Compaq iPAQ H3970 Pocket PC
There are quite a lot of gadgets that are longing to be the most expensive thing in your pocket. Said that, iPaq has managed to do it consistently for quite a while. For over two decades, people have been having “Windows mania”, and all that strikes us when we hear the word PC is a desktop with small icons and task bar with start button. Word and excel were the only apt examples of applications and everybody must have almost forgot the fact that solitaire was actually played with real cards. Compaq now offers all of these favourites of yours in form of the pocket PC, Compaq iPAQ H3970.
Looks similar to the previous version:
Design wise, Compaq iPAQ H3970 is a mirror image of its previous version. With the display being switched off, they both look virtually the same. Though the enclosure looks like metal, it is actually plastic. The black slot of top of the Pocket PC with the speaker and power buttons makes it look like a crown on its head. The metallic buttons go well with the overall design features of the PDA. As you can see in the image, the H3970 is relatively wide having its dimensions to be (W x H x D) 3.3″ x 5.3″ x 0.6″. With this dimension, even the thinnest available jackets makes the device look big. Being wide is not a disadvantage to the device as it is the width that gives a good grip to the user. The designers of Compaq have done a great job by including a bump near the thumb area and this is an additional advantage for the grip factor.
Large, bright and an excellent display:
The architecture of iPAQ H3970 Pocket PC is dominated by its 96mm display. This TFT tansflective display is not only huge, it is bright too. The display has a resolution of 240 x 320 pixels and supports up to 65K colours. All the display factors such as colours, brightness, and contrast are all up to what is required. The display is just the ideal one for the gamers. This is one of the major areas where its predecessor suffered with too much of darkness and H3970 is just the perfect solution. The touch sensitiveness of the display is also very good. Even the edges can be manipulated accurately. They are sensitive to the right proportion and this feature is what even the most expensive gadgets lack. Either they are highly sensitive or they simply refuse to respond, the H3970 must be taken as a reference model for this issue. Setting the display is very easy and apart from the backlight adjustment feature, iPAQ also offer you with smooth manual adjustment for battery and mains operation. Overall, the display features of Compaq iPAQ H3970 are simply the best.
Buttons and controls in H3970:
Just below the display, this Compaq iPAQ H3970 Pocket PC PDA has the navigational pad along with the usual four soft buttons. The above mentioned black crown of the PDA sports the speaker, 2 LED indicators, light intensity sensor, mike and the main switch. The light intensity sensor automatically adjusts the backlight of the display according to the brightness of its surrounding, the transition is not sudden, the transition is slow, smooth and gradual. Though the backlight adjustments are not accurate, it is still a great upgrade. The green and orange LEDs indicate the status of the PDA such as charging or calendar event notification etc, and the blue LED indicates the PDA’s Bluetooth activities.
Ports:
The right side of the pocket PC has been left empty whereas, the left side sports a sound record button. This button can also be customized to have your own shortcut. The top part of the Pocket PC has more happenings as it includes a stereo headphone jack, stylus shaft and a SD slot. The bottom part of H3970 has a reset button and two connectors out of which the smaller connector is used to connect cables, external keyboard, cradle and other accessories and the bigger connector acts as a system bus connector that connects with various types of jackets. The bigger connector offers a wide range of expansion possibilities. Overall design of the device gives us the clue that it has been mainly designed to be held in left hand.
Accessories:
Having the similar dimensions as that of its predecessor, the iPaq H3970 Pocket Computer PC has the same set of accessories as the older version. The accessories set includes the same set of things such as the keyboards, expansion packs, cases etc. HP has also offered a wide range of expansion possibilities, but they prove to be very costly. For example, H3970 pocket PC does not have support for CF slot and hence, the additional socket on offer will be the solution.
H3970 -A feature rich pocket PC:
Coming to the features, the HP Compaq iPAQ H3970 belongs to the H3900 series which inherited most of its features from its predecessor the H3800 series. Compaq has include several new and innovative applications on the device’s ROM. The task manager which is usually called as iTask looks the same as the predecessor but has four points higher. The backup utility offered works slightly better than the one previously available. The user will be able to select backup options from a very extensive list such as databases, individual files, registry, place of backup etc. Options are also offered to choose if the file has to be compressed or encrypted, whether to exclude executable and DLLs and even whether to store backup info in a .LOG file. Most importantly you get to choose backups once, daily or weekly, a very appreciable feature. A simple picture viewer with slide show feature is available. Another unique feature of the pocket PC is a neat infrared control that is compatible with home appliances such as TVs, DVD players etc.
Processor:
Coming to the inside hardware of Compaq iPAQ H3970, it came out with the best possible technologies that were available at the time of its release. It runs using the Intel PXA250 processor which is also known as the Xscale that runs at a speed of 400 MHz. But HP committed a big blunder by not optimising the system and applications to be operated by the processor and hence, even though HP included the fastest processor, the overall speed of the PDA is slow. And you have no option of controlling the speed of the processor as everything is automated. The device has a flash ROM of 48MB and hence an upgrade in the OS can be expected for sure.
Establishing a connection:
HP iPAQ H3970 Pocket PC PDA is also having a wide range of communication features to keep you in touch. synchronization of data with PC can be done with the help of the USB and serial communication. In order to eliminate the fuss of cables, the infrared option can be used to connect with desktops, mobiles and other devices. The Infrared has a speed of 115.2Kbps which is more than sufficient for most of the basic functionalities. Bluetooth is also available which has a data transfer speed of 20KB/sec. Actually, the Bluetooth functionality works much faster but here, the speed is limited due to the way the technology has been implemented.
Audio quality:
The audio quality from the speaker is excellent and the quality is above average for a PDA. The MP3 playback is great and the sound recorded in the built-in mike sounds great too. The headphone outputs do not lag behind. The user can experience clear and undistorted audio without even a hiss, even at the high levels of volume. The HP has equipped the Compaq iPAQ H3970 with an option for bass and treble adjustment for the headphone output, which is again new and a unique feature for a Pocket PC. The microphone is one of the most sensitive ones that we had ever encountered in any PDA. When you record the iPAQ H3970 produces excellent results, which is not only because of the high quality of the microphone but also because of a utility known as the AGC (Automatic Gain Control), which automatically adjusts the level of recording.
Battery and Battery life:
Having mentioned that the display is very bright and the battery is the same 1400mAh that was available in the previous models, you might be thinking that the battery life will be extremely low. Fortunately, that is not the case, the battery performance is excellent too. Compaq iPAQ Pocket PC H3970 is capable of playing a full MPEG movie on a loop for about three hours. Some of the devices offer a backup battery that protects your data for weeks even if the pocket PC is kept completely switched off for weeks. But, iPAQ lacks one. It rather uses something else to protect and retain the data. That is, if the battery drops beyond a level, the Pocket PC does not switch on and makes use of the remaining power to secure the data until a recharge is done. Though this is a common feature that can be found in all the devices that do not use a backup battery, the difference Ipaq has made is that, it allows the user to set that critical level. If the critical level is decreased, you will be able to use the very last drop of battery.
Applications that come in the CD:
As in the case of the other Compaq PDAs, the iPAQ H3970 also has got a set of applications on an accompanying CD. Apart from the demo version applications that can even be downloaded from the web, some of the other applications included are, iPresentation Mobile Converter LE, WordLogic, Quick View Plus, Bust’em game, Conduits Pocket Watch and F-Secure FileCrypto.
The box contents:
The package mostly remains to be the same as H3800. The package contents include the HP Compaq iPAQ H3970, a cradle with a USB and serial connector, a pseudo-jacket , charger, reduction, a spare stylus which has become a standard, CD-ROM, user guide, a warranty card and a leaflet with a code. The pseudo jacket offered is to protect the display, it is a jacket with a transparent flap which we feel is quite inconvenient, leather case would have done a better job. A reduction is included for charging iPAQ outside the cradle. The cradle has got traditionally two connectors, USB and serial respectively.
Warranty:
HP Compaq iPAQ H3970 comes with one year warranty.
Verdict:
The HP Compaq iPAQ H3970 Pocket PC is one of the perfect gadgets in the market. This PDA has no notable weaknesses. The display and audio are excellent. The iPAQ is just on the correct path. Some minor tweaks made in the PDA have made it a high end device. It has something to offer everybody. We at pocketpcs.org.uk certainly recommend it.
Compaq iPAQ H3970 Pocket PC - Technical Specifications, Features
| Manufacturer | HP |
| Model Name | HP Compaq iPAQ H3970 |
| Device type | Pocket PC |
| Dimensions (W x H x D) in inches | 3.3 x 5.3 x 0.6 |
| Weight | 6.5 oz |
| Display size | 3.8″ |
| Display type | Transflective TFT colour LCD |
| Colours supported | 65,536 colours |
| Screen resolution | 240 x 320 pixels |
| Processor | Intel XScale |
| Processor speed | 400 MHz |
| ROM | 48MB |
| RAM | 64MB |
| Built in speaker | Yes |
| Mic | Yes |
| Stereo headphone jack | Yes |
| Voice Recorder | Yes |
| Windows Pocket Media Player | Yes |
| OS | Pocket PC 2002 operating system |
| Microsoft Pocket Office suite | Pocket Word, Excel, Internet Explore and Outlook |
| Software included | Pocket PC 2002 operating system. Microsoft Pocket Office suite including Pocket Word, Excel, Internet Explorer, and Outlook. Also, Terminal Services, MSN Instant Messenger for Pocket PC, MS Reader and Voice Recorder as well as handwriting recognition.3rd party software: IBM ViaVoice, iPresention Mobile Converter LE, WordLogic Keyboard, Quick View Plus, MARGI Presenter-to-Go, Callex Pocket PC with ETPlayer Voicemail, Flash 5, Bust’em, RealOne Player, Jeode Java runtime, F-Secure FileCrypto for Pocket PC Personal Edition, Afaria, Pocket Watch World Clock, Acrobat Reader, Nevo A/V remote control, and several additional trial programs |
| Expansion | 1 SD slot, 4 bit data bus, supporting SDIO |
| Package contents | HP Compaq iPAQ H3970, a cradle with a USB and serial connector, a pseudo-jacket, charger, reduction, a spare stylus which has become a standard, CD-ROM, user guide, a warranty card and a leaflet with a code |
| Warranty | One year |
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