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We've long known about Hewlett-Packard's newest smartphone, the iPAQ hw6500 series— also called the Mobile Messenger. The printer and computer giant first introduced the device back in February 2005, as part of a proposed extensive foray into the world of mobile handsets after the lukewarm reception of its first cellular-enabled Pocket PC, the iPAQ h6315.

Cingular Wireless has finally officially confirmed plans carry the iPAQ Mobile Messenger in the United States. The device will be available as the hw6510 and hw6515, a model - most likely - with and without a 1.3 megapixel camera. (Many organizations and enterprises won't roll out a device with a camera for security reasons.)

It is still not known how much the iPAQ Mobile Messenger will sell for or when it will ship, however. You can sign up to receive that information here. HP started shipping its newest smartphone in Europe a couple of months ago.

Nuts & Bolts
Because of high-speed EDGE network support and a number of other factors, HP's new smartphone is a major step forward over the company's first Pocket PC Phone. Many prospective customers seemingly passed on the earlier smartphone because the keyboard wasn't physically merged into the unit like with Palm's Treo 650 and more recent Pocket PC Phones (e.g. Sprint's Audiovox PPC-6601 and Cingular's Siemens SX66) that even have retractable keyboards, among other factors.

The hw6500 remedies that problem with a BlackBerry-like integrated QWERTY thumb-keyboard.

It runs on a 312 MHz Intel XScale processor, 64 MB of RAM (46 MB available to the user) and an 8 MB File Store with 64 MB of ROM. Taiwanese original equipment manufacturer High Tech Computer (HTC) designed the smartphone.

In addition to GSM/GPRS/EDGE and Bluetooth radios, the hw6500 has a Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver with NMEA (National Marine Electronics Association) standards support for navigation and other location services. Even though the hw6500 lacks an external GPS antenna, HP asserts the Pocket PC Phone still gets good reception from satellites.

Where that isn't possible, however, the device turns to cell phone tower triangulation to determine locations. HP will bundle TomTom Navigator software with the ability to choose and download one free city map with the hw6500.

Interestingly, the hw6500 is the first handheld of its type with a square 240 x 240 pixel resolution display. The version of the hw6500 with a camera includes an LED flash for taking pictures up to 1280 x 1024 pixels in resolution or video at 640 x 480 pixels.

The hw6500 measures 4.7 x 2.8 x 0.8 inches (118 x 71 x 21 millimeters) and weighs 5.8 ounces (165 grams).

For more on the iPAQ hw6500, see Preview: iPAQ hw6515 - HP's Smart New Smartphone Entry. We'll publish a review of the Roger's Wireless edition of the device soon.