarios (SIM card removal, in particular)? The SIM card is under the battery so of course it will reboot when you take out the battery. The iPAQ 910 has been rock solid for me over the last week and has not reset a single time and I have it loaded with about 10 third party applications and syncing via push to my hosted Exchange account. I have not needed to plug the A/C adapter in to wake up the iPAQ either.

Question 3: Does the device slow down with lots of loaded applications? I have loaded about 10 3rd party apps so far and the device is performing like a champ. It is really surprising me how snappy it is with the Marvel 416 MHz processor. I have lots of applications running at once and haven't noticed much of a performance hit at all. There is a Task Manager to kill programs loaded on the device too.

Question 4: Does the on/off switch turn on too easily? The on/off switch is small and flush with the top and I have yet to experience any problem with the device turning on/off too easily. There is no hold switch on the device and I have been using the keyboard lock utility to keep accidental presses from occurring.

Question 5: Is the iPAQ File Store sizable and useful? Not really, you get something like 24MB of File Store on the device, but HP really should have just done away with it since it isn't really necessary in Windows Mobile 6. HP gives you something over 115 MB or so of storage memory on the iPAQ 910 and that is all flash memory, just like the iPAQ File Store area.

Question 6: Can you tether the device via cable or Bluetooth? I haven't had a chance to try it yet, but the HP iPAQ 910 does have the cool new Internet Sharing utility that I have tried on other devices and it works like a champ with them. I'll try this out before I have to send back the iPAQ 910 and let readers know how it works out.

Question 7: Is the DC connector on the iPAQ different from the USB connector? There is a single miniUSB connection that you use for syncing, charging, and connecting the wired headset. I was able to use a standard miniUSB to USB cable, but charging this way never topped off the device and brought it up to only about 97%.

Question 8: How does the iPAQ 910 compare with the Samsung Blackjack II? Check out my new Blackjack II review where I have photos of the two side-by-side and on top of each other. The 910 is a bit wider and thicker according to the specs, but does feel chunkier and not as sleek as the BJII.

More thoughts and experiences of the HP iPAQ 910: The 1940 mAH battery has performed well and I am easily able to go an entire day between charges with push email turned on. The device has been a pleasure to use due to its snappiness, great location and choice of hardware buttons, super fast data connection, and jog wheel navigation.

The camera on this prototype unit is flawed and the flash LED does not work so I was unable to really test out the camera functionality in any kind of accurate manner.

I am quite impressed with the quality and functionality of the device and am seriously thinking of buying this device instead of the iPhone 3G since it is available as a SIM-unlocked device with no contract obligation and has been performing extremely well.

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