Linked by Eugenia Loli-Queru on Mon 3rd Apr 2006 17:17 UTC
PDAs, Cellphones, Wireless Geeks.com is selling the HP iPAQ h2210 for less than $220 this week, with a... 3600 mAh extra battery and a 128 MB SD card. While this model is pretty old now it is still very capable with its 400 Mhz processor and so we thought that we could review it from the point of view of an affordable SIP phone (Ekiga, Gizmo, Stanaphone, FreeWorldDialup, Skype). Read more for our findings and a quick rundown of its amazing battery life times!
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Close but...
by redm (1.1) on Mon 3rd Apr 2006 18:43 UTC
redm
Member since:
2005-07-06
Fans: 0

I think this is a nice idea who's time is not quite here. The WiFi phone that is. I guess if you already have a PDA or need a PDA then this is a nice additional feature. The comment about the software being unstable adds to my feelings of unease. I am not ready to buy till it is "ready", thanks.

It does seem like a better solution than the UTStarcom F1000 since you have a web browser and modern interface.
http://www.vonage.com/device.php?type=F1000

Something like the coming (soon?), netgear WiFi phone makes more sense to me in its more convenient form factor.
http://tools.netgear.com/skype/

I like the idea of a WiFi phone, but this PDA solution doesn't seem very convenient to me. Not for $200 + wifi adapter.

RE: Close but...
by Eugenia (Staff) on Mon 3rd Apr 2006 18:57 UTC in reply to "Close but..."
Eugenia Member since:
2005-06-28
Fans: 15

>The comment about the software being unstable adds to my feelings of unease

The software is not unstable. Only one app is, out of 20-30 apps. And only under specific conditions.

As for the Netgear WiFi phone, this is only a Skype phone, while when running a real OS underneath you can have SIP support too, plus all your PDA apps.

RE[2]: Close but...
by redm (1.1) on Tue 4th Apr 2006 00:29 UTC in reply to "RE: Close but..."
redm Member since:
2005-07-06
Fans: 0

"The software is not unstable. Only one app is, out of 20-30 apps. And only under specific conditions."

My mistake I thought I read that Skype was the unstable one. Thanks for the correction. I see it was this:

"With SJphone, which is a generic SIP application, we were able to configure it to use our Ekiga, Gizmo, Stanaphone and FreeWorldDialup accounts (sample configuration). They all worked beautifully in terms of voice chatting but the application itself is a bit unstable still. A stable version is expected in the next few weeks."

Are there other generic (or non-generic) SIP application that do run properly on this machine?

RE[3]: Close but...
by Eugenia (Staff) on Tue 4th Apr 2006 00:47 UTC in reply to "RE[2]: Close but..."
Eugenia Member since:
2005-06-28
Fans: 15

>Are there other generic (or non-generic) SIP application that do run properly on this machine?

No. Stanaphone's solution is just an OEM version of SJphone too. SJPhone runs pretty well anyway (for a beta). In the 5 days I used it extensively on this specific device, there was one crash, and one small isignificant visual problem.

SJphone does not work well on my other PocketPC though (rx3115, pictured in the article), which runs on a Samsung CPU. When I call with SJPhone on that PDA, the whole PDA comes to a crawl. This problem does not exist on Intel PocketPCs (like the h2210 is). I emailed SJphone about it about 3 weeks ago, I never received a reply.

Nice deal, other OS possible?
by bubbayank (1.64) on Mon 3rd Apr 2006 21:26 UTC
bubbayank
Member since:
2005-07-15
Fans: 0

Just curious, since I don't keep up with the Linux on PDA efforts... How friendly is this device to installing something besides Winders on it?

The price seems right...

RE: Nice deal, other OS possible?
by Eugenia (Staff) on Mon 3rd Apr 2006 21:29 UTC in reply to "Nice deal, other OS possible?"
Eugenia Member since:
2005-06-28
Fans: 15

First of all, Windows works well on this device.
Regarding Linux, there is an h22xx port going on AS WE SPEAK. Check the mailing list here: http://www.handhelds.org/hypermail/h2200-port/current/
However, the specific model doesn't work well yet, but I expect it to do so by the time Familiar Linux 0.8.3 gets released in a few weeks.

RE[2]: Nice deal, other OS possible?
by bubbayank (1.64) on Mon 3rd Apr 2006 21:58 UTC in reply to "RE: Nice deal, other OS possible?"
bubbayank Member since:
2005-07-15
Fans: 0

First of all, Windows works well on this device.

I'm sure it does. Just asking in case I find that I don't like Windows CE or whatever they call it these days. Plus maybe Linux would have a bluetooth implementation that supports headsets.