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HP iPAQ HW6515 Pocket PC Quadband Phone Edition GPS HW6500 | 
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| Brand: Hewlett-Packard
Category: Wireless
Buy New: $399.99
New (2) Used (1) from $349.99
Rating:  8 reviews
Platform: Windows
Media: Wireless Phone Accessory
Fragile: No
Batteries Included: No
Operating System: Microsoft Windows Mobile for Pocket PC Phone Ed. 2003 SE
CPU Speed: 312
Modem: Wireless cellular modem
Display Size: 3
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 12.1 x 7.5 x 3.9
MPN: FA385A#ABB
Model: FA385A
UPC: 829160774237
EAN: 2001102983008
ASIN: B000AN3IVA
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: INCLUDES BATTERY, CHARGER, STYLUS, USB SYNC CABLE. SATISFACTION GUARANTEED
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
HP iPAQ hw6515 Mobile Messenger offers integrated GSM/GPRS/EDGE technologies and is full of high-end features including a built-in camera and keyboard, GPS Navigation, and multiple messaging capabilities - in a stylish, lightweight design.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 3 more reviews...
 Potentially fabulous, but unreliable January 22, 2008
I absolutely love this phone ... without it and all it's functions I feel completely lost. I love the calender that sends me reminders when something important comes up. I really like the windows functions and the fact that it synchronises with my desktop, BUT ... it is so temperamental! It switches off without a reason when I need it most and often doesn't reboot automatically. I've been stuck, needing it to work desperately and it will not switch back on, even when I do a soft reset. Only when I get home and can place it on the cradle, does it resume activities. This is most frustrating. I have had it fixed twice and still I have problems with it. If this glitch could be sorted out, I'd give the phone a 5-star rating!
 Not quite as good as hoped for September 16, 2007
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I have had mine for almost two years now. I decided that I only wnated to carry one item instead of two (phone & PDA). The first one I got was sent back within 6 months due to continuous reboots. There was a QC issue with it that caused the problem. 2nd has lasted for 1 1/2 years now and I will be discontinuing it's use when my plan expires here shortly.
Pro's:
Phone
Built in GPS
Sync's with Outlook
Expandability (have 3GB in SD's)
Internet
Con's:
Phone- difficult time with signal strength. I can be standing next to my wife and I will have 1-2 bars and she will have 4. Speaker is not loud enough for reasonable use. Also for some reason when you are driving it does not like to transfer to the next tower. It will hang on to the old one, with 1 bar, and I have had to reset it (using the stylus) to get it to latch on to the closest tower which will then give me 4 bars.
Battery- Battery does not last for anything in this... especially if you are using bluetooth. For playing solitaire or listening to MP3's it really eats up the power quickly.
Internet- I got this through Cingular. Pay $30 per month for the data service. So slow that I consider it barely useful. About 5 minutes to open the yahoo mobile page. Very sad.
GPS- Yes it works but barely. Have to download a file every two days or so or it will take all day to find the satellites. Also does not update that quickly and is off a bit when using it with a map program.
Other- Has a tendecy to reboot a lot. Of course this is probably the Microsoft OS on the device. For one thing if you click the X to close a program is does not really close- just runs in the background.
Bottom line is that this unit does everything, but it doesn't do anything very well.
Not bad February 8, 2007
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
First of all, I wanted to give 3.5 stars but it did not let me pick 1/2 star.
This is my 3rd PDA phone. I had Treo and Siemens before this one.
All PDA phones I had share one common (and big) problem.. It crashes.. When the operating system crashes, you miss all your phone calls.. Most of the time, you don't even know it crashed.. So you might have missed all those important phone calls that you were waiting for. I first thought that it was pocketPC OS issue. However, HP had a ROM upgrade that came out that was newer than the one I got. So I downloaded it and upgraded the ROM and it seems to be a lot more stable.
I got the unlocked version and I am using it on T-mobile network. Call quality is very good. The keyboard is a bit small and is hard to type with one hand. Speak phone is pretty good. Built in camera is useful but a bit slow.. and the video quality is not so great.
GPS:
One thing that it stands out is that it has built-in GPS.
I bought a golfGPS software and I can use this phone to figure out how far I am to the pin. However, the battery dies so quick I can only use it for about 11 holes.. I tried some navigation software (street atlas and MS pocketMap) and it is okay.. but not great.. unless you pay a lot of money and get high-end GPS software.
One thing I would recommend people who buys this is to get data plan.
I have T-zone ($7/month, not the full data plan) and it makes this phone
so much better. I can use googlemap and find locations, businesses..etc.
I can use mapquest and google search. I can also access my e-mails and latest news. If you get the full data access, it would be a lot faster.
but even with my t-zone (and it's slow), it's not bad..
It has a square screen and some of the older software do not support square screen so if you are planning to use an older software, you may run into some problems..
Overall, it's not bad.. but nothing wow about it..
I would probably wait until they come out with something better (especially if you are going to spend over $350 for a phone).
 iPAQ hw6915 phone/PDA Rocks! November 13, 2006
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
This is an office on the run. I can now head out on a business trip with just one device and effectively have all the electronics I need in one small package. I used to carry a cell phone, a PDA and/or laptop, and a GPS, plus all the associated cables and chargers when I was traveling. Now I take one device and have everything I need at my finger tips. My calendar, my contacts, favorite photos, some music, and always up to date email.
Pro's: A fantastic all in one device for business travel. The phone reception and function are much better than my Razr. The integrated functionality between the phone, pda and email is great. I have the iPAQ set up to send and recieve email via cellular. This is a huge help while traveling. The ability to send and receive email over my cellular service is much better than wi-fi or by syncing with a desktip. By the way, the 6900 series does have wi-fi. Web browsing is good over both wi-fi and GPRS and is even faster over EDGE. Windows mobile 5 has a very functional copy of IE. Having the GPS with me all the time is very useful. I am using Telenav by NavTec which downloads maps and business addresses over the cellular service. No need to download maps from a desktop PC. The reception of the GPS antenna is amazing. It works much better than my Garmin 60CS.
Things I would like to see HP improve: The camera is slow to boot and slow to take a picture. HP can do better here. Battery use is also a concern. When I am traveling on business my days are often 12 to 15 hours long and if I am using the GPS at all, the battery needs a boost sometime during the day to make it through. I purchased a slick little charger kit from Gomadic that makes this easier, but a longer lasting battery would be better. I was also a bit puzzled why PDA's come with 2.5mm audio jacks. Most mp3 players and all of the good headsets and ear buds have 3.5mm jacks.
If you need to have your calendar, contacts, phone, and email with you this is a very useful device to have. When you add the GPS on top of all of that it becomes a must-have device.
Has some kinks but has just about everything you could possibly need July 24, 2006
34 out of 35 found this review helpful
BASIC COMPARISONS (compared to the Blackberry and Treo):
These are only the basic DIFFERENCES between the latest Treo/Blackberry and the Ipaq hw6515
PROs
-Ipaq has built-in GPS receiver (not software!) the others do not
-Ipaq has two expansion slots (1 mini-SD and 1 SD slot), the others have one
-Ipaq has a 1.3 megapixel camera w/flash
-Ipaq has a terminal services client (allows me to remotely login to my cpu and control it)
CONs
-Ipaq does NOT have built-in WiFi (wireless internet card), the others do
-Ipaq comes with 64 MB of memory (ROM and RAM)
-Ipaq does not come with GPS software
-Ipaq battery life needs major improvements
-Ipaq doesn't support voice dial
NEUTRAL
-Ipaq uses Windows Mobile
One of the main reasons I chose this phone was that all of the CONs were addressable. I could get around the WiFi problem with a WiFi card for my SD slot and I could upgrade my memory by 1 GB with the mini-SD slot. If I didn't want a WiFi card, I could have gotten a 4 GB SD card and used the mini-SD for something else. As for the battery, I could buy another one and the GPS software I could buy as well.
COST
Main point here is that it costs more than just buying the phone.
1) $200 phone: I bought this through my phone carrier (Cingular) and renewed by 2-year plan. I bought it refurbished because I decided paying 400-500 for technology that is still in its infancy is quite ridiculous. When buying a pocket PC (ppc) you pay for much more than just the phone.
2) $32 1GB mini-SD card (Kingston): I bought this on Ebay. This included shipping and taxes.
3) $78 SD WiFi card (Spectec): I also bought this on Ebay. I bought the SDW-821. I bought this for two reasons:
- it supported both 802.11b and g
- it only stuck out of the SD slot aobut 5 mm. All other cards I found stuck out a couple cm.
4) $8 car charger. Bought this on ebay. The phone only comes with a wall charger and a cradle.
5) $150 GPS software (Navteq)
6) $8 extra battery
7) $50 Bluetooth (handsfree) headset MS850 - DO NOT GET THIS because the MS810+ series are the only Bluetooth headsets not supported by the hw6515. You can make calls fine, but the connection gets dropped on incoming calls.
Total: $528
This total was with a lot of bargain shopping. Be careful when buying on Ebay because there are a lot of people selling knockoff technology being shipped from factories in China that break after a couple weeks.
NOTES:
-I only pay 39.99/mo for my cell phone plan.
-I do not pay for internet usage fees because I use my WiFi card for internet access. There are free hotspots jumping up all over the place and hopefully Google gets their way and blankets the US with free wireless internet! I also have a T-mobile hotspot account for places that support this on my travels.
-If you get this and the GPS software you do NOT have to pay Cingular every time you use it. The GPS software and the GPS receiver work independently of Cingular so you never have to worry about getting billed extra by using this.
-Battery life for this phone given the technology is OK. I have to recharge once a night so long as I don't use BlueTooth or WiFi too often
-BlueTooth uses about 5% of my battery for every half hour I have it connected to my MS850 headset
-WiFi card uses about 10% of my battery for every half hour I am surfing the internet
-The Windows platform allows for very good multi-tasking
-I'm a UNIX/Linux fan but at least windows Mobile comes with Word/Excel so you can appease your mgmt team
-You can use .NET and Java apps (games and programs)
-Have to reboot the device on occasion because memory does not get freed up as it should
-After closing applications, they aren't actually closed, you have to shut them down in Memory->Running Programs
-Sound quality actually exceeded my expectations
-Bluetooth connections have been extremely stable
-I live in rural Northern California and have not had any problems with dropped calls or having bad reception. It seems to have the same reception as my Motorola V551.
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