HP iPAQ 5455 Pocket PC

by HP

Product Details

Product Manual [17.08mb PDF]

• Product Dimensions: 5.4 x 3.3 x 0.6 inches ; 7.2 ounces
• Shipping Weight: 7 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S. and to APO/FPO addresses. For APO/FPO shipments, please check with the manufacturer regarding warranty and support issues.
• ASIN: B00007B6RX
• Item model number: 5455
• Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (42 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #45,365 in Electronics (See Top 100 in Electronics)
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes
• Date first available at Amazon.com: December 10, 2002

Product Description

Amazon.com Product Description

Early Adopters Pick: December 2002. The first and only Pocket PC handheld PDA with integrated wireless LAN (802.11b), Bluetooth technology, and biometric fingerprint security.

The powerful HP iPAQ H5455 Pocket PC features a 400 MHz Intel XScale processor, 64 MB RAM, 48 MB flash ROM, and a Secure Digital memory slot for additional memory. Its display is a color transflective TFT LCD, 3.78-inch, low-power, 16-bit touch screen, capable of displaying more than 65,000 colors with 240 x 320 resolution and .24 mm dot pitch.

The H5455 is a ready-to-go wireless solution with universal remote control and Bluetooth technology capability, along with cool applications such as WEB, instant messaging, MP3, and online games. It's also compatible with popular Microsoft applications such as Outlook, Word, and Excel.

Programs installed on the Pocket PC include: Microsoft Windows CE, Calendar, Contacts, Tasks, Voice Recorder, Notes, Pocket Word, Pocket Excel, Pocket Internet Explorer, Windows Media Player 8 (for playing MP3 files), Calculator, Solitaire, Inbox (for e-mail), Microsoft Reader (for reading eBooks), File Explorer, MSN Messenger, Terminal Services Client, VPN Client, Infrared Beaming, Clock, Align Screen, Infrared Beaming Memory, Volume Control, iPAQ Task Manager, iPAQ File Store, iPAQ Backup, and iPAQ Image Viewer.

The iPAQ H5455 comes with a slim removable battery, a USB synchronization cable, an AC adapter, a charging adapter (tethered to the AC adapter), a quick-start user's guide, and an HP iPAQ Pocket PC companion CD-ROM (with Microsoft Outlook 2000, ActiveSync 3.5, add-on applications, and reference guide).

The H5455 comes with a one-year limited warranty.

What's in the box

• HP iPAQ Pocket PC
• Slim Removable Battery
• Protective Cover Pack
• Universal Cradle for either Universal Serial Bus (USB) or serial connection
• Extra Stylus
• AC Adapter
• Charging Adapter (tethered to the AC Adapter)
• USB synchronization cable
• Quick-start user's guide
• HP iPAQ Pocket PC companion CD-ROM (with Microsoft Outlook 2000, ActiveSync 3.5, add-on applications, and reference guide)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Great Concept, but OS and Battery Not There Yet, February 9, 2003

By 

J. Gutwirth (Culver City, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: HP iPAQ 5455 Pocket PC (Office Product)

Well, let me begin by saying that I researched all of the PDAs on the market including Palm products and came away that this unit would be the best choice out there due to its 80211b connectivity. I primarily use Windows and as such though it would be a great tool to use to keep track of my contacts, Outlook messages, and to even sometimes use the IE browser capabilities remotely. After getting the unit, setting it up, and using it for several weeks I ended up returning it. Here's why, 1) The battery power is horrible if you use BlueTooth or the 80211b. I primarily wanted the unit to connect to my Outlook both at home and at work and I found the battery lifetime to be just short of two hours when using the 80211b (with BlueTooth turned off). This made it really tough to be able to attend a long meeting and rely on the 5455 for my email. Yes I could have carried optional battery packs, but I didn't want to do that. After all if this unit is supposed to be all encompassing then I shouldn't need to carry gear with me to support it. 2) The reliability of the wireless is not without its faults. Quite often I had to do soft resets - it got to the point that somewhere between 20-30 percent of the time a soft reset was required. 3) The Pocket PC operating system, particularly the aspects related to wireless connectivity and connectivity with the AutoSynch mechanism are not flawless in their implementation - you'll find problems connecting, you'll lose connections, and if you have more than one email service/account then you'll have to manually switch each time to get mail from each of the accounts. 4) I noticed the current incarnation of the Pocket PC OS have problems with slowing down in CPU speed when adding more applications to the unit. This is somewhat expected that as you add apps the OS will slow down, but adding just a handful of standard apps to the 5455 brought the peppy default speed of the unit down to almost intolerable. Again, since these were my primary reasons for purchasing the unit if the synching and wireless didn't work perfectly then there was little point in keeping the 5455. After three weeks of giving the 5455 every effort that I could make a case for keeping it I came to the conclusion that it did not meet my needs. A few weeks later I still do not in any way regret the decision of returning it. Taking into consideration the cost of the unit and the poor reliability and short battery life it just didn't make sense for me. I'll wait till HP come out with better battery technology that actually lasts with wireless and I'll wait till Microsoft come out with their next implementation of the OS which will hopefully synchronize and generally work more reliably. Perhaps by the time this happens then we'll have a version available which is built into a digital telephone - this would be an even more practical and useful real-world solution.

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Great Design - Poor Implementation, February 23, 2003

By 

Gary Murphy (Olathe, KS USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: HP iPAQ 5455 Pocket PC (Office Product)

This should have been the ideal PocketPC for me. With built-in Bluetooth and Wifi, it is a networking powerhouse without the need for sleds. Unfortunately, there appear to be severe production problems with this unit.

I purchased one and had to return it due to frequent lockups. Sure, it's Windows - it crashes, but this was obscene. I booted between 7 and 20 times per day! I returned the unit assuming that I had a bad unit and the other one was the same way. Another collegue bought one and it went totally dark after two weeks. We are zero for three.

The CompUSA store looked it up on the computer and noted 13 returns in 22 days. This unit is a disaster. Perhaps in a few months after a ROM pack is released this will be good, but the current (23-Feb-2003) version of 1.00.45 should never have been released.

54 of 64 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars HP 5400 Series not ready for prime time, May 15, 2003

By 

J.G. Morrison "jeff-morrison" (Vienna, VA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: HP iPAQ 5455 Pocket PC (Office Product)

While an attractive package with built in wireless (Blue Tooth, 802.11B), fingerprint recognition (for enhanced security and easy login), HP has in fact delivered a mess.

The saga thus far: Upon delivery the unit was delivered with a stack of supplement manuals and addendums describing the add-on features, however there was no manual for the Pocket PC 2003 operating system. The manual is 160+ pages, and hidden on the CD as a PDF file (although my first round with tech support couldn't find it on the CD, and pointed me to the web site - where he couldn't find it either!) It was explained to me that the O/S is provided by a third party vendor (Microsoft), and therefore HP isn't responsible for it! Right... (Never mind that it is essential to the unit, and is useless without it!) Further, attempts to move the PDF to the iPAQ so it can be read with Adobe Acrobat Reader for the Pocket PC when needed proved useless. I personally think this is inexcusable - I shouldn't have to download the file to a PC, keep the PC with me at all times, so I can have access to it when I have a problem with the Pocket PC - or print out a 160 page book on 8 1/2 x 11 inch paper and figure out how to carry it with me. (Kind of defeats the purpose of having a pocket PC!) The unit needs to be delivered with this basic tool.

Next: The unit filed after 2 hours of use. It turned itself on while in my briefcase, got extremely hot, and completely locked up. The 5450 would not reset. Turns out that HP will not send a replacement (unless you want to pay for an additional warranty), so it disappeared for a week and a half (vice the 3 days that were promised when I called technical support). When it was returned, I was informed that they couldn't duplicate the error, so they did nothing. I have since determined that the optional leather executive case sold by HP was designed so that it can readily touch the overly sensitive power switch - turning the unit on so it will overheat and run the battery dead. If I don't use the ... leather case (sold by HP for the 5450, it is much less prone to turning itself on and overheating!
The handwriting recognition is poor and difficult to tailor. As often as not, the unit will not exit the keyboard mode without a system reset. (BTW, I find I do 7-8 resets a day at this point between this problem, memory card problems, and wireless problems.)

As for the wireless - I have gottent it to work exactly once. After numerous calls to technical support, I have managed to get it to work with one of four wireless networks. According to tech support, the unit will not tolerate 802.11G in the area. They consider it a problem with the 802.11G standards, never mind that my other 802.11B devices are working with no difficulty! It gets worse! The configuration for each network involves multiple control panels that are scattered throughout the O/S, counter-intuitive and poorly documented. You won't gett any help from the FAQ's or technical support web site either. For instance, if you should manage to get the wireless to recognize a network, you then need to go through the network settings control panel, and indicate in three different drop-down boxes that you are connecting at "work" (rather than the "internet" or "home"). Use of any other setting will effectively prevent the device from using the wireless, and requires you to configure a modem (never mind that the whole point of wireless is to avoid using a modem, or you may need different wireless configuration settings at different locations)! (Why work=wireless has yet to be explained to me by technical support.) Clear yet? I thought not...

The latest saga has to do with the SD memory card. It cannot be written to or have the existing files deleted. Suspecting a corrupt file, I tried to find information on formatting the card (or any other information on the memory cards) on the HP web site. There was none. When I called technical support, they informed me that every SD card needed to be formatted before it was used. (Again, nothing in the user guide or the web site). Further, there was no utility provided by HP to do this! I needed to go to a another vendor's web site, and BUY this utility separately (even though it was REQUIRED before I could use the card - even the one HP sold me with the 5450!. Despite my better judgment, I bought the utility - and low and behold - it doesn't work either. Again, how HP can justify not including a basic utility that is required to use the device eludes me.

Finally, this was one of two units I bought for evaluation in my laboratory. The other I gave to my network systems engineer. His story isn't any happier. In addition to the issues I have encountered, his problems have centered around that expansion pack, and the fact that they are such a poor fit, that the unit constantly sees the battery in the expansion pack as going dead (because it fits so poorly) that the unit keeps shutting down. Any devices plugged into the expansion pack are constantly seen as being removed and installed - requiring numerous resets as things try to reload.

We have also bought the new Viewsonic pocket PCs and Casios for evaluation. They have been an order of magnitude more reliable that the HP iPAQ 5450, despite (because) fewer features, and further came with complete documentation. None of these have failed to date, nor have we had an issue requiring our contacting technical support.

Our conclusion: the HP iPAQ 5450 is a poorly executed design, lacking basic documentation, with poor support, and should therefore be avoided at all costs.