News

It's been almost a year since Brighthand first unveiled rumors of an iPAQ 2200 series. Now a recent post on pocketnow has set off a fresh storm of interest for this device.

Last year's rumors, detailed in our story What's Next for the iPAQ?, described the 2200 series as a super-slim model that would sell for less than $300. Obviously, this turned out to be the iPAQ h1910.

The most recent rumor comes from someone who says he saw a demonstration from a Hewlett Packard representative of a 2200 series model that will not simply be an upgrade of the current h1910 model. Instead, it will fit between the 1900 series and the 5400 series.

According to this report, these devices will run the next version of the Pocket PC operating system, which is why they won't be available until sometime this summer. There will be a version with 64 MB of RAM and another with 128 MB of RAM. Both will run 400 MHz XScale processors, which assumably will be the new PXA255 ones with the faster memory bus speed.

They will have two memory card slots, one for CompactFlash cards and the other for SD/MMC, which will support SDIO. This will allow these devices to use non-memory peripherals that plug into the SD slot, such as wireless networking cards.

Speaking of wireless networking, at least one of these handhelds will include built-in Bluetooth. HP decided to not include one with 802.11 (Wi-Fi) because there will be several SDIO Wi-Fi cards on the market by the time the 2200 series is available.

The screen with be a 16-bit color, transflective TFT LCD. It will be the standard 240 by 320 pixels, though these models will be able to easily switch between landscape and portrait view. Assumably this will be a function of the new version of Pocket PC.

They will use a replaceable battery, though its power is not yet known.

If this report is correct, all of this will fit into a handheld not much larger or heavier than the current h1910. Reportedly, the base model will cost just below $400.

The report also mentioned that HP plans to release at some point a model with an integrated keyboard. This slides down from the back and automatically changes the view to landscape mode.

Alternate Rumors

A few weeks ago, an image with an alternate roadmap for future iPAQs appeared on sprinklerhead.com. This showed that there would be two members of the 2200 series, both of which used 200 MHz processors and one of which would have Bluetooth wireless networking. The handheld shown was a a more traditional-looking Pocket PC model, less curved than the h1910. The image was subsequently removed at Hewlett Packard's request.

For those just looking for a slightly improved h1910, another rumor surfaced a few weeks ago that HP is working on a version of that handheld with built-in Bluetooth.

Related Links

• Future iPAQ to Include Folding Keyboard?
• What's Next for the iPAQ?