The iPAQ Glisten is available now for $380 directly from HP or for $180 from AT&T with a new or renewed two-year contract.
BUILD & DESIGN
The Glisten is nice-looking, with angular features and an overall sleek appearance. It’s mostly black, aside from cool hematite accents on both sides of the device. The material on the back is rubberized, so it’s comfortable to grip and won’t serve as a fingerprint magnet. It sits in the sweet spot as far as weight is concerned, between “so light it feels like a toy” and “so heavy I don’t want to carry it.” The Glisten feels substantial, but not too weighty, and fits comfortably in a pocket.
The front of the phone is dominated by the screen and the keyboard, of course. That’s also where you’ll find the call and disconnect buttons, the windows and OK keys and a five-way navigator.
I don’t like the five-way navigator, and found it hard to use. The rim of the navigator is very narrow and rather slick; sometimes my thumb slid right off it while I was trying to use it. The large button in the middle is fine, and works well, but my difficulties with the navigator itself made me select the wrong item more than once.
Display
The display is one of the strongest selling features for the Glisten and it’s absolutely gorgeous. It was bright and clear in both indoor and outdoor situations, and the pictures and video looked great.
But keep in mind, it’s QVGA (320 x 240), which is a lower resolution than is common on smartphones these days.
The screen is quite responsive to my finger, so there’s no need to pull out the stylus hidden on the bottom right side of the phone. There’s not a lot to say here, so I’ll just give the screen a big thumbs up.
Keyboard
The keyboard on this iPAQ is good, but not spectacular. The keys are large, and while there isn’t much horizontal space between each key, each one is curved enough so that I didn’t accidentally hit the wrong key. The keyboard’s bottom row has several dedicated keys to access the GPS, email and calendar functions quickly, in addition to the space bar, shift, symbol keys, etc.
The letters printed on the keys are large and easy to read, and of course, the keyboard lights up in dim situations.
Other ButtonsThe power button and Wi-Fi switch are on the top of the phone, with volume controls on the left side and the headphone jack and charging port on the right side.
PERFORMANCE
The HP iPAQ Glisten is rather snappy, and performs well in many situations. Applications, task switching and the like were very fast. I never saw the dreaded mobile version of the Windows hourglass, which was nice.
That said, I sometimes found that I liked the device better when I wasn’t using the voice features, as you’ll see below.
Wireless/Call Quality
Call quality when holding the phone is excellent. I could clearly hear my callers, and they could easily hear me without issues with static or background noise.
Unfortunately, speakerphone performance wasn’t as good, with low volume being the most notable issue. Even with the speaker volume turned all the way up, it was difficult to hear a party on the other end of the line. It was a noticeable difference within each call, so it isn’t simply a matter of being in a poor coverage area when I placed a speakerphone call. I tried both ways within several test calls.
The iPAQ offers access to AT&T’s 3G network, Wi-Fi b/g wireless networking and Bluetooth 2.0,
Productivity
Since the Glisten is a Windows Mobile Professional 6.5 device, it comes withMicrosoft Office Mobile, which allows you to view and edit Word and Excel files, and view PowerPoint presentations. A PDF viewer is also included.
Voice Commander does exactly what it says, allowing you to talk to your phone instead of using the keypad and touchscreen. When you start the application, it provides a list of available commands, which is helpful when you first start using it. I found it was highly accurate and easy to use and I was able place calls, check my call history, call voice mail and perform other simple tasks.
Mobi4Biz is a $9.99 monthly subscription service that offers live TV and clips from Bloomberg, CNBC, CNB World, Fox Business and TheStreet.com. A one-day trial subscription is included, which barely allows you to get a taste of the service before it’s over. Other preloaded applications include MSN Money, the Weather Channel, Mobile Banking and Sprite Backup.
Entertainment
Internet Explorer and Windows Media Player provide the entertainment. Internet Explorer works very well, although rather slowly on the Glisten compared to other devices I’ve tested. Even when using Wi-Fi instead of the AT&T network, the page loading speed was somewhat disappointing, although the overall experience was positive. Even complicated pages with a lot of ads still displayed well, and I had no problem scrolling around and selecting links with the touchscreen.
Windows Media Player works just as you would expect, though music playback was somewhat “stuttery” when I was performing other tasks while listening to music in the background. Several times when I was entering my Wi-Fi login credentials, playback would stop for a second and then resume. It was somewhat annoying and surprising considering the polish on the rest of the device.
A few games are included, like Monopoly Here & Now, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, Ms. PAC-MAN, Solitaire and Bubble Breaker. Unfortunately, only Solitaire and Bubble Breaker are full games; everything else is a demo. But it was nice to see what the device is capable of when entertaining me on the go.
Camera
The 3.1 megapixel camera takes pretty good shots, and while you won’t win any photography contests, it’s a fine substitute if you don’t have a standalone digital camera with you.
HP Photosmart Mobile is included, and I enjoyed the picture viewer application. It was easy to organize my photos, send them via email and even set them up to print automatically from a memory card. A slideshow feature is also included, and it works well.
Battery Life
Battery life on the Glisten is rather good. Even after heavy use over the last couple of days playing game demos, making calls and taking pictures, the battery still has half a charge left.
CONCLUSION
I like the HP iPAQ Glisten, and it’s a slick, powerful little device. Unfortunately, there isn’t anything terribly exciting about it either, aside from the gorgeous AMOLED touchscreen display. Perhaps this is due to the fact that I review a lot of devices, but it does seem the Glisten is something of a “me too” device.
If it had come out earlier, I could recommend it more enthusiastically, but right now, it’s a nice little Windows Mobile 6.5 Professional device in a market crowded with flashier models and Windows Mobile 7’s release looming. It’s worth a closer look if you’re tied to the Windows Mobile platform, but most consumers are likely to look elsewhere for their next smartphone fix.