Click to View

Hewlett-Packard confirmed the follow-up to its latest line of smartphones, the iPAQ hw6700 series, through a post (since removed) on its European Web site yesterday. The current model, the iPAQ hw6500, hasn't even shipped in the United States yet: although it is available in Europe.

The new Pocket PC phones will be very similar to the hw6500, but with some very important modifications. Not the least of which is moving from Windows Mobile 2003 Second Edition Phone Edition in the hw6500 to the most recent edition of Microsoft's handheld platform, Windows Mobile 5.0 Phone edition, in the upcoming models.

As with the hw6500, the hw6700 will include GSM/GPRS and high-speed EDGE (Enhanced Data for Global Evolution) cellular network support. It adds Wi-Fi wireless networking to the picture, however. Not only that, the Pocket PC phone will use the speedier 802.11g variety and not 802.11g—far more common in handhelds.

The hw6700, like the hw6500, has a GPS receiver with TomTom Navigator software plus one free city map. Additional maps cost extra.

Unlike the hw6500, the more feature-packed hw700 won't have both a Secure Digital (SD) card and minSD card slot for more memory expansion. Instead, there's only a miniSD cards.

Additional known features of the hw6700 include 128 MB of ROM, 65 MB of RAM, and a 312 MHz Intel XScale processor. The hw6700 series measures 4.7 x 2.8 x 0.8 inches and weigh 5.8 ounces.

Because it runs the newest Windows Mobile platform, the hw6700 will be among the first Pocket PCs to have a square display. The screen runs at a 240 x 240 pixel resolution.

Of course, the new Pocket PC phone maintains the hw6500's QWERTY thumb-keyboard, with a backlight to enable users to view the keyboard in the dark.

As with the hw6500 series, to be offered in the U.S. by Cingular Wireless, there will be two hw6700 models: one with (hw6710) and one without (hw6715) a 1.3 megapixel camera.

The hw6700 should ship early next year.