HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

The iPAQ is a discontinued
Pocket PC A Pocket PC (P/PC, PPC) is a class of personal digital assistant (PDA) that runs the Windows Mobile or Windows Embedded Compact operating system that has some of the abilities of modern desktop PCs. The name was introduced by Microsoft in 2000 ...
and
personal digital assistant A personal digital assistant (PDA), also known as a handheld PC, is a variety mobile device which functions as a personal information manager. PDAs have been mostly displaced by the widespread adoption of highly capable smartphones, in partic ...
which was first unveiled by
Compaq Compaq Computer Corporation (sometimes abbreviated to CQ prior to a 2007 rebranding) was an American information technology company founded in 1982 that developed, sold, and supported computers and related products and services. Compaq produced ...
in April 2000. HP's line-up of iPAQ devices included PDA-devices, smartphones and GPS-navigators. A substantial number of devices were outsourced from Taiwanese
HTC corporation HTC Corporation ( zh, t=宏達國際電子股份有限公司, s=宏达国际电子股份有限公司, p=Hóngdá Guójì Diànzǐ Gǔfèn Yǒuxiàn Gōngsī, first=t) or High Tech Computer Corporation, (literally ''Hongda International Electron ...
. The name was borrowed from Compaq's earlier iPAQ Desktop Personal Computers. Following
Hewlett-Packard The Hewlett-Packard Company, commonly shortened to Hewlett-Packard ( ) or HP, was an American multinational information technology company headquartered in Palo Alto, California. HP developed and provided a wide variety of hardware components ...
's acquisition of Compaq, the product has been marketed by HP. The devices use a Windows Mobile interface. In addition to this, there are several
Linux distribution A Linux distribution (often abbreviated as distro) is an operating system made from a software collection that includes the Linux kernel and, often, a package management system. Linux users usually obtain their operating system by downloading one ...
s that also operate on some of these devices. Earlier units were modular. Sleeve accessories were released called "jackets", which slide around the unit and add functionality such as a card reader, wireless networking, GPS, and extra batteries. Later versions of iPAQs have most of these features integrated into the base device itself, some including
GPRS General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) is a packet oriented mobile data standard on the 2G and 3G cellular communication network's global system for mobile communications (GSM). GPRS was established by European Telecommunications Standards Ins ...
mobile telephony (SIM card slot and radio).


History

The iPAQ was developed by Compaq based on the SA-1110 "Assabet" and SA-1111 "Neponset" reference boards that were engineered by a
StrongARM The StrongARM is a family of computer microprocessors developed by Digital Equipment Corporation and manufactured in the late 1990s which implemented the ARM v4 instruction set architecture. It was later acquired by Intel in 1997 from DEC's o ...
development group located at Digital Equipment Corporation's Hudson Massachusetts facility. At the time when these boards were in development, this facility was acquired by Intel. When the "Assabet" board is combined with the "Neponset" companion processor board they provide support for 32 megabytes of SDRAM in addition to CompactFlash and PCMCIA slots along with an I2S or AC-Link serial audio bus, PS/2 mouse and trackpad interfaces, a USB host controller and 18 additional GPIO pins. Software drivers for a CompactFlash ethernet device, IDE storage devices such as the IBM Microdrive and the Lucent WaveLAN/IEEE 802.11 Wifi device were also available. An earlier StrongARM SA-1100 based research handheld device call the "Itsy" had been developed at Digital Equipment Corporation's Western Research Laboratory (later to become the Compaq Western Research Laboratory). The first iPAQ Pocket PC was the H3600 series, released in 2000. It ran Microsoft's
Pocket PC 2000 Pocket PC 2000 (marketed as Pocket PC) was the first member of the Windows Mobile family of mobile operating systems that was released on April 19, 2000, and was based on Windows CE 3.0. It is the successor to the operating system aboard Palm-size ...
operating system, and featured a 240 x 320 pixel 4096-color LCD, 32 MB of RAM, and 16 MB of ROM. Compaq released a similarly-designed H3100 series Pocket PC in January, 2001. It was a lower-priced model with a 15-greyscale monochrome LCD, 16 MB of RAM, and a dark grey D-pad instead of the chrome D-pad of its predecessor. The H3600 series was succeeded by the H3800 and H3900 series, which retained the same form factor, but had a different button layout. Soon after HP's merger with Compaq in 2002, HP discontinued its Jornada line of Microsoft Windows powered Pocket PCs, and continued the iPAQ line that started under Compaq. In June 2003, HP retired the h3xxx line of iPAQs and introduced the h1xxx line of iPAQs targeted at price conscious buyers, the h2xxx consumer line, and the h5xxx line, targeted at business customers. They were sold pre-installed with the Windows Mobile for Pocket PC 2003 Operating System. The h63xx series of iPAQs running the Phone Edition of
Windows Mobile 2003 Windows Mobile 2003, originally codenamed "Ozone", was a member of the Windows Mobile family of mobile operating systems, released on June 23, 2003. It was the first Microsoft mobile OS to be called "Windows Mobile" and was based on Windows CE 4. ...
, the hx47xx series and the rz17xx series, both running the Second Edition of Windows Mobile 2003 were introduced in August 2004. In August 2004, HP released the rz17xx and rx3xxx series of Mobile Media Companions. These devices were aimed at consumers, rather than the traditional corporate audience. Emphasis was placed on media features, like NEVO TV Remote and Mobile Media. They ran on Windows Mobile 2003SE. In February 2005, the iPAQ Mobile Messenger hw6500 series was introduced to selected media at the 3GSM conference in
Cannes Cannes ( , , ; oc, Canas) is a city located on the French Riviera. It is a commune located in the Alpes-Maritimes department, and host city of the annual Cannes Film Festival, Midem, and Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity. The ...
, France. It was replaced a year later by the hw6900 series, running on Windows Mobile 5. In 2007, the iPAQ rx4000 Mobile Media Companion PDA/media devices and rx5000 Travel Companion PDA/GPS devices were released. Both series of iPAQs work on the Windows Mobile 5 Operating System (WM5), as do the hx2000 and hw6900 series. The first HP Windows Mobile 6 device, the iPAQ 500 Series Voice Messenger, with the Windows Mobile 6 Standard Operating System (WM6), and numeric pad, was released in the same year. The entire iPAQ line was completely revamped by the introduction of five new iPAQ series to complement the introduction of the iPAQ 500 Series Voice Messenger earlier in the year. The models announced were the 100 Series Classic Handheld, the 200 Series Enterprise Handheld, the 300 Series Travel Companion, the 600 Series Business Navigator and the 900 Series Business Messenger. The 100 and 200 Series are regular touchscreen PDAs without phone functionality running WM6. The 300 Series Travel Companion is not a PDA; marketed as a Personal Navigation Device, it is a handheld GPS unit operating on the Windows CE 5.0 core Operating System with a custom user interface. The 600 and 900 series are phones with integrated GPS and 3G capabilities, running the WM6 Professional. The 600 series possesses a numeric pad and the 900 series features a full QWERTY keyboard. Hewlett-Packard introduced a
smartphone A smartphone is a portable computer device that combines mobile telephone and computing functions into one unit. They are distinguished from feature phones by their stronger hardware capabilities and extensive mobile operating systems, which ...
iPAQ Pocket PC that looks like a regular cell phone and has VoIP capability. The series is the HP iPAQ 500 Series Voice Messenger. In December 2009, HP released the iPAQ Glisten, running on
Windows Mobile 6.5 Windows Mobile 6.5 was a stopgap update to Windows Mobile 6.1 intended to bridge the gap between version 6.1, that arrived in 2008, and Windows Phone 7 that was released in 2010. It was never part of Microsoft's original mobile phone roadmap, ...
. In mid-August 2011, HP announced that they would be discontinuing all
webOS webOS, also known as LG webOS and previously known as Open webOS, HP webOS and Palm webOS, is a Linux kernel-based multitasking operating system for smart devices such as smart TVs that has also been used as a mobile operating system. Initially ...
devices.


Model list


Jacket-compatible

These older models are compatible with the iPAQ Jacket which can accept 1×
CompactFlash CompactFlash (CF) is a flash memory mass storage device used mainly in portable electronic devices. The format was specified and the devices were first manufactured by SanDisk in 1994. CompactFlash became one of the most successful of the e ...
, 1× PC Card or 2× PC Card slots. iPAQ jacket PN 173396-001 PCMCIA (PC port) 1× internal Li-ion battery PN 167648 3.7 V 1500  mAh (upgradable).


Newer models

* SDIO can support up to 2GB.


Alternative operating systems for the iPAQ


OpenEmbedded

The
OpenEmbedded OpenEmbedded is a build automation framework and cross-compile environment used to create Linux distributions for embedded devices. The OpenEmbedded framework is developed by the OpenEmbedded community, which was formally established in 2003. O ...
distribution is (as of 2016) the only actively maintained Linux distribution for the iPAQ models, by way of the meta-handheld layer.


Familiar Linux

An alternative
Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which in ...
-based OS available for the iPAQ was
Familiar In European folklore of the medieval and early modern periods, familiars (sometimes referred to as familiar spirits) were believed to be supernatural entities that would assist witches and cunning folk in their practice of magic. According to ...
. It stopped being actively maintained in 2007. It was available with the Opie or GPE GUI environment, or as a base Linux system with no GUI if preferred. Both Opie and GPE provided the usual PIM suite (calendar, contacts, to do list, and notes) as well as a long list of other applications. Support for handwriting recognition, on-screen keyboard,
bluetooth Bluetooth is a short-range wireless technology standard that is used for exchanging data between fixed and mobile devices over short distances and building personal area networks (PANs). In the most widely used mode, transmission power is limit ...
,
IrDA The Infrared Data Association (IrDA) is an industry-driven interest group that was founded in 1994 by around 50 companies. IrDA provides specifications for a complete set of protocols for wireless infrared communications, and the name "IrDA" also ...
and add-on hardware such as keyboards are standard in both environments. The v0.8.4 (2006-08-20) version supports HP iPAQ H3xxx and H5xxx series of handhelds, and introduced initial support for the HP iPAQ H2200, Hx4700, and H6300 series.


Intimate Linux

On devices with added storage (primarily
microdrive The Microdrive is a registered trademark for miniature, 1-inch hard disks produced by IBM and Hitachi. These rotational media storage devices were designed to fit in CompactFlash (CF) Type II slots. The release of similar drives by other ma ...
s) there is a modified port of Debian called Intimate. In addition to a standard
X11 The X Window System (X11, or simply X) is a windowing system for bitmap displays, common on Unix-like operating systems. X provides the basic framework for a GUI environment: drawing and moving windows on the display device and interacting wit ...
desktop, Intimate also offered the Opie, GPE and Qtopia suites. (Qtopia was a QT-based PIM suite with an optional commercial license.)


NetBSD

NetBSD NetBSD is a free and open-source Unix operating system based on the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD). It was the first open-source BSD descendant officially released after 386BSD was forked. It continues to be actively developed and is ava ...
will install and run on iPAQ.


Plan 9 from Bell Labs

Plan 9 from Bell Labs Plan 9 from Bell Labs is a distributed operating system which originated from the Computing Science Research Center (CSRC) at Bell Labs in the mid-1980s and built on UNIX concepts first developed there in the late 1960s. Since 2000, Plan 9 has be ...
runs on some iPAQs. The nickname of the architecture is "bitsy," after the name of the ARM-based chipsets used in many of the machines. The "Installation on Ipaq" part of the wiki states: "These instructions are for a Compaq Ipaq and have been tested only on models H3630 and H3650 with 32MB of RAM." In regards to iPAQs, the page on the wiki titled "Supported PDAs" only mentions that the "H3630 and H3650 are known to work."


Ångström distribution

See
Ångström distribution The Ångström distribution is a defunct Linux distribution for a variety of embedded devices. The distribution is the result of work by developers from the OpenZaurus, OpenEmbedded, and OpenSIMpad projects. The graphical user interfaces (GUIs ...


Upgrades

The hx2000 series and some later models are upgradeable to newer versions of Windows Mobile. These upgrades could be purchased from HP. Windows Mobile 2003 could be installed on the H3950, H3970, h5450 models and possibly other models of the H3xxx series with sufficient ROM capacity. Other "cooked" (ready to run) roms have been provided by the group known as the xda-developers and are available for the hx2000 series, the hx4700 and others. The upgradeable versions for the hx2000 and hx4700 include Windows Mobile 6.0, 6.1 and 6.5 which are the newest releases of the Windows Mobile platform.


Internal Li-ion battery

iPAQ models 3100–3700 are fitted with internal Li-ion battery PN 167648 3.7 V 1500 mAh which can be replaced with a 2200 mAh unit. The same battery is used in the iPAQ jacket PN 173396-001 PCMCIA (PC port), which may also be upgraded to a 2200 mAh unit. The 3800/3900 series are fitted with a 1700 mAh cell as standard, also upgradeable to 2200 mAh. Compaq presumably upgraded the battery to cope with the faster CPU's power requirements.


RAM upgrades

It is possible to have the internal RAM of an iPAQ H3970 and hx4700 upgraded to 128 MB by using a specialist service to replace the surface-mount BGA RAM chips.


See also

* HP Touchpad * HP Slate *
Personal digital assistant A personal digital assistant (PDA), also known as a handheld PC, is a variety mobile device which functions as a personal information manager. PDAs have been mostly displaced by the widespread adoption of highly capable smartphones, in partic ...
* Windows Mobile *
Hewlett-Packard The Hewlett-Packard Company, commonly shortened to Hewlett-Packard ( ) or HP, was an American multinational information technology company headquartered in Palo Alto, California. HP developed and provided a wide variety of hardware components ...
*
Jornada (PDA) The Jornada was a line of personal digital assistants or PDAs manufactured by Hewlett-Packard. The Jornada was a broad product line that included Palm-Size PCs, Handheld PCs, and Pocket PCs. The first model was the 820, released in 1998, and th ...
– The predecessor of sorts to the iPAQ line. *
HTC HD2 The HTC HD2 (also known as the HTC T8585, HTC T9193 and HTC Leo), is a smartphone in the HTC Touch family designed and manufactured by HTC. The HD2 natively runs the Windows Mobile 6.5 operating system, and was released in Europe in November ...
* SuperWaba – Free and open software development kit for
Pocket PC A Pocket PC (P/PC, PPC) is a class of personal digital assistant (PDA) that runs the Windows Mobile or Windows Embedded Compact operating system that has some of the abilities of modern desktop PCs. The name was introduced by Microsoft in 2000 ...
and
Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which in ...
iPAQs *
Pocket PC A Pocket PC (P/PC, PPC) is a class of personal digital assistant (PDA) that runs the Windows Mobile or Windows Embedded Compact operating system that has some of the abilities of modern desktop PCs. The name was introduced by Microsoft in 2000 ...
*
imageon Imageon (previously ATI Imageon) was a series of media coprocessors and mobile chipsets produced by ATI (later AMD) in 2002–2008, providing graphics acceleration and other multimedia features for handheld devices such as mobile phones and Perso ...


References

{{Authority control HP PDAs Windows Mobile Classic devices Windows Mobile Professional devices Windows Mobile Standard devices Mobile computers Embedded Linux Windows CE devices Compaq PDAs