HP Jornado 928

A competent bundle for either consumers or businesses.

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Price: £390

Manufacturer: HP

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Verdict

Pros:

Great all-round package
Price

Cons:
Battery life a limiting factor

Overall:
Excellent device, but ongoing costs for GPRS might still be a concern

Maggie Williams, PC Magazine 02 Oct 2002

Hewlett Packard's (HP) first Wireless Digital Assistant (WDA) combines General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) phone features and Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) functionality based on Microsoft's Pocket PC 2002 Phone Edition.

It's an impressive bundle, combining good quality telephony features with a wide range of software applications. However, the limitations of GPRS and battery life currently mean it won't satisfy all mobile users' needs.

Built around Texas Instruments' Omap 710 processor, which integrates data and voice capabilities onto a single chip, the Jornada offers 32MB of Flash Rom, plus 64MB of Ram.

A single CompactFlash Type 1 slot offers further memory expansion capabilities. It uses two Lithium Polymer batteries, one of which is integrated into the unit, the other being a removeable, rechargeable unit.

HP claims the batteries jointly provide 12 hours of PDA use, three hours talktime or 150 hours of standby time. However, during our tests, we found that 12 hours was an optimistic estimate.

A 240 x 320-pixel touch-sensitive 16bit colour reflective TFT display is included for PDA functions. An additional 132 x 32 pixels monochrome display on the top of the device shows phone call and status information.

The colour depth of the main PDA screen gives good definition but, overall, it could be sharper.

The smaller backlit phone display is still visible when the WDA's outer case is shut. This is a well thought out implementation of the phone features, as call information is still visible when the PDA features are turned off. It also displays incoming call details.

The phone software incorporated into the device's operating system enables you to place calls and send SMS messages. It also provides a call log and speed dial facility.

Most other elements of phone management are handled through your call service provider. An additional application, MicroChaiVM, also supports voice-activated dialling.

Microsoft's Pocket PC 2002 Phone Edition includes the standard applications available with any Pocket PC 2002 PDA. Pocket Word, Excel and Outlook are included, as well as the useful Microsoft Transcriber feature. This recognises cursive handwriting and produces very good results at reasonable speed.

Other bundled software includes EzWap versions 2.1 and 2.5 for Wap browsing, as well as trial versions of software for Virtual Private Network connectivity and other wireless management tools. Links to online services for booking hotels and restaurants, as well as TomTom's maps of European cities, support both business and leisure use.

The PDA software's biggest shortcoming is its navigation. In general, Pocket PC 2002 has some odd features, particularly when it comes to locating applications and files. The addition of separate folders for the HP-specific applications confuses matters further, making it difficult to track down data files you've created on the device.

GPRS support means that with an appropriate Sim card you can use the product for web browsing or sending emails from anywhere in the world with a sufficiently strong signal. However, browsing is still a painfully slow and, therefore, expensive process at present.

Currently, the Jornada 928 is only available through Vodafone as part of a contract - there are no plans to sell it as a standalone PDA tool. This is a shame, as the product is also a solid handheld PC, independent of its phone features.

Although not included with the standard package, HP has released an additional Pocket Camera (£164.17 ex. VAT) to accompany the device. This plugs into the Compact Flash expansion slot on the top of the PDA and enables you to capture images at a resolution of 640 by 480 pixels.

Voice annotation can be added to individual photos, which are then saved in JPEG format. Such a low-resolution camera isn't exactly going to challenge the mainstream digital imaging market, but for a small add-on, the Pocket Camera does a good job.

There's a small range of digital effects - such as sepia toning - within the camera itself, and you can either control the unit manually or through software installed on the Jornada 928.

Battery life is still too short for it to act as a tool for heavy mobile users, but its general design makes it one of the few truly usable devices of its type currently on the market.

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