HP iPAQ rw6815 Personal Messenger review

HP's rw6815 is a Windows Mobile 5 PDA smartphone.

Unlike the hw6915 (reviewed in What's New: Handhelds, Shopper November 2006) it doesn't have a keyboard, but it does have a larger 2.8in screen. Considering it doesn't have a keyboard, it's surprisingly chunky and almost as thick as T-Mobile's MDA Vario II. HP sells its smartphones without SIM cards, so you can use them with any network, but third-party resellers such as www.expansys.com bundle it with a mobile phone contract and subsidise the price of the handset.

The rw6815 is made of metallic-looking plastic and looks smart. The shiny back isn't ideal, though, as it is quickly covered in greasy fingerprints and gets slippery during long conversations. It is easy to use as a phone, thanks to short cut buttons to bring up contacts and call answer and end buttons. Like all Windows Mobile 5 PDA smartphones, you can enter numbers manually using the onscreen keypad. Call quality isn't great, though, with distortion in the earpiece and echoes at the other end of the line.

The rw6815 doesn't have 3G data, but it does support 802.11b wireless networking to connect to home networks and hotspots. Setting up wireless is easy with HP's Wireless Manager, which groups together your wireless networking, Bluetooth and phone connections in one screen.

When online, you can reformat webpages to fit the screen's 240x320 resolution or view them in their original format by selecting Desktop mode. The phone has a fast 416MHz processor, so pages laden with graphics scroll smoothly. The handset's Pocket Outlook email program works with POP3 or IMAP4 email servers, but the rw6815 doesn't have an easy email setup wizard like T-Mobile's MDA Compact III.

The rw6815 has a 2-megapixel camera, which takes reasonable photos. There isn't a proper flash, but a bright LED makes a good job of illuminating subjects in low light. Photos are slightly grainy, but are sharp and have good contrast. There is room for plenty of shots in the 52MB of internal storage, and there's an easily accessible mini-SD card slot.

The handset is supplied with stereo headphones, which sound reasonable but are lacking in bass. There is too much background hiss for music to be enjoyable to play. The phone has integrated stereo speakers. These are louder than average and good enough for watching videos, but aren't much good for music.

HP's iPAQ rw6815 is a standard Windows Mobile 5 PDA smartphone. Wireless networking is a bonus, but it's a pity there's no 3G. If you don't mind the smaller screen, HP's iPAQ hw6915 is a better buy for a SIM-free Windows Mobile smartphone.