Palo Alto, Calif. — Hewlett-Packard launched its first new line of iPaq handhelds in two years and also its broadest iPaq line to date.
It debuted five new handheld platforms including a stand-alone GPS personal navigation device (PND), two smartphones and two PDAs.
The iPaq 310 Travel Companion is HP’s first dedicated PND built from the ground up by the company. It offers the unique feature of displaying a 3D likeness of the actual buildings on a route path for some cities. The unit is not a PDA but it doubles as a portable media player (PMP) with Bluetooth, and a 4.3-inch widescreen with one of the highest resolution displays on the market at 800 by 480, the company claims.
The 310 works with an optional MSN Direct adapter to offer real-time traffic plus weather updates, gas prices and movie listings. It also has an SD card slot and announces the street names for upcoming turns. Shipping is expected in October starting at a suggested retail of $449.
New smartphones include the business-aimed iPaq 610 and 910 series with high-speed 3G HSDPA data capability and quadband GSM/GPRS/EDGE operation, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and GPS navigation.
The iPaq 610 is aimed at phone users for whom email is secondary. It embeds a scroll wheel behind a T9 keypad and also has thumb scroll wheel on the side of the unit. It features a PMP and integrated 3-megapixel camera.
The iPaq 910 is aimed at email users for whom phone use is secondary. It has a QWERTY keyboard and lets you view and print email attachments from a variety of applications. It also lets you listen to email out loud for use when driving and features built-in Google Maps. The 610 is expected to ship in 60 days, followed by the 910 in 90 days, at prices to be announced.
New PDAs include the consumer-aimed iPaq 110 with Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, 3.5-inch display, 64MB of SDRAM and 256MB flash. It runs on Microsoft Windows Mobile 6 Classic and will ship in October at $299.
The enterprise-aimed 210 handheld adds a 4-inch VGA screen with 624MHz processor and is scheduled to ship in 60 days.
