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A month and half ago Hewlett-Packard (HP) introduced the iPAQ 510 Voice Messenger at the 3GSM trade show in Barcelona, its first smartphone to deviate from the company's usual tablet, QWERTY thumb-keyboard style. At the CTIA Wireless trade show in Orlando this week, we got our hands on one.

The candy-bar smartphone is, indeed, much smaller than the HP's current Mobile Messenger model, the 6900 series. And, unlike that iPAQ, it fit into and felt comfortable in the hand. It measures 4.21 x 1.91 x 0.64 inches (107 x 48.6 x 16.3 millimeters) and weighs 3.6 ounces (102 grams).

The iPAQ 510 runs on Windows Mobile 6 with push e-mail and document viewing and editing capabilities. You can snap pictures and take video with its 1.3 megapixel camera.

It accepts voice commands (over 20 speaker independent)—to control and navigate through applications, for instance—and allows you to dictate e-mail messages.

HP promises up to six and a half hours of talk and 7.8 days standby time from the smartphone's 1100 Lithium Ion battery.

       

The quad-band GSM/GPRS 510 tops out at 2.5G EDGE (no 3G) cellular-wireless data technology, and includes Wi-Fi WLAN and Bluetooth personal area network wireless technologies.

It sports a 200 MHz CPU, 64 MB of RAM, 128 MB of ROM, a microSD slot and a 12-key numeric keyboard with LED backlit keys.

Through technology acquired with its purchase of Bitfone, HP plans to a number of over-the-air management and security features for enterprises, including remote wipe and application access.

The 510 will switch seamlessly between licensed cellular and unlicensed Wi-Fi networks through the integration of Unlicensed Mobile Access (UMA) technology from Kineto Wireless. With UMA, cellular/Wi-Fi handsets can integrate seamlessly and with minimal impact into a wireless carrier's existing core network infrastructure, while delivering better and more consistent service to end-users because calls can be carried over a WLAN (via VoIP) when cellular service isn't available.

UMA also promises to deliver service over the type of network (cellular or Wi-Fi) that is cheapest and most available at any given moment.