The HP iPaq Hx4700 is a pocket pc designed around for use by business persons on the move. When I bought this product about 2 years ago it was a state of the art piece of technology but, as with all computer based devices, they quickly become obsolete as other more powerful and user friendly devices come onto the market.


~~External Features~~

This device has a very sleek black gloss and metallic silver finish and has a slimline design making it far slimmer than other pocket pc's of its generation. It comes equipped with a 4" diagonal high resolution LCD touch sensitive screen for high quality video playback and photograph viewing. It has a removable battery so extra spares can be carried and then exchanged so enhance its usage and the internal Lithium ion backup cell prevents loss of data during battery transfer. There are 5 main external push-buttons located on the device which can be used for any short cuts you wish but primarily are used for email, contacts, calender, voice recorder and a general short-cut option key.

The iPaq has two memory expansion slots allowing for SD card and Compact flash insertion. Unfortunately due to the age of it, it is not compatible with SDHC. There is also a touch sensitive pad located directly on the front of the unit which can be used as a mouse mat, a feature that I find pretty pointless as the screen it also touch sensitive.


~~Software~~

The iPaq Hx4700 runs using the Windows Mobile Pocket PC 2003 Second Edition operating system, which, since its update can be upgraded to Windows Mobile 5, but this was designed for newer more modern machines and therefore is slightly slow when running on this one. It includes some business software on the system including Pocket Word and Excel, as well as an enhanced version of the calender and other utilities. There are several different method to type on it using a digital keyboard, transcriber, block recogniser and letter recogniser, allowing very easy writing. I use this device to run other software items such as TOMTOM using a bluetooth external GPS which works well.


~~Functionality~~

This device comes equipped with Bluetooth, Wifi and an infra-red data port allowing connection to multiple external devices including external GPS units and keyboards. It makes for a decent MP3 player as well, and with the data card expansion slots, allows hundreds of songs to be stored. The battery life is also pretty decent allowing around 5 to 8 hours of usage and about 2 to 3 hours to becoming fully charged from flat.


~~Overall~~

The HP iPaq Hx4700 pocket pc is a good machine and, even though it is a little dated and older model machine, it still has many uses. Unfortunately due the iphone and blackberry phones coming on the market, it means that they have become a little obsolete, where the functionality of the smart phones available is far great as well as processor speeds, screen technology and memory capacity. If you want to buy one second hand, they are very useful and I'm sure it can meet many of your needs. I've had many years of use out of my iPaq and the reliability of this device is second to none.