| • Science | • People | • Locations | • Timeline |
The iPAQ is a Pocket PC and personal digital assistant first introduced by Compaq in November 1999. Since Hewlett Packard's acquisition of Compaq, the product has been marketed by HP. The device is the main competition to the Palm Pilot, but provides more multimedia capabilities and the familiar Microsoft Windows interface. Higher end units were very modular, having "sleeve" accessories which would slide around the unit and add functionality like a card reader, wireless networking, GPS, and even extra batteries.
Note: PDAs branded "Pocket PC" run the proprietary Microsoft Pocket PC OS. HPC s and HPC Pros run earlier versions of the OS, namely Windows CE.
In August 2004, HP announced the 63xx series of Pocket PC Phone Editions, the 47xx high end model, and the 17xx budget end. In June 2003, HP announced a new line of iPAQ's, and sent the 3xxx series to pension, now there is a 1xxx budget line, a 2xxx consumer line, and a 5xxx professional line. These will be sold with Pocket PC 2003 as standard. As of August 2003, the latest model is the h5555, which runs on an Intel XScale 400 MHz microprocessor and has 128MB of RAM and 48MB of flash ROM. This device also includes WiFi, BluetoothThis article is about the Bluetooth wireless specification. For King Harold Bluetooth, see Harold I of Denmark Bluetooth is an industrial specification for wireless personal area networks (PANs) first developed by Ericsson, later formalized by the Bluetoo, and fingerprint identification capabilities. (November 2003, this is still true)
Compaq's flagship iPaqs were those of the 3600 models. Originally running the Microsoft Windows for Pocket PC 2000 OS, these devices featured 12-bit color displays, 64mb of ram, and 16 rom.
Released shortly after the 3600 series as a cost-effective model for those not requiring color screens. Needless to say, its success was limited.
These devices had the exact same form factor as their 3600 model predecessors, however, they had an increased ROM size and ran the PPC2002 OS natively.
Compaq's original high-end series models. These units were also the first to include 16-bit screens, incoporated an SD card reader and the highest RAM capacity of any Pocket PC.
The evolution of the 3800 series, the 3900 was the first series to start using transreflective displays for clearer picture, as well as the introduction of the XScale processors. Later models introduced Bluetooth and a consumer IR with remote control software.
After HP's acquisition of Compaq, the 1900 series was the answer to Palm's budget units. Adopted a smaller, slimmer frame making it more competitive in terms of portability. Main memory size was 64 MB, larger than all other budget units. Ran PPC2002 (1910 only) or 2003. Introduction of removable batteries, allowing for the user to buy extra batteries and swap as necessary. Unlike older iPaqs, many existing iPaq accessories were incompatible or unsupported due to its budget nature...
Introduced as the next generation of the iPaq corporate line after the 3900 series, adding WiFi support, improved Bluetooth and a biometric scanner. However, the 5400 was plagued with many bugs, though most were corrected though firmware upgrades.