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As our earlier preview of the important new iPAQ hw6515 Mobile Messenger made clear, the new hw6500 series of smartphones from Hewlett-Packard sets out to do everything, or almost everything—and pretty much succeeds. We recently had a chance to review another preproduction unit.

This one came with a GSM SIM card for the Rogers Wireless network in Canada, making it possible to test more functions. The Canadian carrier and Cingular Wireless in the U.S. officially announced the hw6500 series yesterday.

HP's hw6515 is at least four devices in one: Pocket PC, phone, camera and, best of all, a GPS device capable of providing turn-by-turn navigation with audio guidance. (A second version of the smartphone, the hw6510, does not include a camera.) While there are lots of Pocket PC phones and a few Pocket PC GPS devices, this is the first that combines phone, PDA and GPS functions.

The unit we received was loaded with iPAQ Navigation System software from Navteq Corporation. HP will not include this application in the standard software bundle, however. Instead, the computer and printer giant provides the more basic Microsoft Pocket Streets as a free download for customers in North America.

Specs

While the hw6515 has a Bluetooth radio, the smartphone lacks Wi-Fi, which is just about the only major want-to-have feature missing. It runs the Windows Mobile 2003 Second Edition operating system, and comes with all the usual Pocket PC applications.

The cellular-wireless handheld packs only middling power, though—a 312 MHz Intel PXA272 processor, 128 MB total memory—and features a smaller-than-typical 3-inch, 240 x 240-pixel resolution screen. Like the earlier h4350 Pocket PC, the hw6515 features a QWERTY "thumb keyboard." The screen is smaller and square to make room for the keyboard below it.


                                         Left Side

HP's new Pocket PC Phone is also a quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE device with an integrated antenna. Cingular's EDGE (Enhanced Data for Global Evolution) network promises to exchange data at average speeds of 135 kilobits per second (kbps), about three times as fast as conventional wired dial-up connections.

Its 1.3-megapixel camera comes with a flash and is capable of taking full-motion video. There's integrated Secure Digital In Out (for memory and peripherals) and miniSD (for storage only) slots.


Expansion Slots on Side of Unit

Performance

The hw6515 does a lot given its sleek and relatively diminutive form factor: 4.65 x 2.80 x .83 inches, 5.82 ounces. The downside is that, like most jacks of all trades, it doesn't do anything terrifically well. Most disappointingly, the GPS functions did not work flawlessly in our testing.

In fairness, the unit we tested was still marked 'Engineering Sample, Not for Sale.' HP may work out some of the glitches before bringing this product to market in North America. On the other hand, we did see indications out of Europe - where the hw6515 was already being sold - that HP would recall the product because of problems with GPS. HP denied this.

GPS
Our review unit had the optional Navteq software already loaded, so we can't report on how easy or difficult it is to set up. The software provides the same kind of functionality as other turn-by-turn navigation and mapping applications.

It gives you GPS information from the GPS receiver, including time, latitude, longitude, altitude, speed and the number of satellites it's able to poll. You can view a map of where you are, and zoom it in or out. You can save your current location as a Favorite—home, office, airport, etc.

You can set destinations in any of several ways, including entering an address, selecting an intersection by choosing city and street names from pull-down lists, selecting a contact from an integrated rolodex, selecting a Favorite location or choosing from the database of Points of Interest. The latter includes attractions, businesses (ATMs, banks, grocery stores, etc.), restaurants, lodgings, recreation and more.

The first problem we noticed, a relatively minor one, was that when using the Pocket PC letter recognizer or virtual keyboard, there were sometimes display problems—the input window would either not go away when you hit the pencil icon or it would go away but leave a blank that covered the underlying Navteq window. In one case, we had to reset the device to get a proper display.

Driving
The most serious problems surfaced when we took the hw6515 out for a driving test of the navigation software. HP does not sell the unit with a vehicle mounting kit, but does have a partner, ProClip, that offers custom kits for particular makes of vehicles.

We set the unit on our lap, screen side down so that the speaker was facing up to make the audio guidance audible. The Navteq guidance voice is loud and clear enough (volume is adjustable). In fact, the voice is very pleasant.

The unit gave correct directions as we set out. But after the first turn, it started giving turning instructions that made no sense given where we were supposed to be going. We pulled to the side of the road and looked at the display. The map showed us one street over from where we in fact were. As we sat there, it automatically corrected itself and began issuing correct instructions.

The same thing happened on another route. It appears in both cases that the system became disoriented while the vehicle was stopped at an intersection. In this case, after giving several correct directions, the Navteq software began telling us to make a U turn—or at one point, 'Find any road.'

It wasn't clear what we were supposed to do once we found a road. We had created this route by selecting the nearest McDonalds restaurant from the points of interest database. The destination intersection had no McDonalds and to our knowledge never has had: The nearest is about a mile east and has been there for over 25 years.

Are the GPS problems all related to the fact that this was a preproduction unit? It's certainly possible. Or is it the software that is flawed?

PDA
As a Pocket PC, the hw6515 is somewhat compromised by the smaller screen. When you display the letter recognizer interface, there's not much screen real estate left for content. Users who have always balked at PDA handwriting recognition will no doubt welcome the keyboard, but we found the keys way too small for rapid input.

One upside: the numeric keypad section of the keyboard lets you dial telephone numbers without having to use the onscreen number pad, something else many users apparently don't like.

The 6515 is not the fastest Pocket PC. The rotating color wheel cursor that indicates the processor is busy doing something seemed to appear more often than with most Pocket PCs we've tested recently, often when loading big programs such as the camera software or changing from one function to another in the Navteq software.

This is perhaps not surprising given the processor power it packs. The fastest Pocket PCs have 500 MHz and even 600 MHz processors.

Network
As a phone, the hw6515 also appears to be slightly underpowered. We tested it at the same time as the Samsung p207. In some indoor situations where the p207 made a reasonably strong connection to the Rogers network, the connection with the HP product tended to be slightly weaker and voice quality slightly degraded compared to the Samsung unit.

That said, virtually everywhere we used the hw6515, connection and voice quality were at least adequate, including in some rural areas.

Web browsing using the Windows Mobile version of Internet Explorer on the Rogers GPRS network was slow, but not noticeably slower than other devices I've tested in the same locations.

Say Cheese
The 1.3-megapixel camera is certainly better than the first generation of VGA (640x480 or about 300K) resolution phone cameras. It has a flash, which many camera phones still do not.

hw6516's flash unit functions in part as a floodlight to light the subject for focusing and for shooting motion video. It also flashes when you take a still picture. But the flash has a range of only a few feet and we're guessing it will drain battery power fairly rapidly.


               Camera on Back

Also, like all phone cameras, this is a fixed focus device with virtually no manual controls. Despite the higher resolution, images taken in most circumstances - the exception being very brightly lit subjects - are a bit soft focus and really only adequate for exchanging with others using multimedia messaging services or perhaps for use on personal Web pages.

Bottom line
We still don't have a conclusive fix on the hw6500. It clearly has lots of potential, but its main differentiator is that it's the first Pocket PC phone with GPS - and if the GPS is unreliable, that advantage goes out the window.


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