HP iPAQ hx4705 Finally Arriving Next Week?

When the iPAQ hx4705 was officially announced in August, HP said it would be available before the end of the month. Later, the release date was bumped back two weeks, and eventually HP stopped predicting a specific date, only saying that it is "Coming This Fall."

Now it appears that the wait may be almost over. HP now lists on its web site a shipping date of next Tuesday, September 21.

However, it's possible this might slip again. Yesterday, HP said the hx4705 would be available on Monday, before moving the release back to Tuesday.

Ahead of the Competition

If the hx4705 does debut next week, it will be the first of a new generation of Pocket PCs with VGA screens to debut in the United States.

The Asus A730W is another VGA Pocket PC, but it won't hit the market until the end of October at the earliest.

Dell is also going to release a model similar to hx4705, but this isn't expected to happen until early November.

Two more VGA Pocket PCs, the Toshiba e830 and the Fujitsu-Siemens Pocket Loox 720, won't be available in the United States.

Of course, people have the option of getting a Toshiba e800 and upgrading it to the latest version of Windows Mobile, but, unlike all these other models, it lacks Bluetooth.

A Quick Overview of the iPAQ hx4705

The hx4705 will be the first iPAQ ever to include a 4-inch VGA display. As this model will use Windows Mobile Second Edition, this screen can be easily switched between portrait and landscape modes.

This device will have a 624 MHz Intel XScale processor. It will also have 64 MB of RAM and 128 MB of ROM. This unusual arrangement, with far more ROM than RAM, will allow the hx4705 to have an 80 MB iPAQ File Store.

The hx4705 will include both 802.11b and Bluetooth 1.2 wireless networking, as well as a CompactFlash slot and an SD/MMC slot that supports SDIO.

This iPAQ won't have a D-pad. Instead, it will have a small touchpad below the screen intended to be used with a fingertip.

The list price for this model is $650.

Much more information on the iPAQ hx4705 is available in this article.

Thanks to Pocket PC Thoughts for the tip.

Related Links

• Better Pictures of Dell Axim X50 Appear on Web
• Some Handheld Makers Snub the U.S.