Home > Consumer Reviews > HP iPAQ 910 Business Messenger Unlocked Phone with U.S. 3G, 3 MP Camera, Media Player, and MicroSD Slot--U.S. Version with Warranty

For those who want the productivity features of a Blackberry with the power of Windows Mobile, here's the device. Here's the good, and the bad in a nutshell.

The Good:

1. Size, weight. This device is the same width as a Blackberry curve, and just slightly longer. Fits nicely in a pocket. Also, it's not too heavy.

2. Excellent Keyboard - Windows Mobile works excellently with an exposed keyboard. Dial numbers quickly, write emails, even filter your music library quickly by typing letters.

3. Plethora of features - Wifi, BT, GPS, a lot of customizable buttons, volume control buttons, and scroll wheel. Gps works well (tried it with TomTom 6) and WIFI and BT both performed well.

4. Speed - The device is snappy. Coming from the AT&T Tilt, it was a welcome experience to have a quick device again.

5. Battery - At 1900 mAH who can ask for more?!

The Bad:

1. Phone call volume is low compared to most other devices I've used

2. Too few backlight/brightness options. The middle setting is too bright, the lower is too low.

In summary, if you need to write and respond to emails 40% of the time or more, then this is the device to get. You sacrifice screen size for more portability and productivity. (Note that you don't sacrifice resolution -the screen is smaller, but the resolution is still 320x240)

*** EDIT ***

After using the device for several days, there seems to be an issue with power drain/battery life. The PDA seems to drop roughly 5% of battery every hour with no use, and only AS Push active. With moderate use, the device seems to lose roughly 10-13% per hour use. Using the device the same way as I use my Tilt, wheras with the til I got roughly 12-14 hours of use, with the HP I get roughly 6-8.

Also, I'm experiencing another strange occurence. Using my 6GB microSDHC card, the device seems to lose its connection to the card when I turn it on, every so often. I'm looking into both of these issues.

Picked up a 910 to replace my old T-mobile Dash which didn't have enough memory to handle my needs.

Overall a very serious, high end business phone.

The good:

* GPS with Live Search & Google Maps is handy,
* Pretty fast with lots of memory (256MB ROM/128MB RAM)
* Ability to handle my 8GB MicroSD card for music/videos, will pick up a * 16GB when they come out
* WiFi, Quad-band GSM, Tri-band 3G, Bluetooth 2.0
* Navigate with keyboard, scroll wheel and/or touchscreen
* Windows Mobile Pro 6.1

The not so good:
* Once I put my T-mobile sim in it appeared to auto-configure, but I couldn't get edge to work until I changed the Edge configuration to [...] from [...]
* Cyberon Voice Commander seems pretty accurate, but not as full featured as Msft Voice Command (no bluetooth support being the biggest...you have to press the voice command button
* Mini-USB charging and included USB headset are good, but no option for connection to my stereo. On my HTC devices I could get a extended USB adapter, but I don't see any options/adapters for the iPaq 910. More and more stereos have bluetooth stereo in, I have a couple, but not all of them.
* T-Mobile's upcoming US 3G is 1700Mhz which isn't supported, but Tri-band UMTS/HSDPA up to 7.2 Mbps via (850/1900/2100 MHz)
* Battery life: while it has a 1940mah battery, it only lasted about 10 hrs for me today. Had DirectPush email and Bluetooth on.

I was waiting for this device since its announcement.
I am a big fan of Blackberry 8810 and 8820.
I was waiting for a Windows Mobile device with GPS and QWERTY keyboard like my Blackberry 8820.
Since I am a Medical Professional I like Windows Mobile because of the medical software availability.
Good built quality. Looks and feels just like my Blackberry 8820
I love the QWERTY keyboard, GPS works great with TomTom 6 and iGuidance 4.0, 1940 mAh lithium-polymer battery gives great battery life.
Works great with AT&T 3G, WiFi is great (WPA2 support). Bluetooth work perfectly with my printer, car and computer.
Works great with SANDISK 8 GB microSDHC.

I owned this phone for about a week. I was pretty excited by how many features it had in such a small package: touch screen (small, but still useful), wifi, 3g, GPS, Windows Mobile 6.1, built-in keyboard, the list goes on...

First off, I actually like Windows Mobile for its similarity to Windows on the desktop. I tried a Nokia e71 with Symbian, and I found the user interface somewhat inconsistent between applications. Windows Mobile apps usually follow a pretty standard way of doing menus and icons. This Ipaq performed very well, though I have had other Windows Mobile devices which are sluggish.

Next, the keyboard. I found this Ipaq's keyboard suffers from one primary problem: the four-way navigation pad is too close to the top row of keys. Time and time again I accidentally hit the "down" button when trying to hit the T or a Y. Apart from that the keyboard was cramped but pretty useful.

GPS: I used Google maps which is a free download if your device doesn't come with it. What an awesome program to have for free. The program itself worked great, but it often took the Ipaq over one minute to acquire the GPS signal. Sometimes it used cell phone towers to get my approximate location, so while it was tracking down the GPS signal the "where am I" dot on the map would jump all over the place. Other times, it would not do this and would just wait and wait until it found the GPS signal to show me where I was. There is some kind of application on the Ipaq (which I forget the name of) that lets you download additional GPS information from the internet so it is faster to acquire the GPS signal. I ran this program numerous times but it did not seem to make a difference in how fast it locked onto the GPS. Once it was locked on, it updated very quickly and very accurately. Given that, GPS would be perfectly useful on this device if you already had it turned on before you started your trip. Or, perhaps another pay-for-use mapping program would not have the same problem Google Maps did.

Battery life: Other reviews have complained the battery life on this device is pretty short and that the battery gets hot while using the device (even when not charging). I did find the battery pack got warm while on a call or using the PDA functions. Battery felt on par with other smartphones I have owned (T-mobile MDA, Cingular 8525). In other words: not very impressive, but good enough to get through one day.

Last: In spite of these minor weaknesses, I really liked this phone. Sadly, call quality was just not up to par. I found I had to have the volume on maximum all the time, and the sound output seemed too grainy/staticky compared to other cell phones. I decided that for the price of this phone, the sound quality should be nothing less than excellent, so I wound up returning it and going back to my incredibly-bulky-but-sounds-good Cingular 8525 (HTC TyTN).

This little guy is exactly what I hoped it would be. WiFi works perfect, bluetooth perfect, Office Mobile with Outlook Mobile helps me carry my work around with no problem.
The phone signal on this little guy is perfect!! I've had a couple of other cell phones but this one beats them all.
Audio is a little on the soft side but I haven't had any problem with it so far.
The only bad thing I've found is that when you have been using the screen for a while and then you have to take or make a call, it feels too hot on the ear and face.
But, so far, I am extremely pleased with it.