Hewlett Packard IPAQ h5455 Pocket PC

After reading several other reviews of the iPAQ 5455 it became apparent that it does so many things that everybody seems to have different reasons for getting it. Some people who gave it poor reviews seemed to have gotten it with different uses in mind than I had. So maybe I should state what my primary reasons for getting it were, so you'll know where I'm coming from. First and foremost, since I use Outlook Calendar & Contacts as my primary calendar and address book, I wanted a way to make those portable, and for the portable version to always be completely up to date. I also wanted to use the iPAQ to connect to the internet when I'm out to check e-mail. On these functions it does a fine job. If you've already become accustomed to keeping all your vital information in Outlook as I do, this is a wonderful product.

So, on the primary features I bought it for - I'm very happy. I would highly recommend it. Because as I've discovered, since it is a computer there are so many more things you can do with it than what I originally bought it for. I'll mention a few in a minute.

There are a few little glitchy things about it that I'll mention. Although none of them are so serious as to render the iPAQ unusable. But they can be annoying. The bottom line though is that for all it does do, I'm happy to overlook a few annoyances here and there as I have yet to find a computer that doesn't have many annoyances!

Forget using the fingerprint security feature. It just doesn't work! If you want to protect your iPAQ from unwelcome visitors - you'll have to use the password feature.

ActiveSync (the software that keeps it synchronized with your computer) does a great job. It keeps it completely in sync with my computer at all times. Sometimes though, it's a little buggy. Like it will be sitting in the cradle connected to the computer through ActiveSync and just out of the blue it will disconnect from ActiveSync. Shutting the device off and turning it back on isn't usually enough to get it reconnected. I usually have to shut down ActiveSync, reboot the iPAQ and then restart ActiveSync to get it to re-connect. It's kind of annoying, but it doesn't happen too often. As long as I can sync it before I take it out I'm fine. And it syncs quickly so that takes less than a minute.

The hat switch (the large round button in the center at the bottom of the iPAQ), when I first got it this button was very stiff and hard to press. I figured it would loosen up. And it did… but too much. Now it's too lose. It's really easy to accidentally press it the wrong way and have things happen that you didn't mean to happen. I have a Bible program on it and if you press this button down it scrolls down the page. If you press it to the right it goes to the next chapter or left goes to the previous chapter. Often times I mean to press it down, and suddenly I find I'm reading the next chapter. Very annoying. To get around this I've resigned myself to just using the stylus to tap on the scroll bar to scroll down. It's annoying and effectively renders the hat button useless, but it's not a killer because you always have the stylus.

Another thing that's annoying is that if you want to completely shut down an application like the calendar you have to go into Start/Settings/System/Memory/Running Programs - select the program you want to shut down and tap Stop. That's 7 taps you have to go through to shut down a program. Why would you want to completely shut down a program? Well, you don't really need to very often. But if you have a lot of things running (comparable to a program being minimized in Windows on a regular computer), the system can slow down noticeably. My third-party GPS application needs all the power it can get, so whenever I run that I have to go through the 7-step shut down procedure. A work-around is to just do a soft reset. Either way though it would be less time-consuming if you could just close each program when you were finished using it.

One thing I found disorienting at first is that when you turn it off, it goes into the Windows equivalent of a sleep state. It doesn't actually shut down. Once you're aware of this though, it's kind of handy because you know you can turn it off even if you're in the middle of something and it will start right back where you left off when you turn it on again.

Bluetooth is awesome. When I got the iPAQ it was the first I had ever heard of Bluetooth. So, it prompted me to buy a Bluetooth-enabled cell phone (Ericsson), which then prompted me to buy a Bluetooth-enabled headset for the cell phone - which is another story - but that's awesome too.

If I want to check my e-mail when I'm out it's such a breeze with Bluetooth. With the cell phone in my pocket (i.e., you don't have to fumble around to find your cell phone), I can activate Bluetooth on the iPAQ, and you can dial into any regular dial-up ISP like Earthlink through the cell phone. It's a very slow connection, but for retrieving e-mail - it'll get the job done. You just have to be a little patient. Responding to e-mails is a different story! The tiny on-screen keyboard is really not something you want to have to type out anything more than a couple of lines on (even two lines can be tedious). So a lot of times the e-mails go unanswered until I get home. But at least I know what has come in and if there's anything I really need to respond to I can. (I own a web hosting company and a lot of my work is done through e-mail so it's a great feature for me).

During normal use the battery can easily last all day. It seems to last about 4 hours of continuous use. But I discovered you can easily increase that simply by turning the backlight down when on battery power. In fact, if you're in direct sunlight you can turn the backlight completely off and still see everything pretty well! Since I use it outdoors a lot I was worried that I wouldn't be able to see anything in direct sunlight, but it turns out that however they've designed the screen it's almost like shining a bright light on a sheet of paper. It doesn't really need any backlight when in direct sunlight. This can really increase the operating time of the battery.

As for some of the other really nifty things you can do with it - it took me awhile to figure out what an Expansion Pack was and why I needed it! (The sales people at CompUSA didn't seem to understand it well enough to be able to explain it). But once I figured it out, it's a must-have. Although I don't understand why it doesn't come built in. I fly small airplanes. I don't own one so I have to rent. When you rent small planes they always come equipped (or ill-equipped) with differing qualities of navigation equipment. I found a company called AnywhereMap.com that sells a GPS receiver that plugs into the expansion pack and aviation navigation software that installs into the iPAQ. So for an extra $500 bucks I got a great aviation navigation system that would cost at least $2,000 if I bought a separate made-for-aviation GPS system. And I can use it in any plane I happen to find myself in. And because the iPAQ is a computer, this GPS does far more in the way of flight calculations and such that a normal portable $2000 aviation GPS can't do. I'm sure you can get the same thing for road and marine navigation.

I have to say that HP's support has been excellent. I had no idea how much I had grown accustomed to it until one day when I almost destroyed it. One day when I was in a really big hurry, I lifted it out of the cradle really fast and my arm was moving so fast that in a spastic move, I hurled it across the room slamming it into the wall on the other end of the room! It hit the wall really hard and then landed on the floor. I picked it up hoping against hope it would come on. It came on alright, but every bit of information was lost. I wasn't even able to set it up again from scratch - like you have to do when it's brand new - so I couldn't sync it. I almost felt a tear come to my eye as I realized I'd no longer have every piece of vital information I own - on me at all times anymore! The protective sleeve that came with it totally protected it from any physical damage on the outside of the unit.

I called HP and told them what happened and that I wasn't able to re-configure it from scratch. The woman on the other end of the line trying to protect me from my honesty said, "so, let's just say you let the battery go completely dead and it lost everything." I said, "yep, that's exactly what happened!" That was on a Monday. They overnighted a box for me to send it back in that arrived on Tuesday. The guy who delivered the box on Tuesday waited while I packed it up and I handed it right back to him and it was overnighted back to them. It was back at HP on Wednesday and I had it back in my hands on Thursday. Yes, I thought I was going to die during those 3 days without it - but I have to hand it to them - that was really fast service! It worked perfectly until I turned on Bluetooth. Suddenly it crashed. Then it kept locking up everytime I turned it on after 20-30 seconds. So, I called and told them it wasn't fixed properly, and by the next day - Friday - they sent another overnight box - and I had it back in my hands the next Tuesday - and it's worked perfectly ever since.

Going without it for most of a week really killed me! I was pretty steamed that they didn't fix it right the first time costing me an extra 5 days of not having it, but I was glad when all was said and done to have it back within a week. It was then that I realized what a handy and addictive device it is.

My favorite thing about it is if someone calls and wants me to meet them somewhere, I open up a new Outlook Appointment on my computer - type in all the details there - save it and it's instantly and automatically synchronized with the iPAQ. All I have to do is remember to take the iPAQ with me! Now, if someone could come up with a secure way to attach it to your belt instead of having to put it in my pocket - it would be perfect.