HP's Silver smartphone in the wild

After missing its July release target by a country mile, we'd thought the Silver may have been canned -- but nope, she's alive and well, strutting her stuff for a few privileged hands around the world. The HSDPA 7.2Mbps handset with GPS and WiFi takes the original candybar Pearl's wildly successful format and applies a hearty dose of Windows Mobile Standard -- not a concept that's going to appeal to everyone, but for the S740 shoppers of the world, a totally viable alternative. So we know Vodafone has a keen eye on releasing this; anyone else?

HP's Silver smartphone in the wild

[(Unverified) Posted Oct 1st 2008 4:44PM]

I actually held one of these just a couple of hours ago.
I have a friends who works at HP.
The handset I tested had a vodaphone startup screen, not sure about other carriers...

Pros imo: Nice and large screen, and the handset feels really solid even though the back cover feels very plasticy once taken off.

Cons: The optic laser navigation key (of whatever it's called) isn't seemless, at least not on the software version I tested, and I couldn't find a setting for it.
What does this mean? You'll be draging your thumb up and down/sideways like crazy, cuz it never seems to go more than one step (in the menus) at a time.
That really defeats the purpose as far as I can see it.

[(Unverified) Posted Oct 1st 2008 4:53PM]

As a long time WinMo user who recently switched to iPhone, I can honestly say I will never ever touch WinMo again. MS can bite me. There is no excuse for the lack of substantial evolution of this OS.

[(Unverified) Posted Oct 1st 2008 8:49PM]

I guess some people in the world need a windows-enabled blackberry pearl. man, thank Science I'm not one of those guys.

[(Unverified) Posted Oct 1st 2008 9:23PM]

HP must be f***** joking

[ZSX Posted Oct 2nd 2008 6:53AM]

Well, that is a very good looking phone, and I am quite willing to forgo a QWERTY keypad for thinness. I much prefer the 20-key SureType keyboard to the traditional 12-key one though, but will wait to see what the hardware is like on this one

I have Windows Mobile 6.1 standard running on my HTC Tornado (as on the Orange SPV C600 above, although mine's an i-mate sp5m) and have had no problems with it whatsoever. In fact, I really like the sliding panels home screen which is both functional and pretty.

I guess your experience depends on which phone you use. I had a Ubiquio 501 which has a slow processor and piddly RAM, which could be rather draggy, and now I've put TouchFlo on it, it is darn pretty but slow as molasses. The S740 has a 256/256 ROM/RAM combo which will make it fly. Waiting to see the specs on this before jumping.