Windows Mobile 5.0 Upgrade for iPAQ hx4700 Delayed Again

Last month, HP said that a long-awaited operating system upgrade for its flagship handheld would be released on March 1.

Obviously this didn't happen.

This means that iPaq hx4700 owners will have to carry on with Windows Mobile 2003 SE, while Windows Mobile 5.0 upgrades for other models have been available for months.

Fortunately, at this point it doesn't seem like the delay is going be for more than a few weeks at most. An HP web site based in Europe says that this upgrade will be released later this month.

The company hasn't announced a price for this, but it is likely to cost the same as the Windows Mobile 5.0 upgrade for the hx2000 series: $40.

Why the Delay?

HP has never publicly announced exactly why it is releasing this upgrade many months after it introduced similar ones for other iPAQs.

All the company has said is that it was caused by "unforeseen extended delays in the availability of a critical 3rd party driver."

Unconfirmed reports indicate that the driver in question was for the hx4700's VGA screen.

More About the iPAQ hx4700

The hx4700 was the first iPAQ to include a 4-inch VGA display.

This device has 64 MB of RAM and 128 MB of ROM. This arrangement allows it to have 55 MB of RAM available to the user and an 80 MB iPAQ File Store. This file store is non-volatile memory, which means it won't be erased if the device undergoes a hard reset.

The hx4700 includes both 802.11b and Bluetooth 1.2 wireless networking.

It also includes a CompactFlash slot and an SD/MMC slot that supports SDIO.

This iPAQ doesn't have a D-pad. Instead, has a small touchpad below the screen intended to be used with a fingertip. This means this device uses an on-screen cursor.

More information on this Pocket PC can be found in Brighthand's review.

Related Links

• Brighthand Reviews the HP iPAQ hx4700