Hewlett-Packard 211 Christmas Deals!
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Hewlett-Packard 211 Christmas Deals!.
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The HP210 / 211 / 212 / 214 could have been a truly immense product. (They're all the same product: the different numbers demonstrate the channel and country; i.e., 210 US - Consumer, 214 - Asia, etc.) But it has a few shortcomings that, in my conception, crop it to an average product that should be considered carefully.
First, I am a ample fan of PDAs and so-called smartphones and have been using them for years. None of them are perfect. In fact, most of them are far from perfect. In new years the smartphone category, combining the cellular phone, the PDA and a camera, has really taken off. The standalone PDA is probably an endangered species and the HP211 could be the last of its kind. The emergence of the mini-laptop like the Asus Eee and Fujitsu U810 may, in fact, be the final nails in the coffin of the standalone PDA which I mediate would be a pity.
HP did a lot of things fair with the HP211.
The cloak is absolutely comely. Photos and videos shine forth in all their glory. Glare from the cloak surface has not been a predicament. I have not tested it in deny sunlight, but it holds up well in radiant daylight. The mask does require a fairly strong touch, but it is something you become accustomed to fairly mercurial. Scrolling, however, in Internet Explorer seems to somewhat difficult. You have to apply firm pressure which the draw may be interpreting as repeated taps. Something makes navigation in IE more difficult than it has to be.
For those who consume the inking capability, once you collect the touch done, it is a gargantuan experience. The Marvell processor is swiftly enough to get inking a delight. If you exhaust an onscreen keyboard like TenGo, you'll be well impressed with how responsive the hide is and how swiftly your input can be.
Overall, the CPU powers the design with lots of horses to spare. And it is astounding to have all that memory available, shiny as well that you can add humongous SDHC and CF cards as well. The plan that you can add 32GB of memory with 16GB card in each slot is mindblowing.
WiFi and Bluetooth capabilities are top-notch.
The four function buttons are well placed and can be reprogrammed to meet your needs. On left side is another button that starts the recording function. The on/off switch is mounted on the front reach the top apt corner. While it hasn't happened to me, I am terrorized it can be wretched accidentally, but the auto shutdown should render that moot even if it happens.
The D-pad is a major drawback and could be a dealbreaker for a lot of people. The designers lopped off the top of the D-pad. It is smaller than the right/left and down pads and, mounted honest below the veil bezel, feels laughable. It is also difficult to toggle precisely which is frustrating. As I spend it more, it seems to be becoming more natural, but I assume it a boring acquire travel. I would strongly suggest that prospective owners either try it in a store or grasp from a vendor with an pleasant return policy.
The other major flaw - and this could be a deal-killer for a lot of people is the speaker method. There are two speakers, but they do not work together at the same time. The front one is ragged only, as far as I know, with Skype. It has objective barely adequate volume in a serene room. If there's any kind of noise, forget it. By the diagram, the HP211 works very well with Skype.
The rear speaker is unprejudiced uninteresting outrageous. It is inaudible even in a detached room. It is unusable for playing help declare recordings and trying to exercise it for music or audio tracks on movies is unthinkable. You can also whistle goodbye to using it for stutter prompts for GPS. In a unit this expensive, this build flaw is inexcusable. Making matters worse is that the headphone jack - which is, thankfully, a standard 3.5mm - is located on the bottom of the unit. I haven't tried it with Bluetooth headphones. one of the great pluses of a standalone PDA like this to me is the recording capability for hastily notes. But if I can't hear them playing wait on without headphones, what top-notch is it? Another reason for a standalone with Bluetooth is GPS. Obviously, you want GPS with snarl prompts. But if you can't hear the scream prompts, what qualified is it?
Considering HP's legendary engineering, I am surprised these flaws made it into the final product, but they did and I judge they greatly carve the appeal of the product.
The unit is heavenly mammoth, which I indulge in because I want an vast writing surface and I have immense hands. That's the profitable news. The terrible news is that the surfaces are all slippery plastic. If you intend to exhaust this unit without a case, I suspect it will become a casualty within a matter of days. Overall, the construction feels a itsy-bitsy on the cheap side. Not bad, but it doesn't feel very robust either.
My considerable reason for wanting a standalone PDA is to have a design (other than pen and paper) to prefer notes throughout the day. The HP211 fills this role well. I primarily expend PhatNotes and TenGo. The HP211 conceal provides an obliging inking experience with no vectoring problems. The stock Windows Mobile Notes and other applications and the letter recognizer also work well. It's a joy to have a ton of memory with the ability to expand to previously unheard of dimensions. The cloak is a salubrious platform for viewing photos or videos. (The CPU, by the procedure, doesn't have quite enough ooomph to play video wait on smoothly. Using TCMP, I had lots of dropped frames.)
If I were ranking the intention very narrowly, I would give it 5 stars without hesitation and then retract 1 star away for the note, which I judge is too high. Thus a bag 4 stars. Because of the D-pad earn and, in particular, the utterly useless audio, I can give it only 3 stars. Considering the high stamp in conjunction with these defects and I have to strongly hurry that anyone considering this diagram assume it very, very carefully. One of the reasons I take Windows Mobile devices is the wide array of software available for them. The main reason for buying the HP211, on my section, was the colossal conceal, which is admittedly noteworthy easier to work with than the one on my smartphone.
But at $400+ for the HP, there are alternatives and I suggest that they be considered. The Nokia N800 is less than half the note and provides WiFi, web browsing and email. The mask is enormous, though converting video for the N8*0 is dicey. The N800 offers SDHC expansion capability. The N810 adds a sliding keyboard. And both have a rudimentary camera which the HP211 should have, but doesn't. The immense drawback to the N8*0 devices? They're Linux and apps are unruffled relatively scarce.
On the whole, I assume the HP211 is well profitable for a notetaking function and moderately well salubrious for web browsing when Opera is installed. It is an adequate video platform. But the built-in speakers simply stink. The headphone jack is inconveniently placed and the D-pad is something of a build anxiety.
The colossal scrape is that there fair aren't that many standalone PDAs out there running Windows Mobile 6 with a ton of memory and a spacious 4" shroud. At half the tag, I'd live with the problems. At $400+, though, I'm unexcited wondering about it. My smartphone does everything the HP211 does: it's unbiased smaller and more difficult to work on. Is the convenience worth $400+? I'm not certain yet, but am tilting toward saying "no".
Jerry
I've been using Windows Mobile and Windows CE products for almost 10 years. I've owned the 4700, 2595 and now the 211. My wife has the 110. I exhaust these devices extensively and have an entire workflow planned around it. It goes everywhere with me. My requirements are such that a converged map doesn't provide grand utilize to me: processor usually too musty, memory too minute, and definitely the shroud too limited.
I bought the 211 about a month ago. Here are my impressions:
- My first reaction was "Mammoth!". It is bigger than all my other devices. It's thick, more so than the 4700. The weight is ok, though. I don't contemplate about the size any more. I've gotten aged to it.
- The camouflage does require more pressure to operate, but again, I'm stale to it now and it's forgotten. I haven't noticed different pressure reactions on different cover locations.
- The cloak is perfect. To address previous comments about being able to behold more stuff: I scan all my documents and commit to PDF. Everything. Then I sync to the 211's SD card. I have a lightweight PDF reader, and I can read PDFs easily without scrolling horizontally. I can't arrive finish to doing that with my wife's 110, or my 2495. Yes, you can fit remarkable more on the mask, and it's worthy distinguished sharper than any other arrangement. Yes, the unit takes advantage of the higher resolution: it's not honest bigger pictures on a bigger hide, honestly. Having said that, it's up to the application to do that. Most do.
- I have *not* noticed any negative performance dissimilarity between this and my previous devices. It's as mercurial as my 2495 and my wife's 110.
- I have approximately 30 applications(!) on it. None have had compatibility issues. And because of the impressive amount of memory, I level-headed have approxiamtely 55% of storage memory left.
- Yes, there's a proprietary cable for sync and power. However, there's also a mini-USB port, so the proprietary cables aren't considerable at all. I don't proceed with them. I only spend a retractable mini-USB for charging and synchronization. It's really not an boom.
- Battery life is better than the 4700 and the 2495.
- I adore the buttons. I honestly don't understand the criticisms I have read about them. I'm joyful.
- Bluetooth and WiFi have worked without any issues. My only complaint here is for WM6: it can't connect to my work WiFi network because WM6 doesn't relieve WPA enterprise.
Sorry for the rambling review. Fair wanted to give my thought on issues raised here. It's the perfect blueprint for my requirements: no converged phone/PDA, and I don't need a camera. BTW, my employer gave me a 8525. I don't consume it at all. It simply can't do what the 211 does.
got this "monster" this week
the first feeling is "Vast", my hand can beget it because I have great palm
the conceal is gaze candy, 4" VGA can compose a quite disagreement, the color is very top-notch, not "yellowish" like other HP products, the shroud looks dusky when the backlight is off, however, it's exquisite viewable under sunlight
the buttons and d-pad are lovely comfortable to press, but up direction of d-pad is a shrimp bit difficult to press because the bottom of shroud frame, the arragement is
calendar/contacts (I changed to IE/File Explorer)
Start button (cannot to be changed)
OK and minimize/? (I changed? to Bluetooth Manager
messaging (not changed)
the application is typical WM, but HP signature application "iTask" is no longer exist, which I can shut down an application with ease, it doesn't have ipaq backup
Monster Chinese users must read, you must employ version 5.3, ver 6.0 will mess up the machine, cause it unable to boot, requires factory reset
all jacks are located on the bottom, even headphones jack, that you may want to expend wireless headphones instead, luckily, the updated bt is alot more stable, almost no skip/interruption on a2dp; you can almost forget the modern data port, the miniUSB can do both async and charging (1A or higher USB charger is highly recommended, the included AC adaptor has supplied charging adaptor to the data port)
the unit race is OK, monotonous down a bit when a2dp is active, video is decent, with TCPMP, no slowdown on mpeg (ripped directly from VCD), Divx is lovely (VGA @30fps), wmv has some hiccup
the battery is OK, VGA can exhaust superior amount of power, it is recommended to setup screeen auto-off to place power, I tested with Pocket Player, play 160-192kbps ogg vorbis, got around 7 hours when bt a2dp is active
this unit has 2 memory card slots, I attach 16GB CF (A-Data) and 16GB SD-HC (A-Data), both work 100%
RF on wifi and bt is heavenly impressive, can accept signal easily, and give wireless headphones more range (though it's not apt as class 1 bt)
this unit is a titanic leap from HX2495 and X51v, HX4705 users will win similar pleasure with this unit
I give 95%
pro:
HUGE VGA veil, buttons are comfortable to press, 2200mA/h battery (you can exercise HX4705 battery), miniUSB port, stable bt, excellent RF
con:
weak speaker, headphones jack is located on the bottom, no cradle included, kinda bulky
