The HP iPAQ 514 cell phone has a simple straightforward design. At first you'd think a device of this price would not feel too solid. On the contrary; despite the plastic housing the device has a high quality feel and does not look like a cheap cell phone. It is not the thinnest or smallest of devices. Nor is it a large one with its dimensions of 107x48.6x16.3mm. On the device's left hand side there is a rubber cover covering the compartment for a microSD memory card. On the front the buttons and a 2-inch monitor are found. The handset is black with dark grey colours. These colours have silver-coloured accents. The HP iPAQ 514 voice messenger has a professional look thanks to these serene colours.Hewlett Packard had to make concessions to be able to offer this price. One of these concessions is the monitor; the HP iPAQ 514 smartphone has been equipped with a 2-inch monitor with a resolution of 176x220 pixels and 64,000 colours. If you are not used to a high resolution monitor this small sized one will not bother you. But if you are a frequent visitor of internet pages you'll soon find out that you have to scroll not only vertically but also horizontally through the web pages.
The HP iPAQ offers Mobile Office. Mobile Office works mainly like the Office version used at the PC at home. The Office Mobile functions come in very handy when travelling a lot and enable receiving your emails on the mobile phone. An attached Word, Excel or PowerPoint document can be opened while travelling. Microsoft Active Sync lets you synchronize the handset with the PC so you don’t need to insert email settings in the mobile phone. Microsoft Active Sync is also responsible for automatically adding the emails you have received on your cell phone to Microsoft Outlook on your PC. A very convenient function.The HP iPAQ 514 voice messenger uses the Windows Media Player Mobile for playing music. The HP iPAQ 514 comes with a mono headset. The headset is connected via a 2.5 mm mini jack plug. Most headsets however use a 3.5 mm mini jack plug. So if you're planning to connect a normal stereo headset to the cell phone, you'll have to purchase an adapter. The headset has to be connected to one side of the iPAQ 514 this makes the cell phone bulky on the side and therefore difficult to carry around in the pocket of your trousers.The HP iPAQ 514 features an incorporated 1.3 Megapixel Photosmart camera with a maximum resolution of 1280x1024 pixels. The camera does not offer auto focus or flash. When looking at other devices we see at least a two Megapixel camera incorporated, but the price of these devices is considerably higher than that of the HP iPAQ 514 voice messenger. It may be clear that HP economized on the camera. Next to the camera lens a self-portrait mirror has been placed.The 1.3 Megapixel digital camera suffers from a severe shutter lag. Besides that it takes around one to two seconds before a picture is written onto the memory card. This makes spontaneous shooting impossible also due to the low resolution. You constantly have to be aware of the shutter release lag. Focussing prior to taking the picture is therefore a must. Besides that you can set the camera to burst mode to take sequential pictures. The burst mode ensures capturing fast objects in spite of the shutter release lag. In that case the resolution is lowered to 0.3 Megapixels …HP iPAQ 514 with a microSD memory card. A choice from different capacities and speeds cards is offered. We chose the SanDisk 2GB microSD memory card for its stability and its speed. The 2GB microSD Memory Kit is also a good option. Besides a microSD memory card the Memory Kit offers a twosome of adapters to enable using the microSD card as miniSD as well as SD card. Just insert the microSD card effortlessly in the adapter after which it functions as miniSD or as SD card. There are more than one possibilities to transfer files from the microSD memory card to the computer. A good choice would be the SanDisk MobileMate SD + 5 in 1 card reader that is extremely small and therefore easy to carry with you.The Hewlett Packard iPAQ 514 can be connected to a PC through USB and Bluetooth. The HP iPAQ 514 will be recognized by Microsoft Active Sync straight away. When the handset is connected to the computer and Active Sync has been activated, the email settings of the pc will be synchronized with the cell phone. You don't have to change your email settings manually. An additional advantage is that Microsoft Active Sync enables synchronizing emails received on the cell phone as well as on the PC. When you connect the phone to the pc via USB or Bluetooth, the received mails will automatically be transferred from the phone to the PC and vice versa. This ensures that the emails you need are available on the cell phone and on the PC at all times. It will save you time, something that is very welcome in the busy life of a business man.Transferring files with the HP iPAQ 514 voice messenger takes a considerable amount of time. The Bluetooth 1.2 connection is not the fastest one. Transferring 100MB takes more than eight minutes. We have seen other devices with a high speed Bluetooth function that were able to do this a lot faster. There are devices transferring 100MB in less than four minutes. The USB connection however, is a lot faster. The same amount of data can be transferred through the USB in a little over four minutes.HP had to compromise with equipping the HP iPAQ 514; we can say that it is a business mobile phone with enhanced functions. The price of the device is just as attractive as its functionalities. Despite its many functions and the attractive price tag, we think some points need improvement. HP would do a great job as to equip the device with 3G for the business man who is always on the road. HP compromised in installing Wi-Fi but since you cannot always use a Wi-Fi connection; 3G would be the solution. The camera is of low quality and integrating a digital camera with at least two Megapixels would already improve the image quality. A monitor a tad bigger in size and the included higher resolution would also help. You'd have to scroll less when viewing web pages. Although the HP 514 has been made of plastic, it has a solid feel. In short, HP haven't started a revolution in the mobile business world but more on the pricing level of such a device. The HP iPAQ is recommendable for users wanting to receive email and read attachments while travelling, but not requiring a large monitor, a fast 3G and a high resolution camera.
