Dedicated PDAs are a dying breed. The demand for such devices is shrinking because PDA-phones make more sense for many who wish to reduce the number of items carried around. Granted, some organizations still need them for specific tasks like inventory management. And certainly, some consumers still prefer to have a dedicated device because the lack of cellular radios means longer battery life. It will take a big organization to cater to such a niche market, and they don't come bigger than HP, which has one enterprise and one consumer handheld in its portfolio of iPaq devices. We take a first look at the consumer-focused iPaq 112 Classic Handheld.

Pros

Holding the 112 in your hand, the first thing that you will notice is that the screen is enormous. Measuring 3.5 inches diagonally, the 112 is ideal for watching videos, matching and even exceeding some dedicated media players' screens. This is not new for a PDA, but because we have gotten so used to seeing sub 3-inch displays on PDA-phones for so long now, you suddenly appreciate how big 3.5 inches of screen real estate looks.

The 112 comes with Windows Mobile 6 (WM6) Classic, the version of WM that's made specifically for devices without phone capabilities. Under the hood, it uses a 624MHz Marvell PXA310 processor. This makes it one of the first devices to make use of the new series of XScale processors after Marvell bought the PXA family from Intel.

A full SD slot can be found on the 112. Given how inexpensive SD cards are these days, this makes memory expansion very cheap, especially if this PDA is to be used as a portable media player for music and movies. The fact that it comes with a 3.5mm audio jack further enhances its potential as a PMP.

Though not a phone, the 112 does have wireless options too. It comes with Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 2.0. This makes it useful at hotspots, and can be utilized as a navigation display when paired with a Bluetooth GPS module as well. It comes with a 1200mAh battery which is user-replaceable.

Cons

Large as it may be, the display on this iPaq is still just a QVGA one. Given that old devices like the Dell Axim X51v already came with VGA ones, we wonder why HP couldn't throw that into the 112 as well. Cost might have been an issue here, but we would take sharper text and images and pay more for it anytime.

With dimensions of 116.7 x 68.9 x 13.6mm, the 112 is quite slim. But its length and width may make it hard to pocket for some, and also may be quite a handful for those with smaller hands.

Bottomline

Those looking for dedicated WM6 PDA don't have many choices these days. So it's a good thing HP decided to make one for consumers, though if we had our way, a few more features would have been better. The iPaq 112 Classic Handheld has a starting price of US$299 and will be available in Asia Pacific by the end of the year.