Monday, January 19, 2004
Breaking the Mold: The HP iPAQ 4350
Posted by Don Tolson in "HARDWARE" @ 10:00 AM
Audio
Playback
On the 4350, HP has moved the speaker around to the front of the unit, just behind the keyboard, so the sound is much clearer, louder and cleaner than the 2200 series. It sounds like a better speaker was added too, since the overall frequency response seems to be broader. It's certainly not concert hall quality, but quite reasonable for recognizing which song is which, or for listening to recorded conversations and notes. Sorry, it's still only monaural.
HP has added the ability to set the earphone volume and response (bass and treble) separate from the speaker, which is a really nice feature.
Figure 11: Earphone Audio Settings on the iPAQ 4350.
Recording
I've got my recording button back!!! (Yay!) It's a silver button located at the top left corner of the unit, as you look at it from the front, right beside the IR port. Of course, you can reassign this button to some other function, or remove the assignment completely.
Figure 12: IR port and Record Button.
This is also the location of the microphone as well, which for me, is a natural way to hold the unit to record voice reminders of that perfect turn-of-phrase for my article. :wink: The microphone on the 4350 is very good - much more sensitive and clearer than on any unit I've had before. There are even options to set up the recording levels for different types of environments which I suspect alters the gain on the Automatic Level Control.
Figure 13: Audio recording settings.
Unfortunately, I found the Record button a little too easy to engage when inserting the iPAQ into the supplied cloth case. It's just too natural to hold the unit by the edges when sliding it into the case.
Screen
The screen is a standard 3.5 inch (89mm) transreflective TFT unit with a resolution of 320 x 240 and 16-bit colour. It definitely has the yellow cast though, when looking at an angle other than straight on, but it looks slightly brighter than the one on the 2215. I found it very responsive to taps, and no sign of any dust specs!!!
