HP iPAQ hw6500 User Reviews

:) i actually like this pda, its a bit dated now but hey it works well. the last guy that vented about 15 paragraphs long about it was obvioulsy a technophobe and probably incapable of operating a can opener without cutting his toes off :)

the 240*240 screen size and a odd sound issue with tomtom6.3 are the only issues i have had. if you want a supercomputer buy one, if you want a sattelite phone buy one, if you want a satnav device buy one, but if you want a nicely balanced combo of all three then this is it

I have had one of these for 10 mths sofar and since the 4th month struggled with the freezing and having to re-set it all the time happens constantly.

The only major problem with this is that there is no WiFi included. BUT... you can purchase a WiFi SD card from Ebay or Amazon or any other computer company for only a small fee (From $30.00 to $100.00) Connection might not be as fast as your home computer, but it is great for a wireless phone! By the way, does any body know how to turn MP3's into ringtones?

Carrying any one of these devices is a necessity, but try carrying all at the same time everywhere. Sucks!

So I got the iPAQ, plus an extra storage card. Doesn't really replace the iPod but I can carry a few songs/books and listen when I need to.

Now I can see all my contacts and even get email from anywhere.

Internet isn't really worth it. Slow and I get errors saying the site doesn't support my browser. So I can wait till I get home.

Camera good quality plus has a light.

Bottom-line: If you are a busy person with lots of people you must keep in contact with, this is a must have.

I think the design is an absolute musthave. It is sleek and fits well in the palm of your hand.

If you wanna woo the ladies with ur toys this is the one to get them purring. Only downside is it doesnt have wi-fi!!

Peace out!

I have enjoyed for pleasure and business and found it very functional. No problems except for volume on speakerphone which I can work around. Get one!

Everything you buy will have limitations. I felt the size, built in GPS, Bluetooth and phone was a good tradeoff with processor speed. Not to mention the camera, light for pictures in a dark room, and a movie camera!. This feels right when you hold it, the keyboard is manageable for a big guy like me (6'3"). If you don't expect the world when you buy this, you will not be disappointed.

I am an everyday business user, not a toy fanatic. I needed a device that would integrate PIM, contacts, email, and 'net access with solid phone functionality. The 6515 delivers this in a very usable package with the bonus of excellent bluetooth performance, and a fairly usable thumboard and integrated GPS. Basically this device will allow me to leave my laptop at home for short 1-2 day business trips. Downside is the price, somewhat limited memory, and poor battery life. Thusfar I am getting a full day with heavy use, and about two days with average use.

this is the best pda or mobile of the world and i have it YEAH!!!

This is a PDA trying to imitate a smart phone, it fails miserably.

As a phone trying t act like a PDA it also fails miserably because of the odd screen size much of the PDA software won't work correctly.

This bit of kit might look pretty (if you can keep the plastic flap anywhere near clean) but it is one very expensive fashion accessory.

If you want a PDA buy a PDA if you want a smart phome buy a smart phone, but don't waste you money on this pretty looking junk

this pc phone are so very helpfull to my busy life,as of now as i using my unit, i can use this evn in vichecle when im going to encode all my reports, thesis in school, reports on my parttime job, also i use it in church as a christian i sue this to take down all Gods word that im recieving even in my quit time....

After struggling with a smartphone for a couple of years the 6515 is a breath of fresh air. This is the lightest Pocket PC I tried that included a keyboard (such that it is) and the screen response blows my last iPAQ Pocket PC away. I am just dreading dropping it because it doesn't feel to strong but I guess if it was bullet proof it would be heavier.

I love the unit but I just hate the battery life. If you use it with your Bluetooth. It will drained within 3 hours max. Everything else is excellent.

I would actually say that the 6515 is a fairly good product for what you get. I'm a bit dissapointed by the software support but I'm sure that is only because 240x240 is new to the market and no one started developing yet. The GPS feature is awesome once you get all your bits and pices to work together. Search and you will find. The GPS can be used as a bluetooth GPS with your laptop and this makes it worth the price if you look at the single function device prices. The phone function takes a bit of getting used to but once you get the hang of it you are hooked. The Audio of the device is fair but if you have bluetooth devices there are no problems with audio anymore. Except for the fact that headsets can only receive phone audio. It would have been great to have the GPS voice nav to go through the car kit.

Overall I would rate it a good business tool but def not a Toy. The Processor is slow but it gives you more battery life. A compromise I'm willing to make. According to early reviews there should be a 500mhz processor upgrade for the device. You will loose your software and data though.

If you want a phone rather buy a smart phone. If you need a business tool This is the tool.

Good luck with the software issues.

I have not seen any of the issues described by the other reviewers. I will say the audio is low. The price is high now, but once it goes down, it will be a great device to own.

I agree with the uselessness and complicated way of using the phone feature. Ease of using the phone is required atleast. Camera is real bad. Ear piece volume is very low, you need to make extra efforts to listen to the other person. I have taken it to service center to the very next day of buying it for Rs. 30,000.00 here in India. The hands free was replaced as it was not working at all but nothing has been done to earpiece volume. Volume of speaker is very low even when you use it at full. Completely a bull shit and I wont recomand it to my enemy even.

It is a dissapointing effort from HP especially as regards the processor speed and overall engineering aesthetics. If these HP engineers want their PDA phones to do good business, they should simply revamp the HP 6365 (whilst retaining its shape and contours which are very appealing) with the following key specs - processor speed of atleast 500 Mhz, camera of 2 MP, Display with 65 k colour 480 x 640 pixels, 128 MB Ram/ROM, windows 2003 mobile with all MS office features especially outlook(can't suggest anything else otherwise these guys will have a heart attack), a nice proper black leather case with strong strap on facilities. And the faster they come out with this product enhancement, the better for them in view of competition from Imates/Qteks etc.

I bought one three weeks ago, one word sums it up - REGRET I paid $1200.00 for this phone and for that price I expect rolls royce material, no shitty engineering, was I disappointed as you shall read: The motivation to buy an all in one PDA, phone and camera is to boost your productivity, to have a flow of thoughts that can quickly convert from your brain into the desired actions, either by way of calls to others or reports by images and text, this phone fails to do it without causing some disruptions and thereby tainting your productivity. The plastic holster broke day one, getting into my car it popped the clip - piss weak engineering on the holster clip with 3 x 1.5mm plastic rivets holding the swivel onto the clip housing proper. On this occasion the phone wasn't in the holster so no damage done to the phone. Surely at this price they can afford to do a solid metal clip that will tear your $50.00 jeans to pieces and save the $1200.00 phone? Not to be discouraged I glued it back together, with epoxy, as I was contemplating returning it I didn't fix it the 'Nicholas Way', three days later the clip on the holster broke again, this time with the phone in, resulting in damage to the case of the phone and the holster, and most likely the phone cannot be returned now that it has marks on the case. HP advises that this damage is a user problem and the consequences of it are that the phone, if it requires repairs, is repaired at the users cost, what a low bastard act, they sell you a phone that is supplied with holster designed to let go at the slightest nuance which results in damage to the phone, how crass and cheap can you get? To avoid the chance of it happening again I got a wallet to suit an iPAQ 1977 model, pulled the polycarbonate screen off and there it lives. So now my phone is up to $1300.00 The holster design 'seemed' to be a good one, but you try and answer or make a call manually with it in the holster and the hands free set in your ears - you can't get it out of the holster because the socket on the phone is only accessable through a hole in the holster, not a slot, so you have to unplug the hands free, remove the phone from the holster, replug the hands free, then call. Shitty, cheap, crappy engineering rides again. Try doing this while driving, over here it could cost you $275.00 after a police officer catches you trying to answer the call on your 'hands free'. The hands free has two ear plugs, so if you use it for a car hands free you get fined again, you can't legally drive with both ears plugged or fitted with a headset in both ears because you have to be able to hear an emergency vehicle approaching your position, fock these HP engineers are stupid! Security of the unit is an abyssmal failure, I worked out how to get mine to factory reset within 2 minutes of getting the damn thing charged and running, push power and soft reset at the same time - bang, instant phone to the bloke who lifts it off your desk, I've got better security on my LG CS1100 oyster phone, I had better security on my ancient alcatel HB 100 which dates to 1995. HP doesn't care about your money, they don't give a rats if you lose your phone, it just means more sales for them and less money for you! While we are on the 'soft' reset feature, if you buy one of these phones get used to pushing it, every day, if not once a day then a thousand times! Got an incoming call? Can't see the screen because it's dark and the backlight refuses to come on? Push the reset! Can't answer the phone because the green phone button won't answer the call when you press it? Push the reset! HP advises that this will happen if you are running programs in the background due to limited onboard memory - I wasn't running any programs at the time, the phone was off and it rang in the pouch and I tried to answer it, no joy, had to reset, lose the call and then try to work out who it was that made the call, hope I didn't miss that $300k job because my client didn't think I could answer the phone... HP sucks. I bought this phone as an upgrade from a HP 6365 iPAQ, the 6365's kept freezing on me too, I was told this model was better than the 6365 because it had a better processor and was more able to handle the work load .. I've been lied to again. I had the 6365 #1 for 2 days, the next one for a week and then I upgraded to this heap of crud. The phone came packaged with an offer from 'Sensis' which supplies the mapping information for the GPS on the phone, I tried to log in to the site, but couldn't, no number of attempts with my registered user name and password would let me into that site, then I noticed on the support page a specific reference to the 6500 series phones not working - they advise you contact HP support, so this means there is a real problem with these shit boxes. What does work? The phone, when you can get it to go, works reasonably well, but it is no better than the $100.00 LG I was using before this. The camera works well in daylight, but forget it at night, it is a crock of shit in the dark, even at 3' from the subject of the photo and with its onboard flash. Don't expect a quality photo shoot with this barely more than marginal crud. Software? ON the whole it is junk, it is the usual m$ crap, crap, crap and more crap, they do well at the 60% level, don't expect anything as excellent as a Linux OS here, m$ just sucks. With the amount of money spent on these things you'd expect it to work, but it doesn't. Writing recognition, one of the key motivators for me to select this over a Palm Treo 650 which doesn't have 'Grafitti' is a half arsed attempt at recognition, it works sometimes and the amount of times that it doesn't interrupts your flow, which is what the object is supposed to deliver, immediacy of thought, on this account it is a pathetic sham. One issue I had was with the reprogrammable buttons, one of them is for the contact list, you push the button and you expect the contact list to spring up .. not so, nothing happened. I took it back to the retailer, he showed me that the buttons can be mapped to other functions, I know I didn't remap them, at least at the time I was trying to call up my contact list this never occured to me, it has a list icon engraved in the button - why didn't it work that way if I didn't remap it? The remapping feature doesn't tell you which button you might be remapping, so when you are new to the phone, you have to use a suck it and see approach to the problem. I was going to make a call to a client on this occassion and went to the contacts list, it didn't pop up, I just got a message that the shortcut that I had refered to was no longer available, no message to say the button had been remapped, by the time I worked out how to get around to it the thought process that prompted me to pick up the phone and call X had evaporated, another loss of productivity. There have been many other occassions of this and it irked me severely. Summary, Don't buy one, they suck.