When a person who knows HP’s ipaq lineup for a long time looks at the 110; he immediately feels reminded of the original 3600/3700 series. These machines offered insane performance - but the flip side of the coin was a very bulky case. Is the 110 as bricky?
Compared to its predecessors, the 110 beats our trusty old 3700 in all aspects. It is smaller, thinner and lighter - but the screen still stays obscenely big. HP’s design masterpiece, the rx4240, is much smaller - but lacks the 5way navigator and the huge amount of screen real estate:
Palms business classic aka Palm TX is a bit bigger, but significantly thinner. The Treo 680 is less wide, but thicker:
The front of the 110 contains the four hardware buttons, 5way navigator, brightness sensor(top right) and dual LED’s for wireless and power supply state(top left):
HP moved the power button to the right side of the unit, and dropped the ‘long press-turns off backkight function’. The button has pretty good tactile feedback nevertheless. Reset and voice recorder buttons are right below:
Memory card slots are usually at the top of a device - HP decided to move the slot to the left side. The device ships with a dummy in the slot - this is no longer a mayor problem, as most users will stick in a fullsize SD card quickly(1gb costs like 7€ nowadays…):
The top of the device contains the headphone port; the bottom contains the miniUSB port and the microphone:
Pushing the button at the back of the unit allows you to slide the battery cover off the back - you can then swap out the battery(which is, incidentially, the same 1200mAH model found on the rx4240):
Last but not least, here”s a picture of the 110’s stylus next to a few other units:
Overall, HP has done a good job at modernizing the form factor of the 110. It keeps all the good features found on the 3xxx series(big screen,…) and is quite a bit smaller. Of course, consumer-oriented handhelds like the rx4240 are smaller and lighter - but the smallness is a significantly smaller screen…
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