Customer Reviews

HP iPAQ 111 Classic Handheld (FA979AA#ABA) (110 Series)

5 star:		(80)
4 star:		(65)
3 star:		(27)
2 star:		(19)
1 star:		(26)

 

 

I have owned several Pocket PCs, including a few earlier versions of the iPaq. Of the ones I have tried, this is probably the best, though its not a great leap forward. Having WiFi, Bluetooth, SDHC support (previous versions didn't support the new higher capacity cards that this one does - I have an 8Gb SD card in mine), a standard USB connection (previous iPaqs I owned use a proprietary USB connector) a relatively fast processor, the latest version of Windows Mobile all whilst retaining a relatively small form factor is a strong combination. Whilst many will opt for a Pocket PC phone (as my last Windows Mobile device was), having a seperate PDA from your phone has advantages for some e.g. if you are obliged to use a particular mobile phone for work (as I am) then you don't need the phone features on your PDA. With this device I can keep all of my personal contacts seperate from the business contacts on my phone and use the bluetooth feature to get my phone (a Blackberry Pearl) to dial any number I select on my iPaq. I have read other reviews on Amazon and can't say I have experienced any of the problems described. The screen on my iPaq works fine (no odd colours displayed) and windows media player has not yet crashed on my once (and I have listened to quite a lot of music and watched video on it). Overall, not a stunning leap forward but hard to find fault with it.

I eagerly anticipated the release of the 110 to replace my aging ipaq 4150. It made me appreciate what a great pda that one was.
What I like about the 110-
-Small size. Not quite as small as the 4150, but very close. It's snug but still fits my Sena case.
-Synchronizing with Exchange Server. Email, tasks and calendar sync great.
-Build quality. Feels like a quality product and should be pretty durable.
-BT and Wifi work well.
What I don't like-
-WM6 is buggy and slow. It locks up, runs sluggish and I have to soft reset frequently. My WM2003 pda did not have these issues.
-More memory would have been nice.
-Did not come with a backup program.
I'm glad HP came out with a classic(no phone) PDA. It's a great solution for me. I like this unit but I can get things done faster with my old 4150.

Excellent PDA (or Pocket PC) only one of the few new models that you will see in the market. I use to be a Palm fan but turned to the dark side because there are no new palm PDA models, the Palm TX is 3 year old technology and still sells for the same price. I had this one for over 1 month and is perfect. Connects to the wi-fi internet in cafes fast and easy. I am in the medical field and I store manuals and drug information.
I also bought a 2GB SD expansion card where I store all my family pictures and most of the software downloaded. It even comes with a nice leather slipcase. Never need any reset, so far no regrets!
The only problem was that my desktop has Windows vista and I bought office 07, but it doesnt come with office outlook 07 that you need for the instalation and is about S/90 in amazon. No problems synchronizing with vista. Good luck.

Wife got me the iPaq for my birthday. The box does say 110 - but the HP asset view utility shows the Model ID as "HP iPaq 111 Classic Handheld". Since I have never owned a Pocket PC before it took me a while to find all the software I would need to use (Acrobat Reader for Pocket PC, Google Maps, etc....).
Pros (in my short experience):
1. BT and Wireless work great - I prefer transferring files this way - though dont hope to set up WPA PEAP/MSCHAPv2 without a struggle.
2. Office Mobile is a great bonus. Word is quick and responsive - using the registry I use this as a default for most text files.
3. All the free WM5 and WM2003 utilities I have tried so far work just fine on WM 6.
4. I am not a heavy user, but task switching seemed fairly quick and the interface responsive.
5. Handwriting recognition - just awesome (I scrawl)

Cons:
1. Battery life does not seem as great as I would have liked (especially for reading books).
2. Pocket IE (the default browser) is painful.
3. Sometimes switching between the keyboard and the transcriber is a little painful

For those of you who just need a portable device to feel connected this is a pretty good toy!

I just got this PDA for my son, so I'll let him do the review...

Hello, Chris here. Well, I can say one thing, Amazon's shipping is pretty fast when something is in stock. We got it Tuesday, after ordering it Sunday. If only all the accessories came at the same time, but it's ok.

To the device itself..

I've seen review videos before, detailing the unboxing of a handheld device, thinking, why? Well, now I know why. It's a wonderful thing to see a pretty "cool" and handy box design. The box interior, as has been seen in various reviews online, has some detail about the iPaq itself, and the handheld is well-protected from damage. Everything is organized, and I didn't notice anything in the box that didn't seem atleast necessary.

Setting up the iPaq was a breeze, in fact, all I did personally was just update my PC's Adobe Acrobat Reader, and install the last freeware version of TCPMP (a media player) to the iPaq. For those of you that may be interested, yes, TCPMP v7.2 does indeed work with Windows Mobile 6. Everything else on this iPaq is "stock", from the factory, atleast for now.

Afew things I'd like to mention.. There is a kind of glitch common to alot of iPaqs, in that ActiveSync will turn the device on quite often, trying to connect to the PC, whether there's a cable or not. This can drain the battery "a little bit" (between 3% and 5% over 24 hours, I've heard). There is a fix for this if you search online, but it's very simple. I noticed the "glitch" within afew minutes of having the iPaq out of the box, but I was prepared, and the fix worked. Also, as I'm sure many will make note of, the power button is in an "awkward" place, very close to the voice recorder button. If you hold the iPaq just right, or keep it in a clamshell case of some kind, this probably won't be a problem, but I've already accidentally recorded myself, while trying to put the iPaq in it's included slip-case. If you remember where the record button is, however, it likely won't be a significant problem.

I know this is quick for a proper review, posting it the following morning from receiving the device in the mail, but if anything changes, I'll update it, promise.

Wi-fi connection is very strong. Lastnight just sitting in my bedroom messing with it, I was able to connect to a neighbor's WLAN hub, and access the internet. I haven't been able to check out the bluetooth capability, as I don't have anything that uses it at the moment. I don't foresee myself getting a bluetooth keyboard in the near future, or headphones. The jack-in headphones I have work GREAT with the 3.5mm jack on the iPaq. Audio quality is fine. If you use the speaker, the only way you'll get good output is in a mausoleum with no other noises. This device's speaker was probably an afterthought, but that's ok, as headphones are perfectly good. A speaker system that connects to the 3.5mm jack should work also. I have a small battery-powered one that is for mp3 players, and the iPaq connects with it nicely.

I converted a music video for play with Windows Media on the iPaq. It played ok. Windows Media on a mobile device is adequate, but I personally look for other players whenever possible, especially for larger video and audio files. The iPaq's included PDF and TXT programs work fine. HP's Photosmart Mobile does a great job of viewing images, but that's expected. The device is alittle more compact than I thought, but I like it. Now that I have installed the familiar and more functional TCPMP software, I have no real complaints. Battery life is good. The device responds to my input. I can do tasks without waiting for the device to "catch up" with me. It connects via a standard mini-USB connector, however, there are some non-HP connectors that WILL NOT work with the iPaq. Please be aware of that. Some "professional" reviewers on various websites have made a point of mentioning that the iPaq won't connect with their non-HP cable, and I think personally that's rather juvenile. Reasonably, you can't expect a company to be responsible if another company's plug won't fit in their socket, right? Just use common sense, do alittle research online, and there's nothing at all I can complain about with this iPaq. I love it. Even though I've had it less than 24 hours. LOL!

**Update** Sunday, 04/27/2008
----------
While I mentioned that there was a problem with the power and record buttons being very close together, I'd like to say this afternoon I fiddled with the buttons settings, and sure enough, there is a way to shut the record button off. So, there are as of now no complaints whatsoever that I have with this PDA.

I've been using this iPaq for afew months now, and it's still just as good today as the day I unboxed it. I loaded up my first feature-length movie onto SD memory the other night, and it played in WMP *FLAWLESSLY*, no visible jerking or hanging. I would also like to note, that I have not had to perform a single reset on this device yet, soft or hard, and I use it daily. I keep very little on the ROM, but I just thought I'd mention that positive from my experience. Not bad for a handheld, as I've heard many stories about people having to reset their device every once in awhile.

So, in short, I still love this PDA, and fully recommend it!

I bought this handheld 6 moths ago & loved it - until it stopped working. Specifically, while the handheld worked great, the connector got super erratic - something must have come loose inside. At first I could wiggle the thing around to get it to connect & sync, but when that failed, too, I called HP to make good on their warranty. Their response? Problems with the connector are considered 'physical damage' & no warranty support would be provided. Non-warranty support was available for $50 up front payment (that dosen't apply to the subsequent repair.)
If you buy this, MAKE SURE you buy the extended warranty too - because the 'basic' warranty is a joke!

Update:
Stay away from this junk. You might want to checkout my detailed review for ipaq 110 (which is same as ipaq 111).

Mine broke after a couple of months. The screen just wont turn on - I have tried soft reset, hard reset, battery out - tried updating the flash. And it stopped all of a sudden, in the middle of listening to some music.

Even while I had it, its low resolution screen was an eye sore. It has one of the lowest resolutions among competing products (compare nokia n810).

This is a perfect example of a low quality product. There is noting hi-tech about it, and it is rightly called 'Classic'.


Second Update: After an undocumented procedure to remove the battery and leave it out for 24 or so hours, it started working again. I have lost all user data at least 3-4 times now. There is no backup solution that should be included given you lose data if battery runs out.

Also, the hardware buttons are not thought through. Any handheld device should have quick buttons for fast zoom in/out and full-screen modes.

The resolution on this device is so low, that you can forget about any tasks that require seeing more than a handful of words on the screen. If you were going to purchase this for browsing, most of the websites do not work. And those that do work, you can only see 1/16th of the page (width of the page) at a time. I also purchased opera mobile for this device but it is even worse (and slower) than internet explorer on it.


The screen on this device is horrible. The resolution is so poor, text size that is readable on your laptop will be unreadable on this pocketpc. Which is very bad because the smaller the device the higher the resolution it should have, just so it can fit more things on screen, and it should have zoom in/out buttons. This device has neither the resolution nor any hardware buttons.


If you want to use this for basic PIM, and some low resolution games, this device might fit the bill. Otherwise I recommend that you take a look at nokia n810 etc. There are other pocket computing devices out there that are much better.

Microsoft has just not done a good job designing a versatile and robust product. This is more like a gimmic. After 6+ years, they could have done much much better. There are no on-the-air updates from microsoft. No free software.

If the user will lose all data when ever the unit runs out of battery, why is there no backup solution provided?

I had a full battery and all of a sudden the screen went black. After hours of search, doing a clean-boot still wont fix it. There were no documented procedures to remove the battery and keep it out for 24 hours. Somehow that fixed it.

Stay away from this device. There is no innovation here, barebone low quality screen. HP should have done better.







Original Review:


IPAQ 111 (same as IPAQ 110) is a good overall pocket pc. There are pluses and minus - I'll try to cover those.

If you are in the market for a handheld computing device, there are a few things you should know.

Multimedia:
You can go for a device that is more geared towards multimedia - better screen resolution, better sound/video quality, better or more accessible multimedia functionality. This device, while it does have windows media player installed and theoretically can play audio and video, I wouldn't buy this device for this purpose. You are much better off buying a good audio/video player.

Internet Browsing:
If your primary aim is to browse internet - this device might fit your requirements. However, note that the screen resolution is QVGA - less than VGA, which can be found on a lot of devices. Nokia N800 might be a nice alternative that you can consider. The screen is bigger, has better resolution etc. However, the internet browsing on this ipaq isn't too bad either. It has built-in internet explorer and you can install other browsers as well (minimo - mozilla software for handheld devices, and opera mobile - both of them work great, although I like Opera more).

Gaming:
This device is perfect for this. There are tons of games available that you can purchase (most of them are pretty cheap), and in general quality of games is good. The screen is pretty alright for gaming and the number of games available out there is nice too. Its great for chess, card games, all sorts of board games, even some more graphically intense games. If you are into those kind of games, this device works just fine.

Software:
Windows Mobile devices are great in this respect. There are tons of software available for purchase. This ipaq comes with Microsoft office, so you can edit excel, word etc. right there. Many people wonder why would anyone want to edit excel on a pocket device. This was actually one of the primary reasons why I bought this device. I maintain some sheets that I use to keep track of certain things, and it's great no having to wait for access to a computer.

Comparison with Linux based Devices (+iPh..) and IPAQ 110:
In general, I was deciding between Nokia N800 and a pocket PC. While I believe N800 would be a great device, and has a better screen than this device, I chose this pocket pc just because there are a lot more software available out there that you can choose from.

Multimedia and Internet:
As I mentioned before, the multimedia capabilities of this device are okay nothing special. And I would rate browsing on this device to be sufficient for rare usage, but I wouldn't browse on it all the time.

Fonts:
One tip for everyone out there using this device is to turn on cleartype. Cleartype is a microsoft technology that uses sub-pixel hinting to make fonts look much better. The effect is really pronounced on this device. Text looks good on this device even when it's really small (upto a certain point though - I wouldn't want to read text smaller than that anyway)

Processing Power:
In terms of processing power, I think this device has ample of processing. Any software designed for mobile devices should perform alright on this device. I have tried a bunch of games and they all work great.

Syncing:
Syncing with Outlook and your computer is a pretty painless task.

All-In-One-Phone vs IPAQ 110:
Recently there seems to be a trend of having one single jack-of-all-trades phone. First thing, a lot of them have tiny screens (compared to this ipaq). Plus would you play for 3 hrs on your phone and then remain without a phone, or would you rather carry a small robust phone and waste the battery on another device.

Data entry/Keyboard:
Microsoft's OS has a really nice software keyboard system. You can actually fire up a software keyboard that actually looks like a real keyboard. I had iphone and I didn't even know how to enter ` in it because the keyboard didn't have that. In IPAQ you can actually even do control-c to copy etc. Then there are 3 different types of handwriting recognition. One of them that I use most frequently (even more than the virtual keyboard) is called letter-recognizer. It lets you enter letters, numbers, symbols etc. and accuracy is excellent. You can just stroke backwards and it erases. Tap it, it enters a '.' - Great software. I would rather use this than have a real hardware keyboard. Works great.

Device Looks/Shape:
Another reason why I bought this device. It looks great. Much better than Nokia N800. The form factor is slim enough to not feel bulky in a pocket. And at the same time, the screen size is good - not too big but not small either.

Buttons: Has 5 buttons + 4 direction and 1 middle button. 3 of them can be mapped to anything (using built in options) including any installed software and few actions etc. You can also define actions/programs to run if you keep holding 2 of these buttons. Directional buttons are great for games. I believe any device needs these buttons because gaming can be very sensitive to speed and hardware buttons are a must.

SD Card Slot:
SD cards are super cheap these days. I bought a 2 GB one for about 15 bucks. Its more than enough for all the applications I would install. I also have a few mp3s stored on it. You can use activesync to explore the mobile device (and hence the SD card) and store what ever you want on it.

Installing Applications:
Installing applications is a snap. Most applications come with a windows PC installer, and active sync automatically installs them on the pocket pc. A lot of websites also allow you to directly install a CAB file to your pocket pc. So even if you are not connected to a computer, you can install stuff on your pocket pc directly from a CAB file.

Google Maps:
Google has a pocketpc maps application that you can download and install. So does yahoo (which has all sorts of stuff - news, mail, weather, sports etc.) and microsoft (windows live). All of them work great.

Internet Connectivity:
It has built in WI-Fi. Configuring WiFi is easy. It can be turned on and off any time from the Today screen itself. Also has built in bluetooth - supposedly bluetooth can be used to connect it to your cellphone and ipaq can then use the internet connection on your cellphone - I haven't tried this feature.


PDF Reading:
You can store and read all the PDF files you want. Adobe also has a pocket pc version of acrobat reader which is free. Works great.


RSS:
There are RSS software you can buy. I am not sure if it comes prebundled with RSS capabilities.


Overall Summary:
I think this IPAQ is a good purchase for anyone interested in any productivity applications, simple games (like card games, board games etc.), reference based applications (books, dictionaries, encyclopedias etc.), medical reference, news/etc. I wouldn't buy it for its multimedia capabilities, and I would definitely not buy a all-in-one phone over this device.

The software selection available is great. I would choose to buy a software worth 20 bucks from a selection of 3000 software applications, instead of getting free software from a total of 100 applications, most of them useless to me or half cooked.

The built-in productivity applications are great.



Cons: The screen resolution is not that great. However, the screen is bright and clear, and microsoft cleartype makes a big difference.

Plus: This has a full operating system backing and tons of developers developing applications for this platform, lots of companies.

Screen is responsive and the stylus is so much better than using fingers.

I have been using this for a few weeeks and am entirely satisfied.
Being a 3rd party/mod buff I like the fact that is has the power of my old hx4700(May it rest in peace).
It has douple the rom for more apps
WM6 accually uses ram as ram and rom as rom, somthing WM2003 SE did not do.
The screen is smaller and less crackable (get the hint?) and fits nicer in my pocket, however VGA would have been nice.

I would highly recommend over the competition, even the up and coming ipaq 211, for it is a quality build

And in response to the box saying Ipaq 110: it is the same thing, It is the series that matters, all products in the series are almost exactly the same.

This is about my 10th PDA; my last one is the iPAQ 4700. The 4700 uses Mobile 5.0, which is another one of Microsoft's big mistakes, and was soon replace with Mobile 6.0. Version 6.0 corrects all the issues more or less with 5.0. If you are use to Windows CE software you will have little problems learning 6.0. The main improvement is the Mobile 6.0 takes advantage of the speed of the CPU and nice design of this iPAQ 111. The screen and button functions all work well without hesitation. Wi-Fi is great. This PDA is small and light weight, but the screen is a nice size. I found it easy to read since my eyes aren't the best anymore. The speaker is not good for listening too much of anything, but fortunately the headphone jack is a standard one, so you can easily plug in a set of head phones or external speakers.

I used Audilbe.com software and that has installed easily and works fine. I installed a 4gigbyte SD card, and have stored over 10 full length audible books on to it, and still have plenty of room for added storage. This PDA is very light compared to my 4700, and that is a big bonus. So I have the same performance of an $800.00 PDA, but with a much improved OS, light in weight and very light in price.

I am a Prime Amazon member, and for just $4.00 more I got over night shipping. The product has a USB cable, and an AC power supply for faster charging than the USB. Amazon also offers a cradle-charger, which I recommend. There are two types of cradles. One is your basic cradle and the other will hold another battery and charge it, along with being a cradle. I use a nice software program that displays a full screen size clock, and I use the cradle/PDA as a holder. Thus I have an easily to read bedside clock.

I use this PDA at work, I am a health care provider, so I am constantly referencing to software that I have purchased. So the small size and easy to read screen, along with over all speed and storage is all a very welcome change from my large iPAQ 4700.

I know the trend is to have a PDA with a phone, but I personally haven't found one that combines both features well. I use Outlook and since the OS is Microsoft, the syncing to my computer using WinXP is just easy and complete. All the changes I made during the day are transferred to my Outlook on my desktop computer and vice versa. So not only do they keep in sync, but I always have a backup of my Outlook on my PDA. With the Wi-Fi I can be anywhere in my home and connect to my email or the internet quickly and securely and no added cost.

Just received and have been trying out. Have not installed software to sync yet, in event I return. In response to a few of the reviews: When the backlight goes off and you need to tap screen, just tap the top. It will not open any programs or disturb your running program. Also, you can change the backlight timer in "Settings." Go to setting and to backlight. You can keep light on up to 5 minutes without use.

As far as the model number, Ipaq 110 and 111 are the same. I ordered mine from HP as 111, and they sent the 110. No difference. Just one of those HP quirks with model numbers. Nothing to worry about.

Battery: My battery will not charge above 92%. Don't know if that is the nature of the beast, or if it is my own device. Would be interested in other customer observations. Battery life seems OK- need to work with it some more.
Web browsing is great. Good connections to distant routers - loading works well. Type is of course very small. Sometimes I copy and paste article on web to the WORD program - zoom and read. Bit of a hassle, but worth it for enjoyable reading.
I have heard about syncing problems with Vista. I am still using XP. In fact, I may stick with XP on future purchases of computers. Yes, you can still do that if you go to Magic Micro or other barebones computer builders - even on new laptops.
I agree with other reviewer that programs take a while to load. I am surprised that even word and excel takes so much time to load up.
Most of my purchases are from Amazon. However, I noted that HP had $60 off of price with instant rebate. I went that route. However, HP now charges tax. So that took apporoximately $20 off of my savings.
Will I keep this product? Not sure. Is the Palm TX still a good purchase (considering bluetooth is only 1.1) - but I hear the wifi works great and yes, of course, we are talking apples and oranges (Palm v Micro Mobile).
Oh yes: As far as improvements to WORD - Word does retain formatting better in Mobile 6.0 than in earlier versions, but not perfect. It will read tables now and preserve them to an extent, but not without changes to the formatting. Still had to make adjustments after I moved the SD card to my computer (have not done a sync yet - maybe that had something to do with it, but I doubt it) And formatting will always hurt a bit because even with the new Mobile 6.0, Microsoft still HAS NOT ADDED FONTS to word. Still has only Tacoma and Courier. What is the story here? Have they not taken any lessons from Data Viz-DOCS to GO?
This is my first reviw in Amazon. I have relied on Amazon reviews for some years - figure I should return the favor. I will update my review as I utilize the Ipaq. But I am still considering moving back to Palm for the TX. Not sure. Palm vs Moble? Still the big question.